before the big bang??

[wylde99]

what do you guys think there was before the big bang??, IMO, there has to be someone, something!, you cant just say it was atoms, gases ect that made a explosion to form the universe, there has to be a creator of the creator, if you know what im saying, or am i just being thick lol.

[Saluki]

The question is meaningless. The event that created the universe also created space and time. Before time was created, there was no time, so there is no before the big bang.

Edit: It is sort of like asking what positive interger is less than zero. There are none.

[Blob]

The question is meaningless.

Hum,
perhaps not.
i came across Roger Penroses new theory that describes how time becomes `meaningless` when all the particles of the universe decay, and resets the whole universe to create a new big bang - a sort of oscillating universe (without the collapse).
The new universe will have all the finely set conditions inherited from this universe.

[baric]

what do you guys think there was before the big bang??, IMO, there has to be someone, something!, you cant just say it was atoms, gases ect that made a explosion to form the universe, there has to be a creator of the creator, if you know what im saying, or am i just being thick lol.

First of all, the big bang was not an "explosion," so I think you are just being thick.

[CyberWarrior]

Big bang is just big bull

[Inferno]

what do you guys think there was before the big bang??, IMO, there has to be someone, something!, you cant just say it was atoms, gases ect that made a explosion to form the universe, there has to be a creator of the creator, if you know what im saying, or am i just being thick lol.

Two broad schools of thought. (1) There was nothing before the big bang. Time itself started with the big bag. The common analogy is like saying what is north of the north pole. (2) The unvierse was in a completely different state of being. Do a search for "bane universe" or "bane theory". Totally bizarre.

Either one of these points still doesn't anwer your point that "there has to be a creator of the creator". Maybe that's true. Maybe the universe had to be created by something, such as God. But the problem with saying this is why stop there? What or who is the creator of God? Saying that God always existed to me makes no more or less sense than saying the universe came out of nothingness with the big bang.

[mantiss]

Two broad schools of thought. (1) There was nothing before the big bang. Time itself started with the big bag. The common analogy is like saying what is north of the north pole. (2) The unvierse was in a completely different state of being. Do a search for "bane universe" or "bane theory". Totally bizarre.

I am sure you really meant Brane Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brane_cosmology)

And however funny the Big Bag might have been (My God, it's full of cash!) I shall correct it to Big Bang :D

[Fortunate]

I don't think about this question much because I don't have a clue. Not exactly an award winning post, I suppose.:)

Well, now a few things occur to me. If the form of spacetime is intimately related to gravity, then we might need a theory of gravity over very small distances, areas, and volumes to be able to make convincing statements about the earliest times, eras during which our currently observable universe would have been very, very tiny. I love theory, but I would be most thrilled by some sort of experiment that could begin to probe or test small-scale gravity.

GLAST may have the ability to test a prediction of quantum loop gravity, and the large hadron collider may turn up evidence of extra dimensions. In the meantime, I'm comfortable with just not knowing the answer to the OP. Let the equipment do the work for a while.

Edit: I completely botched my posting. I meant to quote an earlier post of mine and accidentally edited (to the extent of virtually rewriting) the earlier post instead.

So if you were reading this thread and this post seemed to suddenly undergo a drastic change, that is what happened.

[Blob]

Hum,
As an update to my earlier post:
A month or so ago i would have said that the universe was formed by the coming together of two five dimensional membranes ; the branes broke down into our space time, and created all the stuff we see today.
The mechanism is essentially a one shot universe. Once combined the two membranes cannot be separated. (there was no way to get rid of space and time).

Some people did suggest a while ago about how you could bud off another universe from our universe if the conditions were right ( ie inside black hole or in a very empty universe at the end).
While that was acceptable the `problem` was that the two original membranes were still stuck together.

Getting rid of particles and time may allows the two membranes to separate.
For example the photons in the universe would not need an extra brane (5 dimensions) to exist. they can be constrained on one brane.

So the two membranes a can separate (with traces of the photons) and recombine again.

The recombination would be as fine-tuned and highly ordered as our universe, perhaps due to the fossil traces of photons from the old universe...and with the creation of new particles time would be created again....

[Thanatos]

I'm still stuck on the part about what all happened after the big bang. The before part makes my head hurt.

[beskeptical]

First of all, the big bang was not an "explosion," so I think you are just being thick.
Depends on how literal you want your definition of explosion to be. Sudden expansion on an incomprehensible scale in less than a second is an explosion, it just isn't the typical chemical reaction that the literal definition of explosion refers to.

[Fr. Wayne]

water, water , everywhere, and not a drop to drink....

[beskeptical]

water, water , everywhere, and not a drop to drink....????????

Little Jimmie is no more
cause what he thought was H2O was H2SO4

[farmerjumperdon]

It is a good question, but will always be a matter of faith. If the Universe does occilate, the crunch between iterations will prevent information from being passed - therefore it is not something that can be found out by scientific inquiry.

It is the realm of faith, and scientists who claim to be able to answer are of the same ilk as fundamentalists who step all over science.

We can construct models, and make guesses; but observational limits make "knowing" impossible.

[Wolverine]

Big bang is just big bull

Welcome to the board. Be sure to review our forum rules (http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?p=564845#post564845).

[Eckelston]

It's interesting how the common sense view of time doesn't allow it to have a beginning. I wonder why that is. Could be becouse we hold no memories from the beginning of our conciousness, so there's no experience of suddenly comming into being.

[mantiss]

Well the problem is conservation of information, and it has been theorized that there is no information that can endure through the Big Bang. Whatever was there before (IF there was anything in any shape) would have been totally obliterated.

[baric]

Depends on how literal you want your definition of explosion to be. Sudden expansion on an incomprehensible scale in less than a second is an explosion, it just isn't the typical chemical reaction that the literal definition of explosion refers to.

True, but the original poster was implying just such a literal definition.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

True, but the original poster was implying just such a literal definition.
See ...

This Is Why, you CAN'T Let your Competing Theorist, Name your Theory; The Name "Big Bang", Has Very Little to Do, With What Actually Happened ...

Also, Why Are we Taking The Time, to Argue this Qustion, Anyway, When The Only Two Dissenters, Aren't Taking The Time, to Listen?

:wall:

[beskeptical]

True, but the original poster was implying just such a literal definition.I see that now that you mention it.

Wylde99, when the BB occurred there weren't any atoms or gases yet. Those things came waaaay later.

[Tobin Dax]

I see that now that you mention it.

Wylde99, when the BB occurred there weren't any atoms or gases yet. Those things came waaaay later.

Well, 10-43 seconds later, there existed a gas of high-energy photons. I don't know if that's "waaay" later, but it is a gas (even if not your everyday one).

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

I see that now that you mention it.

Wylde99, when the BB occurred there weren't any atoms or gases yet. Those things came waaaay later.
I Don't Think, he's Coming Baack ...

Too Bad, too ...

Oh Well, Thanks Anyway, for The ILLUMINATING Information!

[Inferno]

It's interesting how the common sense view of time doesn't allow it to have a beginning. I wonder why that is. Could be becouse we hold no memories from the beginning of our conciousness, so there's no experience of suddenly comming into being.

Hmmm, interesting. I wonder if people suffering from amnesia are more ready to accept the concept of a beginning to time?

[beskeptical]

Well, 10-43 seconds later, there existed a gas of high-energy photons. I don't know if that's "waaay" later, but it is a gas (even if not your everyday one).
How are you defining gas? I've heard it called plasma but not gas. I think a gas has to have molecules.

[mantiss]

High energy photons is just that, a cosmic soup of particles, it's by no means a gas.

[wollery]

How are you defining gas? I've heard it called plasma but not gas. I think a gas has to have molecules.A plasma is just a gas in which the majority of atoms have been ionized.

[mantiss]

was there plasma at 10-43? I thought it was way too hot for even atoms to assemble. I don't see ionization happening as such a blazing heat for the lack of atoms themselves.

[Fortunate]

was there plasma at 10-43? I thought it was way too hot for even atoms to assemble. I don't see ionization happening as such a blazing heat for the lack of atoms themselves.

Apparently, there was an era during which matter consisted of a "soup" of quarks and gluons. This "soup" has recently been recreated by the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (http://www.aip.org/pnu/2005/split/728-1.html). Rather than a quasi-plasma in which the quarks and gluons move more or less randomly, the results indicated something akin to a zero-viscosity liquid in which the particles moved in a somewhat synchronized manner. This era preceded the one in which protons and neutrons formed - no protons and neutrons, no ions. The "quark soup"-to-baryon phase transition occurred at about 10-5 seconds. On the one hand, we identify the Planck time as a time at which our knowledge of physics breaks down totally. In reality, there is a gap of many orders of magnitude between the Planck time and the times which our current level of understanding embrace. Maybe there was an era before even the quarks and gluons formed. How many distinct "eras" were there, and what were they like? There is a lot we don't know, and our ability to build bigger and better particle accelerators is limited - we can probably eventually eke out at most a few more orders of magnitude of energy.

[Grey]

How are you defining gas? I've heard it called plasma but not gas. I think a gas has to have molecules.A gas is generally defined by how it behaves. So, it's not that far out of line to call it a gas of photons, because it can be modeled like a gas, more or less. Similarly, you can model the electrons in a conductor as a free electorn gas confined to the object, because even though the object as a whole is a solid, the conduction electrons behave largely like a gas.

[mickal555]

First of all, the big bang was not an "explosion," so I think you are just being thick.

Geez settle down- he has done better than most by asking about it, and I think he has read everyones reply's too.

Big bang implies an explosion, even if it wasn't in the strictest sence of the word...

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Geez settle down- he has done better than most by asking about it, and I think he has read everyones reply's too.

Big bang implies an explosion, even if it wasn't in the strictest sence of the word...
Yes, Which is Why, we SHOULD, Rename It ...

Big Streeeeeeeeeeetch, Anyone?

As for Wylde99, If he Isn't, Polite Enough to Respond, Why, Are we Still Talking About it?

[baric]

Geez settle down- he has done better than most by asking about it, and I think he has read everyones reply's too.

Big bang implies an explosion, even if it wasn't in the strictest sence of the word...


settle down? I was using the alternative he provided. Those were his words, not mine.

He was making the standard cosmological argument (by assertion!), which brands him as a borderline Godbot.

[astromark]

Throw in a curve ball question and run away.....Hmmm...
What was befor the big whump! ( not a bang ) Nothing. Nothing at all.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Throw in a curve ball question and run away.....Hmmm...
What was befor the big whump! ( not a bang ) Nothing. Nothing at all.
Yeah ...

I HATE it, When People Do that ...

So, Disrespectful!

:evil:

[Fortunate]

Yet, I would like people to feel welcome to enjoy the site.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Yet, I would like people to feel welcome to enjoy the site.
Yeah, me Too ...

But, Not with, Hit-and-Run Posting ...

It's Rude to you, it's Rude to me, it's Rude to The Other Members, And, it's Especially RUDE, to Phil and Fraser!

:evil:

[beskeptical]

Big Whump? Do we think there was any sound accompanying the event? I believe one needs air or some other medium to propagate a sound wave.

This made me ponder how strange an event, no light, no sound...then maybe sound and no light (elements and then molecules or maybe just elements and then light) or would it be light first?

[Mortac]

There is a lot we don't know, and our ability to build bigger and better particle accelerators is limited - we can probably eventually eke out at most a few more orders of magnitude of energy.

CERN will probably feed us with a lot of dramatic surprises in the very near future. Don't know how widely known CERN is, but they're building the world's largest particle accelerator which is almost complete now. There's a lot of interesting reading on the website, especially for those of us who don't know too much about particle accelerators and their importance. Click on "About CERN" for example.

http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Welcome.html

For the Large Hadron Collider:

http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Content/Chapters/AboutCERN/CERNFuture/WhatLHC/WhatLHC-en.html

I've been following the development of this since 2001 and it's exciting to see that it's finally near completion!

[Fortunate]

CERN will probably feed us with a lot of dramatic surprises in the very near future. Don't know how widely known CERN is, but they're building the world's largest particle accelerator which is almost complete now. There's a lot of interesting reading on the website, especially for those of us who don't know too much about particle accelerators and their importance. Click on "About CERN" for example.

Hi Mortac.
I am very excited about the LHC - more so than about any other single research project. You can help them run some simulations (http://athome.web.cern.ch/athome/) if you want.

I feel that theory has outstripped experiment to a certain extent, and that we really need better data to make the next few advances. Some of my other favorites are IceCube, GLAST, MINOS, MINIBOONE, the Herschel and Planck Observatories, the Pierre Auger Project, LIGO (which is also asking for help ("http://www.einsteinathome.org/')), and LOFAR.:)

[Disinfo Agent]

Throw in a curve ball question and run away.....Hmmm...
What was befor the big whump! ( not a bang ) Nothing. Nothing at all.
Yeah ...

I HATE it, When People Do that ...

So, Disrespectful!
Yeah ...

I HATE it, When People Do that ...

So, Disrespectful!

:evil:I don't think it's bad, when it's just a question. I only find it annoying when someone posts a statement or a critique of some mainstream theory, and then runs away. (Which, by the way, is a breach of the forum rules.)