What caused the Big Bang?

[Brickjectivity]

The Big Bang is the theory that because the stars are spreading that they may have a common origin. Science does not make conclusions about the Big Bang, yet. The science is the observation that the stars are moving farther apart, that Space appears to be spreading in all directions.

Relativity suggests that the Big Bang could be right, and that there could be no beginning before it. Also, if so much matter is concentrated in one spot the laws of time and physics may not apply, because they are untested under such conditions. Math does not help much either except with simulations of the progress of the stars and other things. There are lots of simulations.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Not that I can prove my belief either, but I feel the content of the universe has simply always been. No beginning. I feel this content is stuck in an endless cycle of contraction and expansion. Gravity eventually works it's magic to slow down outward moving mass and accelerate it back toward the largest coalesced body, and that, at some point, this central "singularity" reaches a "critical mass" at which point it explodes forth again.

This explains all sorts of phenomena - pieces that don't adhere to the conventional "big bang"/beginning outward trajectories are merely masses that didn't reach the "center" in time for the latest explosion. The prevalence of any given element in our universe is determined by the final configurations of that cast-out matter having undergone massive amounts of change through nuclear transmutation while in the volatile "center" - whereby the energies emitted from atoms (used for things like radiometric dating) are also refreshed/recharged - and related to that, would explain why some half-lives of radioactive atoms range to spans that calculate out to longer than the proposed "age of the universe". To me this makes perfect sense. Why does there have to have been a beginning at all? I believe the fact that there is something is proof that there has always been something. Never "nothing". Honestly - I find the idea that there was ever "nothing" to be completely ridiculous.

 

[ArtieE]

 

[dianaiad]

Siti suggested a thread about the big bang. Can science ever explain it, or did God do it?

Here is my explanation. Because science cannot explain how the universe came from nothing, God is the only possible explanation. God doesn't use physical laws and a scientific laboratory to create, He uses his holy will.

What do you think?

Dunno.

I think God did it, but as to how?

That's what science is for figuring out.

 

[Repox]

Dunno.

I think God did it, but as to how?

That's what science is for figuring out.

I don't think it is possible to have a scientific explanation for the big bang. Assuming God and heaven are in another dimension, one humans can't see or experience, there would be God, angels and heavenly substances composed of holy white sparks. We would not have a scientific explanation. God created a non-heavenly universe, one made of matter and energy, for the purpose of imprisoning Satan. If you can imagine, there would be a spark of God's holy substance one instant, and the next instant, there would be an explosion of material elements (matter and energy) forming the universe and the beginning of time. Whereas, heaven is eternal, the universe had a beginning, which means it probably will end.

 

[ArtieE]

Dunno.

I think God did it, but as to how?

That's what science is for figuring out.

Science is busy figuring out why people believe in gods.

 

[Baroodi]

No holly book talk about BB BUT Quran did. ( Did not the infidel see that, the heavens and the earth were one unit and we separated them). This type of Quranic verses induced some people to embrace Islam
The theory is that: the BB was behind this separation. The west scientist are behind the BB THEORY
Quran assert this when it says ( we will show them our signs over the horizons and in themselves until they know it is the truth)

 

[Tiapan]

No God required!
The most logical solution, the current universe is the result of previously collapsed universe.
So it is probably an infinitely oscillating system.
You have absolutely NO evidence of a unicorn, leprochaun god or spirit doing anything, where as I can suggest two Universal Laws of Physics that ARE evidence, for my proposal.
1. Conservation of Universal Angular Momentum
2. The Speed of Light limit.
Fantasy is no substitute for fact except for children.
Cheers

 

[dianaiad]

I don't think it is possible to have a scientific explanation for the big bang. Assuming God and heaven are in another dimension, one humans can't see or experience, there would be God, angels and heavenly substances composed of holy white sparks. We would not have a scientific explanation. God created a non-heavenly universe, one made of matter and energy, for the purpose of imprisoning Satan. If you can imagine, there would be a spark of God's holy substance one instant, and the next instant, there would be an explosion of material elements (matter and energy) forming the universe and the beginning of time. Whereas, heaven is eternal, the universe had a beginning, which means it probably will end.

Hmmn.

Here's the problem as I see it:

God isn't a concept that one can prove empirically, at all. Doesn't mean that since one cannot prove that God IS, it means God is NOT....it just means that one must decide whether one believes in deity through other means. There are many other human concepts that we accept as "True" (even the most hide bound empiricists among us) that are not scientifically accessible...or provable.

I don't have a problem with that.

I DO, however, have a view of deity that says something like "Well, God did indeed 'do it,' but we are His children. Ergo, we are quite capable, eventually, of figuring out the processes by which He DID 'do it,' whether we can ever replicate them or not.

So the 'God of the Gaps' has never resonated with me here, in that way. Sure, I figure that if we don't know the 'how' of something, we can say 'Godidit," but that doesn't get US off the hook in any way, nor does it really explain anything, any more than looking at a cake and saying 'Mom baked that' tells us how the cake was made.

 

[dianaiad]

Science is busy figuring out why people believe in gods.

I don't think 'science' much cares, ArtieE, and those 'scientists' who DO care belong to what is often mockingly referred to as the 'soft sciences.'

......I don't see where 'scientists' (especially those who come into the study with already biased opinions in the matter) will ever prove that God either is...or isn't. But hey....that's not their job anyway.

 

[siti]

You can only see as far as light could have travelled since the big bang? Correct. They can only see 13.8 billion light years away with current telescopes so they think the universe is 13.8 billion years old.

Er, no, not correct I'm afraid - the point is that universe is expanding so light that took 13.8bn years to reach earth (which is where we are - most of the time at least) originated from sources which (after 13.8bn years of expansion) are now approx. 46.5bn light years away (because they have been continuing to move away from us all the time the light from them has been traveling towards us). Since this is the same all around us, we can detect light from all angles that originated from sources that are now that far (46.5bn ly) away. IOW the radius of the observable universe is approx. 46.5bn ly and its diameter (the observable universe being - quite obviously I would have thought - a sphere) is about 93 bn light years.

In any case, our estimate of the age of the universe is not based on how far we can see at all but on the observed speeds and locations of the galaxies we can observe and the rate of expansion of the universe. For the galaxies to get to the relative positions we observe them to be in now has taken about 13.81bn years according the most up to date Hubble experiment based models.

We can also - by measuring the luminosity, mass and spin of stars (and star clusters) - make a good estimate of the age of the star (or star cluster). The oldest so far known are about 13bn years old.

If the scientists assemble an interferometer in space built with large Hubble telescopes they will be able to see farther and they will have to adjust their age of the universe estimate.

We cannot - no matter how smart our instrumentation becomes - ever detect light that is further away than that because even if it is there its light could not have reached earth yet.In fact the entire universe is probably very much larger than the observable universe and may even be infinite in extension - but we'll never know that from direct scientific observation.

Stuff is pretty well spread out in all directions which is what we would expect when something goes bang? Not really, supernova's go bang and emit an expanding sphere of gas.

They do and the expanding sphere of gas gets pretty well spread out in all directions - isn't that what an expanding sphere is? In the case of the universe, we don't know what shape it was to start with - or how big - but we do observe that stuff is pretty well spread out in all directions.

The whole big bang idea came from the discovery that the galaxies are moving away from each other, that doesn't mean they all came from one place, it just means that there is a repelling force in space that works to keep large groups of matter away from each other.

Yes - like the force of a large explosion for example? But, actually Big Bang theory doesn't say that they were all in 'one place' as such, just that since it is all moving apart - and has been at a phenomenal and accelerating speed for billions of years, it stands to reason that it was all much closer together in the past. But even that is not entirely correct - what it is really suggesting is that the matter and energy (in different form) already existed in their "places" and the "places" have been moving apart for billions of years - i.e. space itself is expanding. And as if that were not complicated enough to get one's head around, all the stuff is also in constant motion within the expanding space.

I do love science - but it sure makes the brain work hard sometimes.

 

[Super Universe]

Er, no, not correct I'm afraid - the point is that universe is expanding so light that took 13.8bn years to reach earth (which is where we are - most of the time at least) originated from sources which (after 13.8bn years of expansion) are now approx. 46.5bn light years away (because they have been continuing to move away from us all the time the light from them has been traveling towards us). Since this is the same all around us, we can detect light from all angles that originated from sources that are now that far (46.5bn ly) away. IOW the radius of the observable universe is approx. 46.5bn ly and its diameter (the observable universe being - quite obviously I would have thought - a sphere) is about 93 bn light years.

In any case, our estimate of the age of the universe is not based on how far we can see at all but on the observed speeds and locations of the galaxies we can observe and the rate of expansion of the universe. For the galaxies to get to the relative positions we observe them to be in now has taken about 13.81bn years according the most up to date Hubble experiment based models.

We can also - by measuring the luminosity, mass and spin of stars (and star clusters) - make a good estimate of the age of the star (or star cluster). The oldest so far known are about 13bn years old.

We cannot - no matter how smart our instrumentation becomes - ever detect light that is further away than that because even if it is there its light could not have reached earth yet.In fact the entire universe is probably very much larger than the observable universe and may even be infinite in extension - but we'll never know that from direct scientific observation.
They do and the expanding sphere of gas gets pretty well spread out in all directions - isn't that what an expanding sphere is? In the case of the universe, we don't know what shape it was to start with - or how big - but we do observe that stuff is pretty well spread out in all directions.
Yes - like the force of a large explosion for example? But, actually Big Bang theory doesn't say that they were all in 'one place' as such, just that since it is all moving apart - and has been at a phenomenal and accelerating speed for billions of years, it stands to reason that it was all much closer together in the past. But even that is not entirely correct - what it is really suggesting is that the matter and energy (in different form) already existed in their "places" and the "places" have been moving apart for billions of years - i.e. space itself is expanding. And as if that were not complicated enough to get one's head around, all the stuff is also in constant motion within the expanding space.

I do love science - but it sure makes the brain work hard sometimes.

All of that is based upon the presumption that all the matter that formed the galaxies came from the same place. That idea doesn't work if galactic sized nebula's formed in open space and then condensed into billions of individual solar systems.

We cannot detect light that is further away than the age of the universe? We can if our age of the universe estimate is incorrect. An interferometer of Hubble sized telescopes will find more galaxies. The exact distance of those galaxies is up for debate.

The big bang theory doesn't say that all the galaxies were in one place? Okay, it says that all the particles that became galaxies came from one location.

Matter from an explosion doesn't increase speed. In space, particles from an explosion would maintain speed and only decrease or increase speed when acted upon by something.

Religion is hopelessly lost in self promotion. Science will one day find proof of God but one of the things that bothers me is when some scientist discovers something and names it and gets an award as if he created it.

 

[siti]

All of that is based upon the presumption that all the matter that formed the galaxies came from the same place.

No, it is based on the assumption that since we observe that the galaxies are accelerating away from each other they were once closer together - I'm not sure how else it is possible to interpret the observational evidence - assume that although they are accelerating away from each other they once much further apart? Even Escher would have trouble envisaging that.

 

[Repox]

Hmmn.

Here's the problem as I see it:

God isn't a concept that one can prove empirically, at all. Doesn't mean that since one cannot prove that God IS, it means God is NOT....it just means that one must decide whether one believes in deity through other means. There are many other human concepts that we accept as "True" (even the most hide bound empiricists among us) that are not scientifically accessible...or provable.

I don't have a problem with that.

I DO, however, have a view of deity that says something like "Well, God did indeed 'do it,' but we are His children. Ergo, we are quite capable, eventually, of figuring out the processes by which He DID 'do it,' whether we can ever replicate them or not.

So the 'God of the Gaps' has never resonated with me here, in that way. Sure, I figure that if we don't know the 'how' of something, we can say 'Godidit," but that doesn't get US off the hook in any way, nor does it really explain anything, any more than looking at a cake and saying 'Mom baked that' tells us how the cake was made.

I can't argue with your premise that, in the absence of evidence for God, science is the explanation. The search for a scientific explanation has been going on for a very long time. One of my favorite theories is universes bumping into one another causing ugly scares on boundaries, then, spawning other universes. However, the real killer for multiple universes, or for the beginning of our universe is time. No matter what theory is proposed, there must be an explanation for the beginning of time. As long as matter and energy change, there is a time continuum. God disappears as an explanation if you can find a scientific explanation for the beginning of time. Even for recycling universes, there must be a time for the first universe. There is no way to avoid the problem, the beginning of time must be explained.

 

[Super Universe]

No, it is based on the assumption that since we observe that the galaxies are accelerating away from each other they were once closer together - I'm not sure how else it is possible to interpret the observational evidence - assume that although they are accelerating away from each other they once much further apart? Even Escher would have trouble envisaging that.

The big bang is not just a theory that galaxies were once closer together. The theory is that all matter in the universe came from a single point in space.

You're purposely trying to misrepresent the theory.

Why?

 

[siti]

God disappears as an explanation if you can find a scientific explanation for the beginning of time. Even for the recycling universes, there must be a time for the first universe. There is no way to avoid the problem, the beginning of time must be explained.

Clearly there is no 'scientific' explanation for the beginning of time. But perhaps there is a logical approach.

We must note first that time and change are inseparably linked (but - probably - not the same).

Then, also note that it is entirely plausible that either time or change (or both) are illusory emergent properties of a static block universe - and as far as I can figure out, the math (as far as we understand it) can still work. But I don't find that satisfactory because it seems to me to be entirely at odds with our common-sense experience (how reliable a guide is that?). We experience change as perhaps the most fundamentally persistent aspect of our existence - there is not a microsecond goes by without our experiencing some change. So, for the sake of argument only, I am ruling out the notion that time and change are illusions - but they might be.

For the purpose of this argument, I am assuming that the change we experience as an everyday reality is really real. That being the case, we have to ask what could have started change? And it is conceptually impossible (if we think carefully enough) to imagine a beginning of change (I mean all change). That is to say, if ever there was a time when no change at all occurred, then no change could ever have occurred at any time thereafter, because nothing could possibly have changed to make it possible for change to happen. You have to let that sink in - it is a deeply disturbing thought to me for some reason - it scares me every time I think of it - I feel like I am standing on the very edge of oblivion staring into the abyss of absolute nothingness - but I cannot get past the logical necessity - change simply cannot be got from no change at all.

So that means that since change is happening now, it has neither started (for the reason I have stated) nor stopped at any time in the past. Change is therefore eternal in the past. (We can't say about the future because change could conceivably stop and then it could never start again and that would be that).

If change is really happening, then time is real and eternal - I think it is obvious that there cannot be any change without time (and perhaps it is also true that there can't be any time without change).

So, time (and change) had no beginning, it just is.

 

[siti]

The big bang is not just a theory that galaxies were once closer together. The theory is that all matter in the universe came from a single point in space.

You're purposely trying to misrepresent the theory.

Why?

No, it isn't and no I'm not. The idea that it all (actually) came from a single point is an oft-repeated misrepresentation used by both proponents (even including otherwise reputable scientists in popular expositions) and opponents of the theory.

For a start, if it were true that it all actually emerged from a single point, it would not be "in space" because there would be no "space" for it to be "in" - that is the mathematical definition of a "point".

Secondly, the notion (regardless of who holds it) that the entire universe could have emerged from a dimensionless, infinitesimally small, infinitely dense, infinitely hot "singularity" is preposterous. If that were true, it would take an infinite amount of time (and not a mere 13.8bn years) to reach the size of an electron - let alone the size of a universe. And invoking inflation (and that other oft-repeated nonsensical misrperesentation of science 'superliminal expansion') doesn't help - it still has to become infinitely bigger than it supposedly was to start with in a finite time and it clearly cannot do that. Inflation helps to explain how the universe we can observe got from very, very small indeed to comparatively large (like the size of a grapefruit or something like that) - but we have no genuine idea how big the entire universe might have been immediately before or any time after inflation (or now).

The evidence suggesting that a big bang occurred driving the universe from very, very small to rather large is clear and based on numerous observational experiments over more than 50 years. The "singularity" is a mathematical concept that can not be observed. One drops out of the math of Big Bang theory based on general relativity - but we already know that relativity is hopeless at describing what happens at the exceptionally small space-time scales that would have been involved in the early universe. Nobody has figured out a convincing quantum mechanical model yet, but there are a few candidates around and, at least some make predictions that are potentially falsifiable as new observation data emerges from better instrumentation. So whether it turns out that loop quantum gravity, an ekpyrotic or cyclic universe model - or some other idea that nobody has had yet - will best describe the very earliest epochs of the universe (or current cycle of the universe if that turns out to be the case). We don't know - but it seems pretty clear that it will not be relativity and that pretty much rules out an actual 'singularity'.

 

[Super Universe]

No, it isn't and no I'm not. The idea that it all (actually) came from a single point is an oft-repeated misrepresentation used by both proponents (even including otherwise reputable scientists in popular expositions) and opponents of the theory.

For a start, if it were true that it all actually emerged from a single point, it would not be "in space" because there would be no "space" for it to be "in" - that is the mathematical definition of a "point".

Secondly, the notion (regardless of who holds it) that the entire universe could have emerged from a dimensionless, infinitesimally small, infinitely dense, infinitely hot "singularity" is preposterous. If that were true, it would take an infinite amount of time (and not a mere 13.8bn years) to reach the size of an electron - let alone the size of a universe. And invoking inflation (and that other oft-repeated nonsensical misrperesentation of science 'superliminal expansion') doesn't help - it still has to become infinitely bigger than it supposedly was to start with.in a finite time and it clearly cannot do that. Inflation helps to explain how the universe we can observe got from very, very small indeed to comparatively large (like the size of a grapefruit or something like that) - but we have no genuine idea how big the entire universe might have been immediately before or any time after inflation (or now).

The evidence suggesting that a big bang occurred driving the universe from very, very small to rather large is clear and based on numerous observational experiments over more than 50 years. The "singularity" is a mathematical concept that can not be observed. One drops out of the math of Big Bang theory based on general relativity - but we already know that relativity is hopeless at describing what happens at the exceptionally small space-time scales that would have been involved in the early universe. Nobody has figured out a convincing quantum mechanical model yet, but there are a few candidates around and, at least some make predictions that are potentially falsifiable as new observation data emerges from better instrumentation. So whether it turns out that loop quantum gravity, an ekpyrotic or cyclic universe model - or some other idea that nobody has had yet - will best describe the very earliest epochs of the universe (or current cycle of the universe if that turns out to be the case). We don't know - but it seems pretty clear that it will not be relativity and that pretty much rules out an actual 'singularity'.

Okay, well, you're beliefs are well outside the mainstream scientific community. I have some ideas that are pretty well off the beaten path as well.

Time is not a dimension but it is an integral part of space. There are not eleven dimensions. There's really only one dimension. Particles are not three dimensional objects. They are one dimensional objects that flip as they move so they act like three dimensional objects.

Think of a string that forms a circle. The string flips end over end as it moves through space, acting like a three dimensional sphere. If it hits another string object with a high enough speed the strings break and reform smaller circles. Scientists think they are breaking apart tiny three dimensional particles into smaller three dimensional particles but they're not.

Also, there are eleven densities of space/time, not eleven dimensions. All eleven densities of space/time exist in the exact same area. The less dense levels of space/time support the higher density levels of space/time. The universe that we see and feel and incorrectly call the "third dimension" is the most dense level of space/time. It is also the quickest level as far as time is concerned, meaning, a thousand years in the universe is like a day in the least dense level of space/time.

When you die on the earth you will wake up in a higher level, less dense, level of space/time. You will be taught how to move upwards through the levels.

Heaven is non-space/time. To a being who enters heaven the entire past and entire future of the universe has already happened. It's all the exact same moment.

 

[siti]

Okay, well, you're beliefs are well outside the mainstream scientific community.

Not at all. They are admittedly somewhat different from the often carelessly written and even more often and even more carelessly read popular scientific 'expositions' that have proliferated like rabbits during the inflationary period of the internet. Anyway, I think I'll leave the Big Bang there for now - it is a bit hard to grasp - and harder still to know where the scientific theory ends and the scientist's speculation begins - but if we want to talk intelligently about it we have to try and at least figure out what (a) the theory and (b) the evidence really say - otherwise we just end up trading popular misconceptions - but then again this is the Religion Forums - so trading popular misconceptions is probably the name of the game (no offense intended to anyone). Unfortunately, I have only unpopular misconceptions to trade so almost nobody understands what I am talking about. C'est la vie! and Vive la confusion!

 

[sayak83]

Okay, well, you're beliefs are well outside the mainstream scientific community.

No, siti is completely correct about the Big Bang theory.
Did The Universe Really Begin With a Singularity?\

Unfortunately media has latched on to this completely misconceived idea of explosion from a point despite the fact that this is completely and utterly rubbish.