Horizon: How Big Is the Universe? (T) Mon 21:00

[treadlightly]

This is all fascinating and confusing.

One thing I'd like to understand better is this. If there was nothing before the Big Bang, given that it created time and space, what caused it and where did it happen?

 

[mountainm]

This is all fascinating and confusing.

One thing I'd like to understand better is this. If there was nothing before the Big Bang, given that it created time and space, what caused it and where did it happen?

You're falling into the causation trap. We're conditioned to look for cause and effect. But perhaps - in this case things just "are".

 

[DUCky]

This is all fascinating and confusing.

One thing I'd like to understand better is this. If there was nothing before the Big Bang, given that it created time and space, what caused it and where did it happen?

Colliding branes is one theory

 

[treadlightly]

Colliding branes is one theory

??? Please explain

 

[HillBill]

If someone actually get the theory correct, then its very easy to prove.

I reckon you could build the thing to prove it at home for about £20 tops, if it works then whoever built the LHC is gonna look silly lol

 

[treadlightly]

You're falling into the causation trap. We're conditioned to look for cause and effect. But perhaps - in this case things just "are".

I'm afraid that doesn't leave me any wiser. If something happened to cause the Big Bang, which created time and space, then it must have happened outside of time and space?? So, where did it happen and what is it that can exist outside of time and space?

 

[mountainm]

I'm afraid that doesn't leave me any wiser. If something happened to cause the Big Bang, which created time and space, then it must have happened outside of time and space?? So, where did it happen and what is it that can exist outside of time and space?

What if nothing happened to cause the big bang, what if it just happened. Why does something have to have a prior state? We are conditioned to look for the root causes of things and the final destination of things.

But in the case of the universe - it wasn't, and then - it was.

No cause, no before, nothing.

Otherwise - it's turtles all the way down, you have to draw the line somewhere else you fall into a recursion loop. What existed before the universe, and before that? And before that etc....

 

[HillBill]

Nothing can exist that wasnt created by at least 2 other things. Nothing. I challenge you to find anything natural that doesnt need 2 other natural things to create it

The universe was, and then was again. and again and again. But the scale is different imo. One inside another inside another outside 2 more lol

Infinite replication, it has no end or beginning. It just IS. Yet always WAS and always will be. Universe is just a way to describe the extent of all we can see. But that doesnt mean thats all there is or was

 

[DUCky]

Nothing can exist that wasnt created by at least 2 other things. Nothing. I challenge you to find anything natural that doesnt need 2 other natural things to create it

Quantum fluctuation (the "temporary appearance of energetic particles out of nothing"), or is that not natural

 

[HillBill]

Who says they come from nothing? Nothing cant exist, If it did it would be defined as such, and would then be something

Just had a read ( im no academic nor scientist nor follower of science) and what it says is that those particles are a temporary change in the amount of energy. Not new energy creation. So if they are a change then they are created by the original source of energy, whatever that may be.

I'll have to read more into it though

But if they are temporary and not sustained, are they created or just by products of something else? Kind of like the LHC colliding the particles or whatever it does. They may be able to create an effect but i bet they cant sustain the effect and make it grow with the LHC. Motion of the ocean is all wrong

 

[DUCky]

Who says they come from nothing? Nothing cant exist, If it did it would be defined as such, and would then be something

Just had a read ( im no academic nor scientist nor follower of science) and what it says is that those particles are a temporary change in the amount of energy. Not new energy creation. So if they are a change then they are created by the original source of energy, whatever that may be.

I'll have to read more into it though

But if they are temporary and not sustained, are they created or just by products of something else? Kind of like the LHC colliding the particles or whatever it does. They may be able to create an effect but i bet they cant sustain the effect and make it grow with the LHC. Motion of the ocean is all wrong

Quantum fluctuations are linked to the uncertainty principle (and also play a key part in the colliding brane theory I mentioned earlier). Particles appear and disappear (from nothing and to nothing) like guerilla warriors. Crazy stuff happens in quantum mechanics
To quote Feynman:"If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."

 

[treadlightly]

Yet all the stuff I have read suggests that the universe is 14 billion years old, that is it had a start point 14 billion years ago. Does that not contradict the idea that it always was?

I also still can't understand the idea that it could have created itself from nothing.

 

[mountainm]

Yet all the stuff I have read suggests that the universe is 14 billion years old, that is it had a start point 14 billion years ago. Does that not contradict the idea that it always was?

I also still can't understand the idea that it could have created itself from nothing.

No - it just suggests that time started at that point as before time we can't measure... time.

Is it easier to comprehend that it has always existed in some state or other - rather than it was created from nothing?

 

[treadlightly]

No - it just suggests that time started at that point as before time we can't measure... time.

Is it easier to comprehend that it has always existed in some state or other - rather than it was created from nothing?

Yes it is. Are you saying that it may have existed in a state which didn't allow time to exist?

 

[HillBill]

No - it just suggests that time started at that point as before time we can't measure... time.

Is it easier to comprehend that it has always existed in some state or other - rather than it was created from nothing?

Ah but theres where the trip up occurs. They measure time by measuring light. But what comes before light

AxN P M S L(ight) F Q

 

[HillBill]

Gonna have to read up on some of it

Quantum fluctuations are linked to the uncertainty principle (and also play a key part in the colliding brane theory I mentioned earlier). Particles appear and disappear (from nothing and to nothing) like guerilla warriors. Crazy stuff happens in quantum mechanics
To quote Feynman:"If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."

 

[HillBill]

I'd say it existed in a state that doesnt allow us to measure time through light. Something created light. But what.........

Yes it is. Are you saying that it may have existed in a state which didn't allow time to exist?

 

[mountainm]

Yes it is. Are you saying that it may have existed in a state which didn't allow time to exist?

As a species we struggle with something from nothing, we are suspicious of it -

thus we create something intangible which always has been and always is which in turn creates something that comes from nothing. The layer of abstraction between the the creator and the created seems to make us feel more comfortable but it just moves the problem. What then created the creator.

Something that always was/is makes us feel secure, as surely if something can come from nothing then just as easily nothing can come from something *click* GONE. So we cling to a rock - the ever permanent lighthouse that guides our way through he philosophical quagmire of existence.

But in truth the only thing in existence you can be sure of is yourself, and even then you can't prove to yourself you exist or even existed beyond the moment you currently inhabit.

 

[DUCky]

Yes it is. Are you saying that it may have existed in a state which didn't allow time to exist?

Quite recent theories state that the big bang was a "phase change" in the 'stuff of the universe'. Like liquid water and ice (same stuff but different phase).

Good stuff guys, if we continue like this we are bound to find the ultimate question of life the universe and everything (of course we all know the answer to that question is 42)

 

[santaman2000]

Indeed, since time is a relatively new invention created by man, man creates time,man says time exists, did time exist before man ? I suppose since things need their opposite to exist anyway, light/dark, cold/hot etc...

Actually, even now, "cold" does NOT exist; there is heat, and then there is the absense of heat. Cols is just a word to describe a condition that is devoid of heat.