No Big Bang?

[Guest]

An interesting new theory (applying quantum corrections to General Relativity) seems to suggest that the Big Bang didn't happen and that the universe has existed forever (to which my brain is now screaming "How did it exist in the first place??????").

http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html

[starnut]

Some of us all ready knew that

[Ronnie67]

I think it's a load of rubbish myself, it's as if I said the universe emerged from a large super black hole whereby all the mass of the universe could not be contained and eventually the black hole gave way and caboom the Big Bang emerged. Have a nice day! Ha ha ha

[Dave Lloyd]

I think it's a load of rubbish myself, it's as if I said the universe emerged from a large super black hole whereby all the mass of the universe could not be contained and eventually the black hole gave way and caboom the Big Bang emerged. Have a nice day! Ha ha ha

What about the scenario where all the matter in a previous universe is sucked into a colossal black hole and then caboomed out into the big bang of the next one.

[SacRiker]

What about the scenario where all the matter in a previous universe is sucked into a colossal black hole and then caboomed out into the big bang of the next one.

That's the one I like.  Maybe not a previous universe, but just another universe...part of the multiverse. 

[ollypenrice]

An interesting new theory (applying quantum corrections to General Relativity) seems to suggest that the Big Bang didn't happen and that the universe has existed forever (to which my brain is now screaming "How did it exist in the first place??????").

http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.htm

You can't ask this because the question is self contradictory. If there was a 'forever' then there wasn't 'a first place.' you can't logically have both in the same sentence. Each excludes tho other. It's like saying, 'If my car is white, how come it's black?' Or, 'If I'm single, how come I'm married?'

Olly

[RobH]

I read about this yesterday. Interesting.

The whole singularity concept in some ways makes no sense except as a mathematical concept. If something is infinitely small, then it isn't there, and something that isn't there can have no mass.

Very very small, yes. Infinitely small. No.

This approach suggests that all of the mass in the universe was compressed into a very small, but not infinitely small, space.

[thanders]

Nobody knows.

/T

[RobH]

Nobody knows.

/T

Precisely why it's studied.

[Dave Lloyd]

Our minds constrained by 3 dimensions and moving at a steady rate down a one way timeline can't conceive of things outside of this. We instinctively feel the concept of infinity and eternity but can't visualise it. I know abstract mathematical genii can demonstrate these things but do they actually picture it. What colour is ultraviolet. Do we put red next to violet on the colour wheel simply because our minds need to.

[Jussi]

 We instinctively feel the concept of infinity and eternity but can't visualise it. I know abstract mathematical genii can demonstrate..

Quite right Dave..       trying to intelectualize such concepts (with logic) , is beyond us , and probably always will be.

It becomes metaphysical thought.    - Which is not allowed on here ..

[pevsfreedom]

Nobody knows.

/T

"What's unfathomable about the Universe is that it is meant at all to be fathomable" 

or something like that. 

[ollypenrice]

I read about this yesterday. Interesting.

The whole singularity concept in some ways makes no sense except as a mathematical concept. If something is infinitely small, then it isn't there, and something that isn't there can have no mass.

Very very small, yes. Infinitely small. No.

This approach suggests that all of the mass in the universe was compressed into a very small, but not infinitely small, space.

I don't know. If something is infinitely small it has no spacial extension and, while the idea that it might still have mass is unreasonable to us, might that not still be the case? In these extreme circumstances I think we have to forget 'reasonable.' Or to come at it another way, 'If something is infinitely small it isn't there' - but it might be somewhere else. Perhaps it relocates into unidentifiable dimensions.

Well I did say, 'Perhaps!' 

Olly

[andrew s]

I don't know. If something is infinitely small it has no spacial extension and, while the idea that it might still have mass is unreasonable to us, might that not still be the case? In these extreme circumstances I think we have to forget 'reasonable.' Or to come at it another way, 'If something is infinitely small it isn't there' - but it might be somewhere else. Perhaps it relocates into unidentifiable dimensions.

Well I did say, 'Perhaps!' 

Olly

As an every day example an electron is as real as any particle known but has defied any and all attempts to measure its size- you get zero as the answer within the experimental limits. This is not an uncertainty issue as you can measure its dimensions to arbitrary accuracy as long as you don't try to measure where it is at the same time!

Regards Andrew