/sci/ - Science & Math

The big bang is supposed to have created all of time and space. Nothing can have existed before it because time did not exist before the big bang.

One small particle explodes due to pressure and it expands and multiplies into a lot of atoms. The universe is still expanding at a very slow rate due to the pressure.

>>3256675
At a very slow rate? I thought it was expanding at near the speed of light.

Here's what the big bang states:

About 14.7 billion years ago, all matter and energy in the observable universe was condensed down to a very very small point. Because the space was pointlike, the pressures and temperatures were nearly infinite. Due to quantum fluctuations, this point began to expand rapidly. As expansion occurred, particles began to form out of the plasma of mass-energy and things like planets and stars were first seen. The universe is still expanding to this day, and the big bang is still happening.

As to what happened "before" that is difficult to say. In the observable universe, there was no "before" as time is relative to space. Since there was no space for actions to occur in, there was no time. However, the big bang theory says nothing about the greater universe, which is completely unobservable to us since it is so far away. Time could have existed in this outside universe, but anything happening out there is essentially unknowable.

>>3256683
>>3256671
Don't listen to this tripfag, he trolls here everyday. It's getting quite obvious too.

>>3256683
things far away from us are expanding away much much faster than the speed of light.

>>3256683
speed, as many things are, is relative

>>3256660
If time itself stated when the big bang happened, then the expression "caused the Big Bang" or "what existed before it" doesn't make no sense. It's like asking "which color had the wall in your yard before it was build?".

Think of a hight dimensional blobb consisting of all time frames of the univers (The spacetime as a whole). Then the big bang is just one end of it and for some reason our consciousness is always only perceiving one moment of it. And for us, these moments are moving away from the spacetime-area where the big bang is located

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_of_time
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_%28arrow_of_time%29

>>3256660
We live in a Steady State Universe.

The Big Bang never happened. They falsified the 'background radiation' calculations to fit the post hoc microwave data.

>>3256660
If time itself started when the big bang happened, then the expression "caused the Big Bang" or "what existed before it" doesn't make sense. It's like asking "which color had the wall in your yard before it was build?".

Think of a higher dimensional blobb consisting of all time frames of the univers (The spacetime as a whole). Then the big bang is one end of it and for some reason our consciousness is always only perceiving one moment of it. And for us, these moments are moving away from the spacetime-area where the big bang is located

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_of_time
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_%28arrow_of_time%29

>>3256691
Is it possible that there are many big bangs happening in the wider universe all the time? So infinite universes in infinite space over an infinite time. Not counting any other dimensions.

>>3256660
>What existed before the Big Bang
>What lies North of the North Pole

Both equally valid questions...

>>3256701
> It's like asking "which color had the wall in your yard before it was built?"

That's a good metaphor... I still can't get my head round there being "nothing" before time and space though.

I wish I'd taken more of an interest in all this stuff when I was a kid... I never used to care but I've been thinking about it a lot lately...

So if the universe is continuing to expand... let's say that (theoretically, because it will never happen) we developed a vehicle capable of reaching the edges of the universe, and that it was fast enough to overtake the universe's expansion... would we find a world of "nothingness" outside? Or would we simply reappear at the opposite end of our universe? (like crossing over from japan to america over the pacific, even though they are at opposite ends of a world map)

>>3256758

if you reached the edge of the observable universe and kept going you would find more stuff, things that were far away from earth in the early universe and have since expanded into oblivion. Whether or not there is an edge further out or not is a good question though.

>>3256758

You can't leave the universe in the same way you can't get out of your chair now and walk into another dimension.

>>3256770

so it's physically impossible to leave the universe, but in theory it can happen?

or is it impossible theoretically and physically?

I've always figured that there is no infinity and that everything is cyclical. The big bang grows and shrinks, looping time. The other end of the universe leads to the opposite side, making space cyclical.

If not, every possible outcome has not only happened, but happened infinite times over. The entire series of Pokemon has played out in reality an infinite number of times. That, or time and space are contained loops. Pick one.

>>3256780

you can't travel faster than light, and the edge of the observable universe is expanding away from us at the speed of light, so you could never catch up to it.

>>3256793
You can travel ftl you idiot.

>>3256782

thats not true. The second law of thermodynamics and the rate of the expansion of the universe rule out the idea of a big crunch.

>>3256797

ummm... no?

>>3256797
Troll.

>>3256801

So then Pokemon exist and/or will exist at some point?

>>3256807
>>3256813
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

>>3256797
The only things which can move faster than light are shadows, spotlights and an apparent ftl motion of galaxies caused by space expanding.

I do not believe you are one of these things.

>>3256782

The Big Bounce hypothesis has been posited by more people than you. Also Hindus.

>>3256801

Not completely ruling out, but heavily shuns it. All energy in the universe would have to return, presumably by all of space/time compressing, or perhaps every succeeding universe has just a little less energy than the last (lost from irretrievable photons).

>>3256780
nobody will give you a final answer concerning the areas of the universe nobody can reach, but if you take the general theory of relativity seriously (a theory which will be altered in the next decades - hopefully) then there just are regions within out universe which a physically impossible to reach, since you can't "go faster" then the trajectory of a light particle but you would have to reach them. This leads one to say that there is a bigger (unreachable) universe ourside and it's even getting harder and harder to get close to the edge, due to space time expansion.

It's not clear if the universe is infinite in some sense, or if it closes (but as said before, you can't reach the outer zones anyway) and it's not clear if it will end the way it statet (some kind of singularity) - these are all legit models.

the big bang was cause by us falling out of the ass of a black hole into a new dimension

>>3256819

>shadows

Shadows move at the speed of light. A shadow is where photons are not, so the shadow (place where the photon is not) is trailing behind the photon at the same speed of the photon leaves where it was.

>>3256818
Do you spastic?

> The Alcubierre drive, also known as the Alcubierre metric, is a speculative mathematical model of a spacetime exhibiting features reminiscent of the fictional "warp drive" from Star Trek, which can travel "faster than light", although not in a local sense

> which can travel "faster than light", although not in a local sense

This is not actual ftl motion.

In the beginning, there was nothing

of course, there being nothing, there were no physical laws. such as the law that states "nothing can come from nothing"

and thus, something came from nothing, namely everything that could possibly be

and thus, infinite possible (and a lot more impossible, but they stopped existing the same moment) universes came into being

>>3256843
Wrong. If I aim a spotlight at the moon from earth, which has been done, and tape a black circle to the center, the spotlight can be swung such that the circle of light and the shadow of the black circle race over the lunar surface faster than light.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ5-BTdcqjk

>>3256844
You'd still be travelling faster than the surrounding light. So it's ftl travel.

>>3256860
No, you would not. It is seriously hard to explain without diagrams, but although you would reach a destination faster than light would, the motion itself is not faster than light. A car can move faster than sound, in a sonic jet.

>>3256860

No, it isn't. It's faster than real-space light, but at no point do YOU ever go faster than light. At no point does your velocity exceed (or even have to approach) c.

Man... all this stuff makes me just want to sit down and draw some animals. It's quite a lot to take in at once.

So does no one really know what caused the Big Bang? I heard a theory that it was started by a star / multiple stars that went supernova... Like I said I really have no idea how true this is or what other theories there are...

(N.B. when I say "does anyone know" I'm not asking for evidence obviously, but are there any widely accepted / agreed upon theories in particular in the scientific community?)

>>3256873
I get that nothing can travel faster than light. I was rather talking about how we could overcome it to reach the edge of the universe. Maybe. But probably not. Forget I said anything.

>>3256885

The big bang is an infinitely huge expansion.

It was caused by an infinitely huge amount of pressure.

This infinite amount of pressure was from all existing matter being forced into an infinitely small area.

Does that make sense?

>>3256864

thats not true. At large distances like that the steam of photons would be bent like when you swing a whip, and would only travel at light speed.

>>3256885

>So does no one really know what caused the Big Bang? I heard a theory that it was started by a star / multiple stars that went supernova... Like I said I really have no idea how true this is or what other theories there are...

It's basically impossible to know.

Stars wouldn't have existed before the Big Bang, as space itself would not have.
Probably.

>(N.B. when I say "does anyone know" I'm not asking for evidence obviously, but are there any widely accepted / agreed upon theories in particular in the scientific community?)

Long story short, no, not really. Before the Big Bang is a singularity. M Theory gives the idea that 11 dimensional membranes collided to make it happen, but M Theory is a joke on this board and by most "realistic" scientists.

Do we know nothing can move faster than light, or are we just unable to see anything moving faster than light?

>>3256885

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

watch this. Be amazed.

>>3256896
Yeah, but the point formed by the edge of the bend hitting the moon does create a point of light which races over the surface faster than light.

This has been done before.

>>3256885
as I pointed out, the problem is the way you speak about it. You ask "why did the big bang happen?" but you should try to view spacetime as a whole - all times/states in which the spatial part of the universe was, is or will be. it's one big 4-dimesnional area (manifold) and the big bang is just one end of it. (but which doesn't answer the philosophical question "'why is there something rather than nothing?'" - google this question)
get it?
then, the real question to be ask is why time seems to have some sort of direction: "Arrow of time".

>>3256905

Unless your mass is imaginary (i.e. tachyons), you cannot go faster than the speed of light. c is the speed that massless particles travel. Adding mass to a particle means it takes energy to accelerate it, and therefore a particle with mass cannot exceed or even reach light speed.

>>3256905

It's not that light moves faster than anything, but that light moves at the top speed the universe lets it.

If anything could move faster, photons would be going at THAT speed.

Photons have absolutely nothing restraining them, which is why they go at the speed that they do.

We, however, have lots of mass slowing us down, and the faster we go, the more mass we get.. Even getting to 90% the speed of light is a massive challenge, but we can never actually even HIT it because we'll always have mass slowing us down.

>>3256891
> I was rather talking about how we could overcome it to reach the edge of the universe.

Damn good idea.

> Forget I said anything.

No, not at all. Chill, nobody is knocking you, this stuff is complicated as fuck.

>>3256892
>>3256892

Are there theories explaining what caused all this matter to be forced into such a small area?

>>3256926

Sure.

1. God did it

2. UltraGod Deluxe Prime 9001 did it

3. Nobody fucking knows

>>3256758
>we developed a vehicle capable of reaching the edges of the universe
The universe appears infinite in size. The universe looks basically the same no matter where we look that means that it appears that we are at centre. So If you were able to transport 2 people instantly several billion light years in opposite directions they would both report that they appear to be at the centre of the universe (as far as we can tell).
Some folks have a theoretical problem with an infinite universe but that is what our observations tell us.

>>3256926

I told you before, watch the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

>>3256917
This. The big bang may only look like an event with a "before", because we are looking back at it down time. We don't really understand what time represents, but it is tied up with space.

Asking what happened before the big bang might literally be like asking what lies north of the north pole, if you are not aware the earth is spherical.

>>3256926

Dimensions. That force had no dimension. It was a zero dimensional object. The lack of dimensions was unable to contain all of that force, so the pressure formed 3D space.

>>3256926
>still asked for a cause of an event when time just started.

>>3256906
My problem with that video is that he talks about quantum fluctuations for maybe 5 minutes in a hour long lecture

>>3256912
shadows are not a thing and it's impossible to communicate FTL

>>3256949

because the lecture is for derps who with very little background on the subject like the OP.

>>3256957
> shadows are not a thing

Never said they were, although this is more of a philosophical question.

> it's impossible to communicate FTL

Yep. The fact that you can make shadows and spotlights move faster than light from a third point does not violate this. Think about it.

>>3256959
>>3256959
> derps who with very little background on the subject like the OP.

Fuck off, it's good the OP is showing an interest.

Not having background does not make you a derp if you can learn the stuff, which you can. If OP wants any specific stuff, I can recommend other materials.

I'll watch the video later (going to sleep soon), but thanks all for sharing what you know, this stuff is really interesting

I felt like asking about thus stuff because I was fed up of getting into arguments with christians / theists over the "who/what caused the big bang" question... they would put me on the spot for being an atheist but not knowing the answers to these kinds of questions

but thanks again for everyone's contribution, it's definitely helped to open my mind about the subject

>>3256978
I didn't mean it to be an insult. I'm just saying its an introductory lecture and it doesn't go into detail, but its a great place to start.

>>3256991
I apologize then, that was misguided enthusiasm for OP, almost.

>>3256986
Note that even if you didn't have the answers, that would not imply being an atheist is irrational. You're claiming a lack of religious belief, not committing yourself to knowing everything.

since when is derp a noun?
When the universe formed, the whole thing expanded rapidly, meaning that on a wide scale the two sides moved faster than light relative to each other. As it expanded it cooled, and the expansion slowed down. All the while it was also growing larger at its edge, which is, and was, expanding at the speed of light.

Impossible to know.

Simple as that. One day, maybe, we may know. Not in the foreseeable future, however.