Before the big bang

[revots33]

what existed, if anything?

I am not well read on cosmology so just wondering what people think/have read about it.

Thanks.

[Magic_Man]

I had a small epiphany years ago while pondering this question. The way most people (I think) imagine the big bang, they envision a huge sea of blackness. A gigantic nothingness. Then, a tiny speck explodes into being, and starts growing and growing, exploding outwards with all the mass and energy of the universe.

The point is, they are imagining empty space existing, and the big bang simply filling the void and adding mass and other interesting properties. But this is not, as I understand it, the real story. Space and time did not exist before the big bang. There was no empty void for the big bang to fill. Space-time itself was created at the singularity, and "exploded" outwards at the speed of light. It is not quite enough to say there was "nothing" before the big bang. Before the big bang, there was Nothing.

~MagicMan

[FortunaMaximus]

Just an opinion: Nothing, with infinite potential.

Assuming this is the first iteration or first Universe. I don't think it is, but even so, there had to be a first Universe, so there you have it.

Now this is gibberish:

A probability flux with initial mathematical bubble-sets flickering in and out of existence until the starting conditions for a baryonic Universe are triggered. Since spacetime is self-contained, it goes through the evolution, creating its own Universal set.

Edit: Just saw Magic's post. Good, if I'm kooky, at least I have company. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Metric]

What existed before the big bang?

The same stuff that sits on the earth just south of the south pole.

[bunny]

The theory is that the big bang was the start of time and space. Thus, there was a time zero and there's no meaning to the question "what happened before that?" as anything which can be ascribed a time value has only occurred/existed subsequent to that event.

[John21]

One way to look at it, would be to imagine two identical but out of phase waves converging. When the peak of one wave met the valley of the other, they'd cancel each other out and for simplicities' sake - you'd have nothing.

So suppose you and I were holding the ends of a stretched out rope, and you started a wave motion with the rope by going up, and I started an identical wave motion going down. When our respective waves met, they would cancel each other out and we'd have nothing.

Now say you made a video of this experiment and gave it to someone to watch. And for whatever reason, their video player ran backwards. To the viewers it would appear that the motion started from nothing.

Sorry for the rather crude example. Its not the only version/theory, but it's one way to think of the problem.

[Lestat]

I've said this before, but it is just so friggin incredibly hard for me to imagine nothing. No time, no universe. Nothing.. To the point where I wonder whether it's even possible for such a nothing to exist.

I still say (and this is the equivelant of a toddler giving an opinion on string theory), that is HAS to do with higher dimensions somehow. I have no idea how that would work or even how that would be possible, but there has to be a universe, an entire existence, that is out there somewhere and simply beyond our sight or comprehension.

[FortunaMaximus]

Would it help to consider them planes instead of dimensions?

Dimensions in a box, boxes sitting on a plane. We don't know why the plane's there, or how it got there, since it's made of nothing. A sea that contains not water, but nothingness. The extra dimensions aren't necessarily mixed up in the box with the strong, obvious four, but hold the framework together. They are the walls of the box, if you will, and are more flexible and made of what seems to be an expanding mesh, and the obvious dimensions relate to these walls by hanging onto them and carrying information and instruction fluid back and forth.

It seems some thinkers (if not most) are able to comprehend of something like this, they just struggle to explain it in comprehensible terms. I just tried again, and I'm not sure if it's any help to anybody but myself.

[Lestat]

Thanks Fortuna -

That did help a little. Someone posted a link a while back to a guy explaining extra dimensions. Some said it was all wrong, but some said it was the best way to explain it. I guess my brain just doesn't work that way.

It is somewhat easy to understand the loaf of bread analogy. That we live on but slice and other slices exist all around us. We can't touch or see these slices due to our limited perspective from our own slice. There's a theory that two slices (dimensions?), perhaps bumped into one another and that's what created our universe. It could happen again at any moment and wipe away our universe, etc.

[evank15]

[ QUOTE ]
The point is, they are imagining empty space existing, and the big bang simply filling the void and adding mass and other interesting properties. But this is not, as I understand it, the real story. Space and time did not exist before the big bang. There was no empty void for the big bang to fill. Space-time itself was created at the singularity, and "exploded" outwards at the speed of light. It is not quite enough to say there was "nothing" before the big bang. Before the big bang, there was Nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes...it's similar to the question many uninformed but curious observers have about the universe. What comes after space? What lies beyond? Is there a wall? Where does space end?

It turns out all those questions are pretty much the same, and all of them are nonsensical. What they are are "category errors". Like asking what the colour orange "smells like". Or what fear "tastes like". Attaching characteristics to things that have no business exhibiting those characteristics.

The question posed by the OP is not a category error, but it is close. What was there? An infinitely small, infinitely dense singularity I guess. What was outside the singularity? Category error.

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
It turns out all those questions are pretty much the same, and all of them are nonsensical. What they are are "category errors". Like asking what the colour orange "smells like". Or what fear "tastes like". Attaching characteristics to things that have no business exhibiting those characteristics.

[/ QUOTE ]

Says who? Some dogma you learnt out of a physics textbook? You're wrong.

Even quantum probability isn't contained to one possible Universe. If you can't get past that, good luck.

[evank15]

I'm not taking into account multiple/parallel universes.

Don't underestimate what can be learned out of a physics textbook.

And it's constrained, not contained. Very bad catachresis.

Ok here's one. Where is the edge of the universe? What lies beyond that edge?

What are the answers to those questions?

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not taking into account multiple/parallel universes.

Don't underestimate what can be learned out of a physics textbook.

And it's constrained, not contained. Very bad catachresis.

Ok here's one. Where is the edge of the universe? What lies beyond that edge?

What are the answers to those questions?

[/ QUOTE ]

Neither am I, evan.

I don't underestimate it. I absorb what's discussed here. And I have a quantum gravity textbook. Better believe I'll eat that with relish.

Semantic. There are no constraints because the boundaries work like a tesseract would. I can visualize one. I'm just that crazy.

Remove the necessity for a enclosed catch-all set, and you see where this is going. It isn't multiple and parallel universes. That's weak and incorrect.

It's a multiverse. Multiple probabilistic bubbles in nothingness, and some of those bubbles develop initial conditions for baryonic universes. Are multiple baryonic universes capable of interconnection? I'm not sure of that, but I can't rule that out either.

Are there other universes? Sure. The conditions can repeat themselves. How many probability bubbles are there? Zero. Not none. Because if they run their iteration and don't sustain spacetime probabilities, they finish their probability string. They might repeat again, and go back into nothingness.

How long has the process taken? Zero time. This probability bubble has run an 13.9Gy iteration, and is still expanding. It has no temporal or spatial frame of reference to the probability field.

(Dude, I realize there are flaws. I'm accommodating and willing to take in new information. I'm sure that's been noticed. It's an initutive theory based on what I understand already, and I deliberately put dumbman triggers on my own development because I kept going certifiable.)

[Magic_Man]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok here's one. Where is the edge of the universe?

[/ QUOTE ]
About 15 billion light years that way --->
<------ and that way

^ and
| that
| way

| and
| that
| way
\/

[ QUOTE ]
What lies beyond that edge?

[/ QUOTE ]
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
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I know, it blows my mind too. I'm with Lestat on this one, that I ponder whether it is even possible. I'm a big fan of multiverse theories though.

~MagicMan

[Magic_Man]

[ QUOTE ]
How long has the process taken? Zero time. This probability bubble has run an 13.9Gy iteration, and is still expanding. It has no temporal or spatial frame of reference to the probability field.

[/ QUOTE ]

My brain just exploded.

~MagicMan

[madnak]

If the universe is a donut, what happens when God takes a bite out of it?

[FortunaMaximus]

Torrential diarrhea in the shape of a toroid?

[madnak]

Then dark matter is God's poop?

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
Then dark matter is God's poop?

[/ QUOTE ]

How fast would the Universe have to be moving in a pure vacuum to account for the mass disparities? Blackshifting...

Moumentum follows moumentum in an orbit. Mass chasing mass.

Dog chases its own tail, or the tail or other dogs. Probably its own.

[reddog12]

Infinity implies a multiverse comprised of an infinite number of universes, one of which we find ourselves in.

If you go back before the big bang, you still find yourself in an infinite series without beginning or end.

Time likewise extends infinitely forwards and backwards, without end.

In other words, don't envision Nothing, envision Infinity.

[Skidoo]

Preceding the Big Bang was the Big Foreplay, also know as the "anything goes" period because "before" time there could be no causality.

[KUJustin]

I don't mean to be snotty here, but it's honestly amazing to read these thoughts and then read the posts about how silly people are for believing in God.

I know for me that weirdness of "how did things begin?" does not prove a God, but God is definitely a no more outrageous thought than many of the theories here.

[MidGe]

[ QUOTE ]
I know for me that weirdness of "how did things begin?" does not prove a God, but God is definitely a no more outrageous thought than many of the theories here.

[/ QUOTE ]
No more outrageous than an infinite number of theories, Spaghetti monster, Easter bunny, unicorns, leprechauns, etc.. etc, and whatever else you can imagine! Why would your god be a special or more valid theory, or, better termed, an artifact of your imagination? Theories are very easy, having a theory that can be proven to fit facts is much harder, and only one of them will be real!

[madnak]

You're absolutely right.

The Christian God, however, is far more outrageous than all of these ideas combined.

[madnak]

Indeed. Nobody here has faith in any of these hypotheses, certainly none would stake their souls or identities on them. It's harmless speculation, nothing more. As Fortuna said, he'd rather be wrong 98 times out of 100 and reach meaningful conclusions the other 2 times than be right all the time but never find anything worthwhile.

Now, if someone were to claim that they knew what happened "before the big bang," and woe unto those who suggest otherwise, they'd be yahoos.

[revots33]

[ QUOTE ]
I've said this before, but it is just so friggin incredibly hard for me to imagine nothing. No time, no universe. Nothing.. To the point where I wonder whether it's even possible for such a nothing to exist.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with this which is why I asked the question.

The idea of time not existing is almost impossible for me to wrap my mind around. For example, if I could somehow travel to the very edge of our universe and then step "over the edge", so to speak - would I then cease to exist? Likewise if I could somehow travel back in time, if I went back far enough (to before the big bang) I would cease to exist?

It seems to me that the singularity or whatever you want to call it must either have been infinite or else created from something else. How can time be created from nothing? I've read a few arguments online of the universe "creating itself" but it just doesn't seem rational to me.

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't mean to be snotty here, but it's honestly amazing to read these thoughts and then read the posts about how silly people are for believing in God.

I know for me that weirdness of "how did things begin?" does not prove a God, but God is definitely a no more outrageous thought than many of the theories here.

[/ QUOTE ]

&lt;shrugs&gt; I certainly can't find a feasible argument to discredit God entirely. However, even the entity would simply be another iterative bubble. And in that context, this Universe would be a set enclosed by the bracket of God.

<font color="purple">Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.</font>

[morphball]

Before the Big Bang there was an expanding universe, expanding toward infinity. When the Universe reached infinity, the Universe once again equalled zero because zero equals infinity, then the Big Bang happened again, and again and again and again...

[evank15]

[ QUOTE ]
When the Universe reached infinity

[/ QUOTE ]

huh?

[rcs1537]

[ QUOTE ]
Before the Big Bang there was an expanding universe, expanding toward infinity. When the Universe reached infinity, the Universe once again equalled zero because zero equals infinity, then the Big Bang happened again, and again and again and again...

[/ QUOTE ]

Does zero really = infinity?

[bunny]

[ QUOTE ]
Does zero really = infinity?

[/ QUOTE ]
No

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Does zero really = infinity?

[/ QUOTE ]
No!

[/ QUOTE ]

[Insp. Clue!So?]

[ QUOTE ]


Quote:
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Ok here's one. Where is the edge of the universe?


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About 15 billion light years that way ---&gt;
&lt;------ and that way

^ and
| that
| way

| and
| that
| way
\/


Quote:
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What lies beyond that edge?


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Code:
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|\ || \ || \|othing.

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I know, it blows my mind too. I'm with Lestat on this one, that I ponder whether it is even possible. I'm a big fan of multiverse theories though.

~MagicMan




[/ QUOTE ]


I think this is incorrect. What you describe is the known, visible universe, a product of the light cone available to us from the start of the Big Bang.

In reality the Universe is much, much, much bigger. One estimate I've read, from physicist Vic Stenger, puts it at potentially 10^10^14, a number so big it doesn't particularly matter whether you use inches or miles as your unit. Presumably what lies beyond your graph is not "nothing" but virtually endless amounts of more of the same. If it is all randomly distributed, there is enough matter to repeat multiple instances you indentical "yous". Though it probably isn't randomly distributed in that sense.

[FortunaMaximus]

Does Stenger successfully explain what happens if a singularity goes off within the lightcone of an Universe?

Curious.

[CityFan]

I enjoyed this:
Amazon (http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Universe-Got-Its-Spots/dp/0753813769/ref=ed_oe_p/202-8366151-3045405)

Even if, for a pure mathematician, 90% of the theory is pretty basic.

[Insp. Clue!So?]

I doubt it, since we don't actually know what a "singularity" is. It could be strictly a condition of temporary "nothingness". He does like to say that the very reason there is something is because "nothing" is inherently unstable.

http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/

[FortunaMaximus]

It's one of my main preoccupations, temporal and multiverse theory. Fanciful for the most part, and my technical background needs a lot of work.

But this is far beyond intriguing for me. Thanks much for the link.

Yeah, "nothing" is not static and stable. I agree with that much, in principle.

[Raydain]

It's likely the universe is not a sphere. Instead it could be some other shape. Could easily be something that falls back on itself so that there is no "edge" of the universe. Have a powerful enough telescope and you may see earth when looking at space.

[John21]

[ QUOTE ]
It's likely the universe is not a sphere. Instead it could be some other shape. Could easily be something that falls back on itself so that there is no "edge" of the universe. Have a powerful enough telescope and you may see earth when looking at space.

[/ QUOTE ]

How long would it take the light waves from the earth to reach your telescope?

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It's likely the universe is not a sphere. Instead it could be some other shape. Could easily be something that falls back on itself so that there is no "edge" of the universe. Have a powerful enough telescope and you may see earth when looking at space.

[/ QUOTE ]

How long would it take the light waves from the earth to reach your telescope?

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. Just saw where you were going with that question. Trippy. Round it goes, stumble, round it goes, stumble.

Lends credence to some thoughts I had about oscillating multiple universes.

You know, some camera settings, you hold down the button and it takes multiple snapshots across a time frame.

Develop it, there are multiple images within an image.

Hmph.

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
It's likely the universe is not a sphere. Instead it could be some other shape. Could easily be something that falls back on itself so that there is no "edge" of the universe. Have a powerful enough telescope and you may see earth when looking at space.

[/ QUOTE ]

Patterns are scalar, right? Satellite orbits, planetary orbits, solar orbits, galactic orbits...

The universe could be in motion. The shape might not be spherical, but uneven and defined by (uhh, don't ask, I don't think there are terms to describe that) some esoteric attraction.

A harmonic concert and freeforming orbit with other Universes. As such, there wouldn't necessarily be a focal point, because even that is scalar.

[John21]

[ QUOTE ]
Lends credence to some thoughts I had about oscillating multiple universes.


[/ QUOTE ]

Is that in line with what Hawking et al are saying? It seems they're thinking of the big bang more along the lines of an eternal pulse.

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Lends credence to some thoughts I had about oscillating multiple universes.


[/ QUOTE ]

Is that in line with what Hawking et al are saying? It seems they're thinking of the big bang more along the lines of an eternal pulse.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm. I didn't know they were saying that. But I did scan something on 'brane theory a ways back and tumbled over the ideas a bit.

A pulse would be interesting, as it'd allow for a lot of quantum ramifications, i.e. many-worlds theory. As a whole, I'm sure a consistent framework linking the two could be made, the pulsing would have to have overall coherence for an overall balance where the mathematics were conccerned.

Um, correlations between particles, mirror effects. The only reason Heisenberg is completely uncertain at this point is the one-Universe bias. Borrowed particles, mirror particles, consistent mass distribution across a multiverse.

It'd remove the issue of temporal discontinuity and the apparent energy impossibility surronding temporal travel.

Time is continous, yes, but it is expanding, not travelling linearly. I know it's fairly accepted that it is not directionally biased.

[thylacine]

[ QUOTE ]
what existed, if anything?

I am not well read on cosmology so just wondering what people think/have read about it.

Thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are two possibilities. Either something existed before the big bang (and there various speculative but respectable theories in which the big bang emerges from a previously existing state), Or else the question is meaningless.

You might as well ask "what was there before anything existed?" (This is (possibly) a different question to what you asked, but you are probably interested anyway.) But the question does not make sense. "Before" only makes sense in the context of time, and time is contained within "everything" that exists. You cannot even make any connection to the outside of "everything" in the first place.

[Semtex]

I try to think of things like this from time to time and it makes my head hurt. From little I understand of theoretical physics, us lowly humans who have evolved in a 3 dimensional reality will 99-100% never know the truth about questions like this.

[reddog12]

There is a Giant walking around, who lives alone in his Land.

Our universe resides inside an atom inside a nail inside the Giant's shoe.

The multiverse, which includes all separate unique universes, resides in the Giant's shoes. We happen to be in his left shoe.

The Giant is immortal, and he has no idea about any of this.

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
There is a Giant walking around, who lives alone in his Land.

Our universe resides inside an atom inside a nail inside the Giant's shoe.

The multiverse, which includes all separate unique universes, resides in the Giant's shoes. We happen to be in his left shoe.

The Giant is immortal, and he has no idea about any of this.

[/ QUOTE ]

And if this is to succeed, he can't have an inkling of his own immortality initially.

And he can walk around in his own shoe, or at the very least deal with one.

[Semtex]

[ QUOTE ]
There is a Giant walking around, who lives alone in his Land.

Our universe resides inside an atom inside a nail inside the Giant's shoe.

The multiverse, which includes all separate unique universes, resides in the Giant's shoes. We happen to be in his left shoe.

The Giant is immortal, and he has no idea about any of this.

[/ QUOTE ]
If its just him, what makes him giant?