Big Bang

[cnick]

It is certainly fun to speculate about time and the creation of the universe, but at what point are we leaving the realm of science and entering the domain of metaphysics? <br />Not that that's a bad thing.<br />Concerning the "Big Bang" someone (with tongue in cheek) once said, "there was nothing and then it exploded."<br />All the elegant mathematics and theorizing means nothing if the Red Shift is not a measure of distance and recession. Hubble was cautious about this, and his controversial assistant, Halton Arp (his book: "Seeing Red") has challenged this foundation of the Big Bang Theory. He presents evidence that some high redshift objects (quasars) are physically connected to low redshift galaxies which if true, would cast doubt on the basic premise of the big bang. <br />Something to think about.<br />

 

[weeman]

Many people on this board are doubtful of Arp's studies. You might want to ask for some of their reasons as to why Arp may be wrong with many of his theories. Wasn't it Arp who stated that the redshifts of distant galaxies relates more to their age rather than their recession away from us?<br /><br />As for the quote, "there was nothing and then it exploded". Well....I've never been a big fan of the idea that there was nothing and then there was something. I'm not saying that it's impossible that the universe came from nothing, because I like to keep an open mind that the universe has many tricks up its sleeves that are beyond any human comprehension.<br /><br />However, the quote states that there was nothing before the big bang, which is what I don't believe. Whether there was another universe before this one, or something else, I believe that there simply was not "nothing". <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><strong><font color="#ff0000">Techies: We do it in the dark. </font></strong></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>"Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.</strong><strong>" -Albert Einstein </strong></font></p> </div>

 

[kyle_baron]

<font color="yellow"><br />Many people on this board are doubtful of Arp's studies. You might want to ask for some of their reasons as to why Arp may be wrong with many of his theories.</font><br /><br />Not me. He's got some ligitimate claims. I once saw a hubble photograph which was over exposed ( the center portion of a galaxay was overly bright, when compared to other similar galaxies). This drowned out the faint bridge of light between the galaxay and the quasar, which was supposed to be billions of light years away. Only after a spectural analysis, did this bridge appear, as opposed to a overly exposed visual hubble photograph which did not show this faint bridge.<br /><br />I'll agree, that some of his other theories are way out there. But none involving Quasars, which he is an expert in. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="4"><strong></strong></font></p> </div>

 

[weeman]

I'll have to study up on him a little more. I remember several months ago I posted a thread about him and his theories, and many people on the board squashed his ideas.<br /><br />That's all I remember <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><strong><font color="#ff0000">Techies: We do it in the dark. </font></strong></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>"Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.</strong><strong>" -Albert Einstein </strong></font></p> </div>

 

[alokmohan]

Fred Hoyle dismissed big bang.

 

[adrenalynn]

Fred Hoyle was a quack to his dying day. He was so hung-up on himself that the good work he did do was eclipsed even in his own eyes by his unscientific hang-ups re: big-bang. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>.</p><p><font size="3">bipartisan</font>  (<span style="color:blue" class="pointer"><span class="pron"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="2">bī-pär'tĭ-zən, -sən</font></span></span>) [Adj.]  Maintaining the ability to blame republications when your stimulus plan proves to be a devastating failure.</p><p><strong><font color="#ff0000"><font color="#ff0000">IMPE</font><font color="#c0c0c0">ACH</font> <font color="#0000ff"><font color="#c0c0c0">O</font>BAMA</font>!</font></strong></p> </div>

 

[alokmohan]

Sir Fred was pioneer in the field of cosmology.His steady state was first theory in cosmolog.He gave the big bang theory its name to jeer Gamow.Now Jayanta Nalikar is leading in the field of astonomy.

 

[SpeedFreek]

<font color="yellow">Sir Fred was pioneer in the field of cosmology.His steady state was first theory in cosmology</font><br /><br />True, but it looks like he was wrong.<br /><br /><br /><font color="yellow">He gave the big bang theory its name to jeer Gamow.</font><br /><br />Yes, Hoyle publicly ridiculed the theory of cosmic expansion, and gave it the name "big-bang" to belittle it. He never came up with an alternate theory that matched the majority of our observations as well as cosmic expansion does.<br /><br /><br /><font color="yellow">Now Jayanta Nalikar is leading in the field of astonomy.</font><br /><br />He defends the steady-state theory and has contributed little to cosmology since the late 1980's - I don't consider that to be "leading in the field".<br /><br />Steady-state theories are considered to be obsolete by the majority of mainstream astronomers today.<br /><br />(Just for the record). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000">_______________________________________________<br /></font><font size="2"><em>SpeedFreek</em></font> </p> </div>

 

[qso1]

My understanding of the Big Bang (BB) is that the Universe began as a single point surrounded essentially by nothing. No space, no time, no matter...nothing. This cannot be proven of course, so the BB is refered to as theory and rightfully so. There are other theories but Cosmologists currently consider the BB the best explanation for the origin of the Universe.<br /><br />Cosmologists often propose ideas the average person cannot wrap their minds around. The current BB theory leaves open some important questions such as, what existed before the Universe? The Universe being some 14 billion years old, what existed 25 billion years ago? There will be those who say theoretically, nothing existed 25 BYA.<br /><br />Twenty years from now, Cosmologists may throw the BB out due to new mathematical or other findings. I tend to lean towards some sort of combination of BB and steady state, but then...thats just me trying to make better sense out of it. I asked myself, just as you asked...What came before? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[HGlenn]

<font size="2">According to most</font> <font size="2">reports, the Big Bang occurred</font> <font size="2">approximately 13 billion years ago. Every image we see of space shows 'round' objects, planets, suns, moons etc. Since all matter was supposed to have 'compacted' into a lump and then exploded, would it not be safe to assume that in the vacuum of space matter radiated out from a central point, creating a universe akin to inflating a basketball? A rather simplistic view of everything would be to look at our 'basketball' (assuming it took 13 billion years to arrive at our point-in-time and assuming all known matter is the same throughout the universe) ) and look at a sphere of time-space approximately 26 billion years in diameter to try&nbsp;to find life similar to our own? Anything inside this point-in time should theoretically be less advanced and anything outside should be smart enough to stay away from us?</font>

 

[DrRocket]

<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>According to most reports, the Big Bang occurred approximately 13 billion years ago. Every image we see of space shows 'round' objects, planets, suns, moons etc. Since all matter was supposed to have 'compacted' into a lump and then exploded, would it not be safe to assume that in the vacuum of space matter radiated out from a central point, creating a universe akin to inflating a basketball? A rather simplistic view of everything would be to look at our 'basketball' (assuming it took 13 billion years to arrive at our point-in-time and assuming all known matter is the same throughout the universe) ) and look at a sphere of time-space approximately 26 billion years in diameter to try&nbsp;to find life similar to our own? Anything inside this point-in time should theoretically be less advanced and anything outside should be smart enough to stay away from us? <br />Posted by HGlenn</DIV></p><p>You only have half the story.&nbsp; What was compacted into a lump was not matter in space but rather space itself.&nbsp; Matter did not explode out into a waiting space, but rather space itself, with matter as part of it has expanded.&nbsp; Your basketball analogy only works if you take the universe to be the surface of the basketball and ignore the interior.&nbsp; <br /></p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[HGlenn]

Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>You only have half the story.&nbsp; What was compacted into a lump was not matter in space but rather space itself.&nbsp; Matter did not explode out into a waiting space, but rather space itself, with matter as part of it has expanded.&nbsp; Your basketball analogy only works if you take the universe to be the surface of the basketball and ignore the interior.&nbsp; <br />Posted by DrRocket</DIV><br />If space itself were compacted then there had to be something in which time/space could expand. Something had to give.&nbsp; Pressure & heat & carbon create diamonds so if you say that space itself were compressed then something other than the matter we know today would have to have been created.

 

[Limo_God]

<p>No Glenn, DrRocket has it right (not that he needs me to say so)... space/time didn't exist until the Big Bang occurred. Further reading: <span class="a"><font color="#008000">www.big-bang-theory.com/</font></span></p><p><span class="a"><font color="#008000">And comparing diamonds to space is like comparing&nbsp;pebbles and elephants, there is no commonality at all... </font></span></p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>Sermo datur cuntis; animi sapientia paucis</strong></p><p><em>Speech is given to many; intelligence to few</em></p> </div>

 

[derekmcd]

<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>If space itself were compacted then there had to be something in which time/space could expand. Something had to give.&nbsp; Pressure & heat & carbon create diamonds so if you say that space itself were compressed then something other than the matter we know today would have to have been created. <br /> Posted by HGlenn</DIV></p><p>An ant on the surface of a balloon has absolutely no concept of what is inside or outside the balloon.&nbsp; The ants only existence that it can measure and define is the surface.&nbsp; The ant can measure an expansion, but that expansion is without an edge or a center.&nbsp; You can extrapolate this analogy to our 3+1 dimensional universe we exist in.&nbsp; Our surface has one extra dimension that we exist in.</p><p>A photon can travel for as long as the universe exists and it will never reach the edge of the universe and reflect off of it.&nbsp; There is no edge... there is no center.&nbsp; It is without bounds.</p><p>I won't go so far to say that is is pointless and irrelavent to contemplate such things, but it's not something so simple as using an analogy of a basketball expanding into something larger than itself.&nbsp; So far, our understanding of the physics of the universe don't allow us to know such things.&nbsp; Asking what is outside the universe is something we simply can not wrap our brains around.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>To paraphrase Hawking:&nbsp; Asking what is outside the universe is like asking what is south of the south pole.&nbsp; It's a question that just doesn't make sense and is undefinable.&nbsp;</p><p>If you can figure it out, you are gauranteed a first class, all expenses paid trip to Stockholm to collect a most coveted prize.&nbsp;</p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div> </div><br /><div><span style="color:#0000ff" class="Apple-style-span">"If something's hard to do, then it's not worth doing." - Homer Simpson</span></div> </div>

 

[_Simon_]

<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>An ant on the surface of a balloon has absolutely no concept of what is inside or outside the balloon.&nbsp; The ants only existence that it can measure and define is the surface.&nbsp; The ant can measure an expansion, but that expansion is without an edge or a center.&nbsp; You can extrapolate this analogy to our 3+1 dimensional universe we exist in.&nbsp; Our surface has one extra dimension that we exist in.A photon can travel for as long as the universe exists and it will never reach the edge of the universe and reflect off of it.&nbsp; There is no edge... there is no center.&nbsp; It is without bounds.I won't go so far to say that is is pointless and irrelavent to contemplate such things, but it's not something so simple as using an analogy of a basketball expanding into something larger than itself.&nbsp; So far, our understanding of the physics of the universe don't allow us to know such things.&nbsp; Asking what is outside the universe is something we simply can not wrap our brains around.&nbsp;&nbsp;To paraphrase Hawking:&nbsp; Asking what is outside the universe is like asking what is south of the south pole.&nbsp; It's a question that just doesn't make sense and is undefinable.&nbsp;If you can figure it out, you are gauranteed a first class, all expenses paid trip to Stockholm to collect a most coveted prize.&nbsp; <br /> Posted by derekmcd</DIV></p><p>Hey! I only live a couple of hours from Stockholm, maybe I&acute;ll give it a go! <img src="http://sitelife.space.com/ver1.0/content/scripts/tinymce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-laughing.gif" border="0" alt="Laughing" title="Laughing" /> </p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[Limo_God]

hehe, I wish you&nbsp;luck with that Simon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>Sermo datur cuntis; animi sapientia paucis</strong></p><p><em>Speech is given to many; intelligence to few</em></p> </div>