Big Bang theory just does not make sense

[Knighty2112]

2 minutes ago, saac said:

Gus I get that. It's an excellent and entirely natural question and as much as it is unsatisfactory but as others have said "science" is not really equipped to answer that.  So that takes us back to what the Big Bang theory sets out to do.  It is up front and as honest as can be, it sets out only to describe how the universe evolved (the stages of its evolution), it makes no claim to do anything other than that.  In that respect, and given the compelling supporting evidence, it does seem pretty secure, maybe not perfect thankfully  - some things still to be reconciled, but pretty solid nonetheless.  I don't think we are then kicking the can down the road, not with the Big Bang theory anyway.  Maybe what we are doing is looking at an altogether different question and getting frustrated because science can't help out with that one. 

Jim 

Hi Jim. I agree. In all honesty I started off my initial post wrong. As such I don’t have an issue with the big bang theory itself. I am OK with that. It is what happened in the before part which science cannot answer that niggles away at me still.  

[saac]

21 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

Hi Jim. I agree. In all honesty I started off my initial post wrong. As such I don’t have an issue with the big bang theory itself. I am OK with that. It is what happened in the before part which science cannot answer that niggles away at me still.  

I totally agree, the "what happened before", "what conditions caused this" has to be the logical conclusion to this. I may well be havering here, somebody who actually knows what they are talking about can correct me !  I think I read that to study the conditions closer to t = 0  would need a particle collider with a diameter equivalent to the orbit of Jupiter or the Moon!  Most likely wrong but it's the sentiment that counts, "we need a bigger boat" and all that  

Here's my parting thought. Isn't it funny that we are not content  (and rightly so) with getting to Andrew's 0.0001 s  of a 13.8 Gy story. I mean, it's utterly amazing that we have been able to do this right? Most of it hard won, with some serious intellectual capital spent, but also elements of luck (the microwave hiss and the Bell Lab engineers). But we are never content, each new advance  always brings more questions. We are constantly asking what is over the other side of that hill  

Jim

Edited August 22, 2023 by saac

[Ags]

Yes but that 0.0001 s is the bit that counts.

[Knighty2112]

30 minutes ago, saac said:

I totally agree, the "what happened before", "what conditions caused this" has to be the logical conclusion to this. I may well be havering here, somebody who actually knows what they are talking about can correct me !  I think I read that to study the conditions closer to t = 0  would need a particle collider with a diameter equivalent to the orbit of Jupiter or the Moon!  Most likely wrong but it's the sentiment that counts, "we need a bigger boat" and all that  

Here's my parting thought. Isn't it funny that we are not content  (and rightly so) with getting to Andrew's 0.0001 s  of a 13.8 Gy story. I mean, it's utterly amazing that we have been able to do this right? Most of it hard won, with some serious intellectual capital spent, but also elements of luck (the microwave hiss and the Bell Lab engineers). But we are never content, each new advance  always brings more questions. We are constantly asking what is over the other side of that hill  

Jim

I believe currently when we answer some questions (in science on general) we open up a whole heap of new questions that then require further answers for. Maybe one day we will have that giant particle collider to help answer some of these deep questions further. I have heard the theory (not a fan of it myself) that our universe was created by an advanced civilisation, so maybe if we do create that giant particle collider in future we may inadvertently end up creating a universe within a universe with it in any of our future collisions!  

[andrew s]

8 hours ago, Ags said:

Yes but that 0.0001 s is the bit that counts.

Can you say why it's so important to you?

I don't think it can explain anything we can observe. Things like nucleosynthesis, the ratio of the initial nuclei, is already covered with what we can explain.

If you are not concerned with observable things then you don't need a scientific theory types others will do.

Regards Andrew 

Edited August 23, 2023 by andrew s

[YogSothoth]

10 hours ago, saac said:

That is not a bad ratio at all  

Jim 

We can see even further back than that, to t = 10^-43 s. Beyond that the laws of physics become too spooky for us to understand (at the moment).

Edited August 23, 2023 by YogSothoth

[malc-c]

Guys we all know the answer is 42 and the Earth is just an experiment by white mice - what more is there to understand 😆

[Macavity]

A national newspaper - Which claims NOT to retain information on posters,
once declared it had evidence (DATA!) that its *least* "trolled" articles were 
on Science! To any/most scientists, that must the most obvious of fallacies... 😛

[Knighty2112]

4 hours ago, malc-c said:

Guys we all know the answer is 42 and the Earth is just an experiment by white mice - what more is there to understand 😆

And here’s me thinking it was turtles all the way down that the earth stood on! Would mice and turtles mix well?  

[Mandy D]

28 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

And here’s me thinking it was turtles all the way down that the earth stood on! Would mice and turtles mix well?  

I thought it was elephants standing on the backs of turtles. Or maybe it was turtles standing on the backs of elephants. I can never remember. I think Weinberg discusses this with a quote from The Younger Edda in the opening sentences of his book, The First Three Minutes. I recall there was also some salt and a cow.

[Knighty2112]

7 minutes ago, Mandy D said:

I thought it was elephants standing on the backs of turtles. Or maybe it was turtles standing on the backs of elephants. I can never remember. I think Weinberg discusses this with a quote from The Younger Edda in the opening sentences of his book, The First Three Minutes. I recall there was also some salt and a cow.

Ah, mythologies get plagiarised quite easily so one gets incorporated into another culture/religion/area which can crate a confusing kaleidoscope of turtles, cows and perhaps mice too over the centuries! Not heard about any salt though?   

Edited August 23, 2023 by Knighty2112

[Mandy D]

11 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

Ah, mythologies get plagiarised quite easily so one gets incorporated into another culture/religion/area which can crate a confusing kaleidoscope of turtles, cows and perhaps mice too over the centuries! Not heard about any salt though?   

Ah, you've forced me to extract the book from my bookcase, now . |Here is the verbatim quote from the Introducttion ...

"I

"Introduction: the Giant and the Cow

"The origin of the universe is explained in the Younger Edda, a collection of Norse myths compiled around 1220 by the Icelandic magnate Snorri Sturkeson. In the begining, says the Edda, there was nothing at all. 'Earth was not found, nor Heaven above, a Yawning-gap there was, but grass nowhere.' To the north and south of nothing lay regions of frost and fire, Niflheim and Muspelheim. The heat from Muspelheim melted some of the frost from Niflheim, and from the liquid drops there grew a giant, Ymer. What did Ymer eat? Well, there was also a cow, Audhumla. And what did she eat? Well, there was also some salt. And so on."

If you ever visit Iceland, you must do the Golden Circle tour, where the guide will tell you all about the little people. All over Iceland you will see rocks painted with doors and windows where they live. Planning permission can be refused on the grounds that fairies or elves live on the land.

[Xilman]

A number of confusions about the Big Bang arise from the fact there are at least two interpretations of that term.

The observational evidence is very strong that the universe was once extremely hot, extremely dense and expanding. By "extremely" I mean compared with what we see around us in the present universe.

In one interpretation, the conservative one, "Big Bang" labels the universe when it was in that state. If you believe in inflationary theory, and many do because it is a persuasive explanation for a number of observable things in the universe, the Big Bang started the moment inflation stopped in our region of the universe.

Another definition of the Big Bang describes the condition of the universe immediately before inflation starts in our portion of the universe. There are many models of this. Some extrapolate back to a primordial singularity and posit a quantum fluctuation created both space and time. Others posit an infinite universe, one portion of which started inflating. Others posit a collapsing universe which then bounced once the conditions became possible for inflation to happe3n.

My personal favourite is the first definition. The nature of quantum gravity is not yet well understood enough to make pre-inflation predictions with any degree of confidence.

 

 

[Andy ES]

4 hours ago, Knighty2112 said:

Ah, mythologies get plagiarised quite easily so one gets incorporated into another culture/religion/area which can crate a confusing kaleidoscope of turtles, cows and perhaps mice too over the centuries! Not heard about any salt though?   

Careful, I used the g word this morning and got instantly culled.

 

[Knighty2112]

3 minutes ago, Andy ES said:

Careful, I used the g word this morning and got instantly culled.

 

Oh Zeus! I better be careful then!  

[John]

It would be helpful if the original poster could give a few examples of the specific questions that he has on the big bang. In the absence of that we seem to have been left to make our own up !

(which we seem to be quite adept at of course 🙂)

 

Edited August 23, 2023 by John

[Zermelo]

2 minutes ago, John said:

In the absence of that we seem to have been left to make our own up

A thread that's a bit like the big bang - starts with a small seed, blows up, gets messy, could go anywhere...

[Knighty2112]

4 hours ago, Mandy D said:

Ah, you've forced me to extract the book from my bookcase, now . |Here is the verbatim quote from the Introducttion ...

"I

"Introduction: the Giant and the Cow

"The origin of the universe is explained in the Younger Edda, a collection of Norse myths compiled around 1220 by the Icelandic magnate Snorri Sturkeson. In the begining, says the Edda, there was nothing at all. 'Earth was not found, nor Heaven above, a Yawning-gap there was, but grass nowhere.' To the north and south of nothing lay regions of frost and fire, Niflheim and Muspelheim. The heat from Muspelheim melted some of the frost from Niflheim, and from the liquid drops there grew a giant, Ymer. What did Ymer eat? Well, there was also a cow, Audhumla. And what did she eat? Well, there was also some salt. And so on."

If you ever visit Iceland, you must do the Golden Circle tour, where the guide will tell you all about the little people. All over Iceland you will see rocks painted with doors and windows where they live. Planning permission can be refused on the grounds that fairies or elves live on the land.

Just looked it up in a couple of books I have on mythology. Quite an interesting creation myth there involving a first giant, a cow, some ice and salt with a bit of fire thrown in too! I believe a few Nordic countries do a similar thing with painting doors etc all over the place in nature for the wee people! 

[Knighty2112]

2 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

A thread that's a bit like the big bang - starts with a small seed, blows up, gets messy, could go anywhere...

Well, if nothing else we are learning a bit about mythology on the way!  

[maw lod qan]

When I think about it, my biggest stumbling block is at the point where nothing goes bang and everything we know is out there now became.

Do I believe it possible? Yes. Do I believe it happened? Oh yeah!

There is still too much we don't understand.

Seeing how hard we try to find the answer, I ask myself, do we really want to? Or better yet, should we?

One of the most incredible steps in the progress of humans, was when we learned to split the atom, creating unbelievable power.

I might not have it perfect, but Oppenheimer said something along the line of "I am become Shiva, destroyer of worlds!, seeing the atomic test.

Do we really want to figure out how to possibly take nothing, and be able to destroy everything?

 

[wesdon1]

On 22/08/2023 at 13:55, michael8554 said:

So much of cosmology is unproven theories.

Do Back Holes exist ? We don't know, but the evidence suggests they do, but they are unproven.

Do Dark Energy and Dark Matter exist ? We don't know, they are just theories.

Same with the Big Bang.

Michael

@michael8554 Hi Mike. My friend, as far as I'm aware, we have already proven that Black Holes exist, not only that, we have actual photographic images of them. Furthermore, we have also detected indirect evidence for their existence with LIGO, the gravitational wave detector. It detects gravitational waves in the fabric ( spacetime ) of the universe. Please google "proof that black holes actually exist" and you will find 100's of academic papers related to the subject, not to mention thousands of scientific articles, stories, images, etc etc etc. 

Unless i'm mistaken/have misunderstood what you were actually saying my friend? If so, I'm sorry.

One question I am DESPERATE for an answer for is ... 

Where did the universe and everything in it actually come from?? Who or what, if anything, created it?? I would give anything to know the answers!! 

all that considered, it does make me wonder if there is indeed a God that created the earth, the universe, because surely all this beauty and majesty of the cosmos couldn't have simply "appeared" from nothing and for absolutely no reason?? My goodness it's a tough one! 

 

 

[saac]

22 hours ago, Ags said:

Yes but that 0.0001 s is the bit that counts.

You may be disappointed, maybe nothing of merit happened down there, maybe like us on a Monday morning the universe took a moment before it really got going  

Jim 

[Ags]

I dunno, the question people ask is "how did all this start?" but the answer given only covers what happens afterwards. The total quantity of time expained is not relevant.

I know there are plenty of nonscientific explanations, but I want the sciency one.

[andrew s]

10 hours ago, Ags said:

I know there are plenty of nonscientific explanations, but I want the sciency one.

Then I fear you will be forever dissapointed.  I see no likelihood that we will be able to probe the required energy regime. 

To expand slightly.  Cosmology needs two main components.  Firstly,  a theory of gravity and second an equation of state.

For the extremes required to described the initial state we don't have either. A quantum theory of gravity, if it exists, remains as illusive as ever and as I mentioned we have no way of seeing how matter and radiation behave in these circumstances. 

Regards Andrew 

Edited August 24, 2023 by andrew s

[Mr Spock]

The big bang theory is exactly that, a theory. A theory consists of a number or observable phenomena and facts. It may. or may not, have more value than other theories - until something better comes along. A theory isn't a proof; a proof is when a theory is shown to be true by a number of methods and beyond a reasonable doubt.

All I can state as a proof is that I (and the whole of humanity) am (is) not intelligent or knowledgeable enough to determine where the universe and all the matter in it comes from. I find some of the explanations in theories like the big bang to be inadequate. 

I'm not going to strain my brain over this. I am content to understand what I do not understand. If I have a revelation about the origin of matter I'll let you know 😜