What was the Big Bang

[`mud]

And there's a lot of ripples on that pond ??

 

[Ben Dhyan]

No analogy is perfect. It is always going to be difficult to explain a 4D space to people whose only experience is in a 3D world.

OK then Thermos aquaticus, just provide the correct answer, if one travels in any direction from any point in the universe, do we arrive back at the starting point or do we come to the end of the universe?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

We don't know that there is an edge. The fabric of the universe (the ether or Quantumland) (apparently?) folds back on itself so that traveling in one direction eventually gets you back to where you started, in a 3D version of your 2D model. The universe, famously, is finite but unbounded. "Outside" the universe has no intuitive meaning any more than what happened "before" the Big Bang.

ThePainefulTruth, if you concede that you don't know if there is an edge to the universe or not, then you must also concede that you don't know if the universe is finite and unbounded, yes?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

On what basis do you presume that there is no outside cause when there's no evidence for anything, much less causation or the lack of it, prior to the Big Bang. The Big Bang is essentially an impenetrable fire wall for information, at least to this point, with no inkling from beyond.



Exactly, we know nothing at all ante-Big Bang, which includes any theory of how it was initiated.



I consider agnostic-atheism and agnostic-deism to be the only two reasonable positions on God. But the atheists have a point that we can't prove a negative. But the issue is the evidence at hand, i.e. the universe, and the evidence for it's initiation is absolutely zero for or against a spontaneous initiation or a consciously (God for short) caused initiation. My only beef with atheists is against the ones that claim certainty, the same as it is with theists who claim certainty, being as they are standing on thin air to boot.



Re: the Planck Epoch, which is only argued against by those who disagree with the Big Bang. The singularity is an imaginary point from prior to the first instance the universe existed. In between there was nothing, because it, the Planck Epoch, was the introduction of the limit to divisibility of whatever preceded it, call it the Ether. How can you not call the Planck Epoch infinitesimally small. But even if it was large, I don't see the relevance in the first place.

BTW, the universe could not have been infinitely large, and expanded since then--by definition.

Whatever created it, the singularity was literally a self extracting archive of highly compressed information and information systems, we only know one origin for such things.

Fluke is not technically impossible, but extraordinary claims...

on accelerating expansion, that's based primarily on observing objects further away moving faster, invoking an elusive imaginary repulsive force to overcome gravity.

This force is not necessary if the cause and effect is the other way around, those objects are not moving faster because they are further away.. they are further away, because they are moving faster.. regular ol gravity'll do that!

 

[Subduction Zone]

We don't know that there is an edge. The fabric of the universe (the ether or Quantumland) (apparently?) folds back on itself so that traveling in one direction eventually gets you back to where you started, in a 3D version of your 2D model. The universe, famously, is finite but unbounded. "Outside" the universe has no intuitive meaning any more than what happened "before" the Big Bang.

No, this would only be true if the universe was closed. The universe to our best measurements is flat or open. Your statement goes with the now largely discarded thought of a universe that goes through endless series of Big Bangs and Big Crunches.

We have no evidence for what happened "before" or for the equally unlikely initiations via God or an uncaused spontaneous event.

There is some possible evidence but I will agree that it is not definitive yet.

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

OK then Thermos aquaticus, just provide the correct answer, if one travels in any direction from any point in the universe, do we arrive back at the starting point or do we come to the end of the universe?

Since you can only travel at subluminal speeds and the universe is expanding at greater than the speed of light when measured across the expanse of the universe you will always be heading into new space.

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

Whatever created it, the singularity was literally a self extracting archive of highly compressed information and information systems, we only know one origin for such things.

We know of natural sources for singularities. They are called black holes.

Information is produced all of the time in the universe outside of the influence of intelligent beings.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

ThePainefulTruth, if you concede that you don't know if there is an edge to the universe or not, then you must also concede that you don't know if the universe is finite and unbounded, yes?

A flat 2 dimensional surface can be curved (by gravity say) into the shape of a sphere. It has no edge, it is finite but unbounded, and if you walk in one direction, you will return to your starting point because it is finite. It's the same principle for the universe only in with 3 dimensions being warped into a finite but unbounded space. You can add to that the element of expansion, in both the 2D and 3D models.

 

[Subduction Zone]

A flat 2 dimensional surface can be curved (by gravity say) into the shape of a sphere. It has no edge, it is finite but unbounded, and if you walk in one direction, you will return to your starting point because it is finite. It's the same principle for the universe only in with 3 dimensions being warped into a finite but unbounded space. You can add to that the element of expansion, in both the 2D and 3D models.

Once again, they have measured the curvature of our universe. To the best ability to measure it is flat. I did provide a link to support that claim. Do you need some more? Since it is flat as far as we can see that means that even at light speed you will never "curve back" on yourself. The universe continues to expand and due to the expansion and not actual motion light will never get that far. The universe can expand faster than the speed of light since that is not "motion" in the classical sense.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

Whatever created it, the singularity was literally a self extracting archive of highly compressed information and information systems, we only know one origin for such things.

But the singularity didn't exist, or at least we have no evidence of it. What we have is the first instance of the universe which is one Planck-time unit (10 to the -43 sec.) old. That's the smallest possible division of space-time, which is good, since as Zeno's Paradox tells us, there would be no possibility of movement or time otherwise.

on accelerating expansion, that's based primarily on observing objects further away moving faster, invoking an elusive imaginary repulsive force to overcome gravity.

But the expansion (of the ether or Quantumland) is not limited by the speed of light like mass and energy and gravity in our universe are, and we can reasonably assume it's not limited by gravity either.

This force is not necessary if the cause and effect is the other way around, those objects are not moving faster because they are further away.. they are further away, because they are moving faster.. regular ol gravity'll do that!

But it's doesn't because the expansion of the ether or fabric of space, can carry matter and energy beyond superluminal speed; even though, locally, the speed of light/gravity limits are not violated.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

No, this would only be true if the universe was closed. The universe to our best measurements is flat or open. Your statement goes with the now largely discarded thought of a universe that goes through endless series of Big Bangs and Big Crunches.

Absolutely not. Expansion is accelerating and is passing through superluminal speed at the visible limit of the universe which invisible because of it. What we have to learn is how our local universe is embedded in a non-local (locationless/timeless) ether or Quantumland. The standard model of an open universe does not account for expansion continuing to accelerate beyond light speed.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

Once again, they have measured the curvature of our universe. To the best ability to measure it is flat. I did provide a link to support that claim. Do you need some more? Since it is flat as far as we can see that means that even at light speed you will never "curve back" on yourself. The universe continues to expand and due to the expansion and not actual motion light will never get that far. The universe can expand faster than the speed of light since that is not "motion" in the classical sense.

See my last response.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Absolutely not. Expansion is accelerating and is passing through superluminal speed at the visible limit of the universe which invisible because of it. What we have to learn is how our local universe is embedded in a non-local (locationless/timeless) ether or Quantumland. The standard model of an open universe does not account for expansion continuing to accelerate beyond light speed.

Sorry, you don't understand what you are posting. You appear to be conflating the fact that our universe is flat with an older hypothesis. Being flat does not preclude expansion or even the recently observed accelerating expansion.

The observation that our universe if flat is of about the same age as the observation of accelerating expansion.

 

[Subduction Zone]

See my last response.

I did, it was incorrect.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

Sorry, you don't understand what you are posting. You appear to be conflating the fact that our universe is flat with an older hypothesis. Being flat does not preclude expansion or even the recently observed accelerating expansion.

It certainly does, by definition:
"Flat universe:. If there is just enough matter in the universe for its gravitational force to bring the expansion associated with the big bang to a stop in an infinitely long time, the universe is said to be flat. The flat universe is the dividing line between an open universe and a closed universe."

And not only is expansion open, i.e. not going to stop, it's accelerating, which was a recent discovery and totally unexpected.

"The 2011 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded today to Saul Perlmutter at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Brian Schmidt at the Australian National Lab and Adam Reiss at Johns Hopkins University for their discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe."

 

[Subduction Zone]

It certainly does, by definition:
"Flat universe:. If there is just enough matter in the universe for its gravitational force to bring the expansion associated with the big bang to a stop in an infinitely long time, the universe is said to be flat. The flat universe is the dividing line between an open universe and a closed universe."

And not only is expansion open, i.e. not going to stop, it's accelerating, which was a recent discovery and totally unexpected.

"The 2011 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded today to Saul Perlmutter at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Brian Schmidt at the Australian National Lab and Adam Reiss at Johns Hopkins University for their discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe."

The problem is that you are using an outdated definition. And combining that with a more modern post. This is why you need to use links to support your claims.

Here is how it is done:

"
First, we need to define what we mean by flat. The screen you're reading this on is obviously flat (I hope), and you know that the Earth is curved (I hope). But how can we quantify that mathematically? Such an exercise might be useful if we want to go around measuring the shape of the whole entire universe. [The History & Structure of the Universe (Infographic)]

One answer lies in parallel lines. If you start drawing two parallel lines on your paper and let them continue on, they'll stay perfectly parallel forever (or at least until you run out of paper). That was essentially the definition of a parallel line for a couple thousand years, so we should be good."

The Universe Is Flat — Now What?

Source and pertinent quote from that source. You appear to have mixed sources and as a result made an errant claim.

The article goes on to flesh out this idea further. You made the mistake of claiming that the universe could curve back on itself, once again since it is flat that does not appear to be the case.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

The problem is that you are using an outdated definition. And combining that with a more modern post. This is why you need to use links to support your claims.

Here is how it is done:

Would you please tone down your obnoxious arrogance.

Yes, open and closed are now commonly used as a reference to the curvature of the universe. But what happened to the issue of the open and closed expansion in your so-called "outdated" definition. Are you saying that's no longer a meaningful fact? Where is your link to the why the definition was changed and how that relegated the ultimate fate of the universe to irrelevancy.

Actually, open and closed expansion and open and closed curvature of the universe are both issues that still apply--although the former is now essentially settled, and they may turn out to be interrelated.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Would you please tone down your obnoxious arrogance.

Yes, open and closed are now commonly used as a reference to the curvature of the universe. But what happened to the issue of the open and closed expansion in your so-called "outdated" definition. Are you saying that's no longer a meaningful fact? Where is your link to the why the definition was changed and how that relegated the ultimate fate of the universe to irrelevancy.

Actually, open and closed expansion and open and closed curvature of the universe are both issues that still apply--although the former is now essentially settled, and they may turn out to be interrelated.

LOL oh my, massive projection. Arrogance is when one makes a claim that is not properly supported and then not owning up to one's errors when shown to be wrong.

You made an incorrect claim. I demonstrated how your claim was incorrect.

You made an error in regards to whether the universe is "flat" or not. Do you realize your error?
You could not support your claims properly. Links are a must and there is almost no excuse for not providing them. That was also an error of yours.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

LOL oh my, massive projection. Arrogance is when one makes a claim that is not properly supported and then not owning up to one's errors when shown to be wrong.

You made an incorrect claim. I demonstrated how your claim was incorrect.

You made an error in regards to whether the universe is "flat" or not. Do you realize your error?
You could not support your claims properly. Links are a must and there is almost no excuse for not providing them. That was also an error of yours.

Whatever.

 

[Polymath257]

It certainly does, by definition:
"Flat universe:. If there is just enough matter in the universe for its gravitational force to bring the expansion associated with the big bang to a stop in an infinitely long time, the universe is said to be flat. The flat universe is the dividing line between an open universe and a closed universe."

This 'definition' is only equivalent to flatness of space in the case of a zero cosmological constant.

And not only is expansion open, i.e. not going to stop, it's accelerating, which was a recent discovery and totally unexpected.

"The 2011 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded today to Saul Perlmutter at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Brian Schmidt at the Australian National Lab and Adam Reiss at Johns Hopkins University for their discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe."

Which is what implies that the cosmological constant is non-zero, making the 'definition' above incorrect.

The best way to define 'flatness' is to look at a comoving coordinate system and looking at the intrinsic curvature of the space slices. If that curvature is zero, then we say space is flat. This can happen even in the case of an accelerating universe in the presence of a non-zero cosmological constant.