NationStates Jolt Archive

right let me just put this all out for you.

I'm a biology student (doing my degree in Biochemistry and Genetics at the University of Wales Aberystwyth) and an atheist so you don't need to argue about whether science can explain things.

I have a small grasp of physics but this has never been explained to me.

What i've been told about the big bang theory is that there was nothing (not even time) and this nothing exploded creating everything (including time which makes me wonder how the explosion happened as there was no time for it to happen in....).

So could someone please explain it a bit better.

Time is subjective, no? To how one feels it happen?

It was invented so humans could arrange meetings, have coffee, and have play dates. So, time, as a measure of how long something takes to occur, is subject to its speed and preception (a certain balance of chemicals).

*thinks about expiriment with clock in jetplane, flying quicky in low orbit, and it being slightly slower than control left on Earth*

So time, as we generally refer to it, is based on the speed of Earth traveling around the sun, and the speed of how fast we as a galaxy are moving through the universe.

So, I would have to conclude, that if something moves faster, then time slows down. If the "big bang" had not yet occured, then time would not exist, as nothing would be moving or alive to percieve time, arrange meetings, drink coffee, or have play dates.

What do you think?

right let me just put this all out for you.

I'm a biology student (doing my degree in Biochemistry and Genetics at the University of Wales Aberystwyth) and an atheist so you don't need to argue about whether science can explain things.

I have a small grasp of physics but this has never been explained to me.

What i've been told about the big bang theory is that there was nothing (not even time) and this nothing exploded creating everything (including time which makes me wonder how the explosion happened as there was no time for it to happen in....).

So could someone please explain it a bit better.

Not nothing... a singularity, and possibly one among many singularities (I know that sounds like a contradiction, but I'm using singularity in the physical sense).

This site mighht help a bit. (http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/Cosmos/InTheBeginning.html)

man thats a kop out

that site basicly said that we can never know what was before which just sounds too convinient.......

i'm a biologist you have to give me cause and effect not just "something happened" which is what that site says in effect (if you strip out all the physics mumbojumbo..)

that site basicly said that we can never know what was before which just sounds too convinient.......Another theory I heard somewhere (some small part of M Theory, perhaps? Don't remember) was that time-space is infinite therefore there is no beginning nor no end. There was a big bang marking a beginning, but only the beginning of our universe, not everything everywhere.

It's mind-blowing stuff, and I don't think the philosophical ramifications can every be resolved. Philosophers have gone mad contemplating such issues.

man thats a kop out

that site basicly said that we can never know what was before which just sounds too convinient.......

i'm a biologist you have to give me cause and effect not just "something happened" which is what that site says in effect (if you strip out all the physics mumbojumbo..)

I'm also a biologist.

That's not a cop out. There wasn't anything changing, so temporal markers don't exist. There isn't a "before," because there was no rate of change before the first change occured.

A simple analogy; let's say I have a mole of acid all by itself in a bottle. I want to determine its Ka. While the acid is by itself, I can't do that, because Ka involves a change in concentrations.

Now I add some of the acid to water. Some of the protons dissociate and the concentrations of H+, conjugate base, and initial acid all change. I can now determine the Ka by the relation of the three concentrations, rights?

So what was the determined Ka of the acid before I mixed it into the water? It was nothing, effectively. There was no "Ka before" because there was no overall change occurring, and dissociation is change. With no change, all I can say is that I started at time 0 (i.e., any point before the change began). "Time 0" could have been, relative to my point of observation, a day long or a year long or a hundred years long. It has no particular duration; it's just a construct in my own mind. Once I've made the first change, I can start measuring time.

That's roughly the same thing. The singularity was "time 0." It can't be assigned any particular duration, and there isn't a "before" because of this. We can say what happened almost at the instant of the event (down to 1.0 x 10^-43 seconds), but by definition, nothing is happening at "time 0."

man thats a kop out

that site basicly said that we can never know what was before which just sounds too convinient.......

i'm a biologist you have to give me cause and effect not just "something happened" which is what that site says in effect (if you strip out all the physics mumbojumbo..)
As the dude said it's all M-theory and the multiverse these days. The theory isn't actually complete but I think it goes into detail about what was before the big bang. I don't undertand physics in eleven dimensions. THe laws of physics would be a lot different to what they currently are before the big bang so it is almost imposible to understand what they could be by looking at what they are today.
http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/qg_ss.html
this is what i found.

man thats a kop out

that site basicly said that we can never know what was before which just sounds too convinient.......

i'm a biologist you have to give me cause and effect not just "something happened" which is what that site says in effect (if you strip out all the physics mumbojumbo..)

If you're reliant upon normative "cause and effect" as you claim, to be handed some explination you could easily stomach, you'll be waiting a long time [pun intended].... You've limited yourself too much to classical physics... Which means you couldn't even grasp the conditions and factors into the subsquent handfull of milliseconds after first event, let alone be able to conceptualize the conditions and situations existing during the first event....

We cannot know, now, what occured in effective "before", simply because all the science which we know and work in now, did not exist.

I'm suprised no one has popped a "your momma" joke yet ^_~

Not nothing... a singularity, and possibly one among many singularities (I know that sounds like a contradiction, but I'm using singularity in the physical sense).

This site mighht help a bit. (http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/Cosmos/InTheBeginning.html)

Sure, you can have a whole bunch of singularities. But I think they form a single plural.

right let me just put this all out for you.

I'm a biology student (doing my degree in Biochemistry and Genetics at the University of Wales Aberystwyth) and an atheist so you don't need to argue about whether science can explain things.

I have a small grasp of physics but this has never been explained to me.

What i've been told about the big bang theory is that there was nothing (not even time) and this nothing exploded creating everything (including time which makes me wonder how the explosion happened as there was no time for it to happen in....).

So could someone please explain it a bit better.

Picture all matter and energy in the universe gathered together as a single particle. That particle reaches a critical mass and explodes flinging raw matter and energy in all directions. Over the course of billions of years, matter coalesces into mostly hydrogen and helium with other trace more complex elements here and there. A sizeable portion of matter remains superdense and as it continues to expand the edges of the known universe, it breaks down, filling space and time with the universe we have all come to know and love.

However, in a process called entropy, all energy eventually simplifies into heat. Eventually, all matter breaks down into particles called tachyons. This is where things get weird. Tachyons are bizzarre particles that travel faster than light. Even weirder. they accelerate as they lose energy. A tachyon at rest is in essence traveling at infinite speed, thus occupying every point in the universe simultaneously.

See where this is headed? As energy decays and the universe slows and eventually reverses it's expansion, matter is slowly converted into a form that will encompass the universe as it loses energy.

Eventually, all that will be left is a superdense mass of particulates that exist both as a single particle of matter AND as the entire universe at once. ...until it reaches citical mass and explodes.

What existed before the Universe? WHy, the Universe, of course. We're a repeating loop. :D

As the dude said it's all M-theory and the multiverse these days. The theory isn't actually complete but I think it goes into detail about what was before the big bang. I don't undertand physics in eleven dimensions. THe laws of physics would be a lot different to what they currently are before the big bang so it is almost imposible to understand what they could be by looking at what they are today.
http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/qg_ss.html
this is what i found.

Here's what I understand of it: in string theory the multiverse is composed of a set of what are called "branes", multi-dimensional membranes that various particles are attached to in the form of strings. At about the time that our big bang happend, two branes collided. That collision manifested on our brane as a singularity much like a gi-normous black hole, one that happened to contain all space and time within itself. Said black hole then exploded, and became the universe.

What existed before the Universe? WHy, the Universe, of course. We're a repeating loop. :D

And that means that we've had this conversation before and will again. I am going to try to avoid having a mullet in the 80's next time but I think I am destined to.

And that means that we've had this conversation before and will again. I am going to try to avoid having a mullet in the 80's next time but I think I am destined to.

Mullets are inevitable. *nod*

Time is a consequence of the actual fabric of space. No space no time. So before the big bang there was no time. Self explanatory really.

man thats a kop out

Beats the hell out of the alternative.

Picture all matter and energy in the universe gathered together as a single particle. That particle reaches a critical mass and explodes flinging raw matter and energy in all directions. Over the course of billions of years, matter coalesces into mostly hydrogen and helium with other trace more complex elements here and there. A sizeable portion of matter remains superdense and as it continues to expand the edges of the known universe, it breaks down, filling space and time with the universe we have all come to know and love.

However, in a process called entropy, all energy eventually simplifies into heat. Eventually, all matter breaks down into particles called tachyons. This is where things get weird. Tachyons are bizzarre particles that travel faster than light. Even weirder. they accelerate as they lose energy. A tachyon at rest is in essence traveling at infinite speed, thus occupying every point in the universe simultaneously.

See where this is headed? As energy decays and the universe slows and eventually reverses it's expansion, matter is slowly converted into a form that will encompass the universe as it loses energy.

Eventually, all that will be left is a superdense mass of particulates that exist both as a single particle of matter AND as the entire universe at once. ...until it reaches citical mass and explodes.

What existed before the Universe? WHy, the Universe, of course. We're a repeating loop. :D

Unless the kinetic energy provided to all the matter in the universe is to great for its combined gravitational force to pull it back together again. In that case all matter will drift further and further apart, gradually cooling and eventually the universe ends in heat death. Matter is spread out throughout the universe, all at the same temperature and its impossible to find a temperature gradient anywhere, maximum entropy.

Time is a consequence of the actual fabric of space. No space no time. So before the big bang there was no time. Self explanatory really.

Yes but the 'before' time still exists relative to the 'after'. if the universe is 10 billion years old (or however old it is it doesnt really matter) than what was there 11 billion years ago? And by universe do we mean the matter that was thrown out in the big bang, or the infinite amount of space which it occupies?

Can we ever really know what happened at the beginning? And could we even understand it if we did know?

Yes but the 'before' time still exists relative to the 'after'. if the universe is 10 billion years old (or however old it is it doesnt really matter) than what was there 11 billion years ago? And by universe do we mean the matter that was thrown out in the big bang, or the infinite amount of space which it occupies?

Can we ever really know what happened at the beginning? And could we even understand it if we did know?

The way I've heard it explained time's sort of like the bottom of a bowl. 11 billion years ago you would be closer to the big bang. It's like going into the center of a black hole, you can keep going forever without getting there. 10 billion would just be a relatively close approximation.

This is an interesting article since it suggests evidence to show the universe [i]isn't[/i expanding, thus bringing the big-bang theory into question...

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/050610arptest.htm

Read this: http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/bigbang.htm

The Big Bang theory is having a bit of a challenge right now, although not because of the usual questions, but because there are a few very difficult to explain phenomena happening in the first millionths of a second, plus a few observations in the cosmic background radiation that don't quite match.

That doesn't mean that there is no expansion or there was no beginning (although the steady state theory is being revamped) but maybe there was a Big Whimper instead of a Bang.

There are a few new instruments and observatories that will help clarify this. Our cosmological understanding will probably change a lot in the next 20 years.