The Big bang and Creation

[thedock]

In all the references to the 'Big Bang' There seems to be the implication that it was a singular event that occured aproximatly 13.7 Billion years ago and stopped when all the space and matter of the universe was created. What is the evidence to support this concept ? Is it possable that the 'Big Bang' was the start of creation that then fragmented and slowed till now there are scattered points of origin of new space and matter ? This might explain the structure and the expansion of the universe.

[Jeff Root]

This is quite good, and has links to additional info:

Evidence for the Big Bang

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

[LucasVB]

What is the evidence to support this concept

Quite a whole lot, actually. Wikipedia has a nice rundown. See also the COBE mission.

[astromark]

Now do not hold back... just go for it... The truth of this is far simpler...

AS IT WAS WRITTEN, IT IS SO.

Just where and when it was written is a point of some conjecture and further discussion. The Fact remains that the Universe is real and expanding still faster.
As it was written, it is so.

Does this in any way answer this question,? No. It would seem to to be short on some fundamental detail of significance. Like where, when and how.
The when might be answered as the 13.7 suggests. Leaving just where and how. I might suggest that where... "Just over there near that Galaxy, and that one...there." and How?, well that would be " BANG !"

Well... as sorry as I might say I am...thats as close as we get.

[thedock]

Thankyou all for the reply, but I think you have missed the point of the question. I am not questioning the 'Big Bang' itself or the evidence to support the theory. I am asking about the idea that [ The 'Big Bang' started, created all space, matter, and energy, and stopped creating, 13.7 Billion years ago ]. Could the creation of new space, matter, and energy, continue to the present in a fragmented and scattered 'Big Bang' ?

[Steve Limpus]

Hi there,

what you're describing sounds similar to steady state theories of the universe that competed with Big Bang cosmology in the fifties and were championed by Fred Hoyle. Fred Hoyle disliked the big bang and coined the term derisively in a series of BBC broadcasts - he must have been pretty steamed when the name stuck and the theory won out. All that aside, Fred Hoyle made important contributions to stellar nucleosynthesis that are relevant to big bang cosmology today.

The evidence that the standard big bang cosmology is a pretty good model of our universe is compelling. It makes for an amazing 'story' and no doubt will keep amazing us as at is refined further. One of the stumbling blocks is that we have a good model of the universe on the largest scales (General Relativity) and a good model of the universe on the smallest scales (The Standard Model - of particle physics)... but they don't agree, and at the earliest times of the big bang (gazillionths of a second) both are required.

So when the boffins sort that little problem out... who knows what we'll learn, perhaps the mind of God, as Einstein was said to hope!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_state_theory

[Bogie]

Thankyou all for the reply, but I think you have missed the point of the question.

I hate it when that happens

I am not questioning the 'Big Bang' itself or the evidence to support the theory. I am asking about the idea that [ The 'Big Bang' started, created all space, matter, and energy, and stopped creating, 13.7 Billion years ago ]. Could the creation of new space, matter, and energy, continue to the present in a fragmented and scattered 'Big Bang' ?

The answers that you will get here in the Q&A forum will be in accord with mainstream teaching.

Your real question suggests an ATM (against the mainstream) idea. Maybe this should be in the ATM forum.

A fragmented and scattered "Big Bang" that keeps right on creating new space, matter, and energy suggests that there is a bigger picture and our expanding observable universe (the Big Bang universe) is an event at a place and time within a bigger picture. That is fine ATM stuff.

[Jeff Root]

I understood your question before I replied, but chose to give you the
whole answer, not just the fragment you asked about. Which is mainly
the particular part of the linked info that describes the production of
primordial nuclear isotopes (hydrogen, deuterium, helium, and lithium)
in the first three minutes.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

[thedock]

Thankyou 'Bogie' as you can see I'm new to the site, and still finding my way around. I'll try the ATM forum.

[mugaliens]

Now do not hold back... just go for it... The truth of this is far simpler...

AS IT WAS WRITTEN, IT IS SO...

..."Just over there near that Galaxy, and that one...there." and How?, well that would be " BANG !"

Well... as sorry as I might say I am...thats as close as we get.

Well, I'm hoping for a guy hug once in a while, if not a handshake, but if that throws you off...

Argh! <running to take my hypertension medication...>

[astromark]

'Mark reaches for his blanket and slowly spreads it over himself' Now I feel safe...

Thedock.
The weight of the scientific community seems to be in agreeance with the understanding of what happened in the early universe. 300,000 years in and the structure cooled enough as to let atoms form and mater as we know it exist. While expanding at a pace we struggle to comprehend. Now some 13.7 billion years later that acceleration is continuing. Yes space is being created as this expansion unfolds. Driving this acceleration is a force we have named 'Dark Energy'. As yet we have not explained this to our satisfaction. Dark energy might be better described as 'Forces unknown' I think that answers your question.

[Carole]

I am new here and am not a scientist, just a "normal" person.

This question has been bothering me. I occasionally lie awake at night wondering about, expecially after watching stuff on television about it.

I am having trouble accepting the Big Bang theory of creation. If matter cannot be created nor destroyed, how can both be true. Where really does matter come from?

Has space always existed and how is it possible that there is infinity? How can a human even imagine infinity?

What exactly then is anti-matter? Sounds like an oxymoron.

Please someone try to simply explain these things so I can just stop my mind and get more sleep.

[Steve Limpus]

Hi Carole

You might like these:

http://www.universeadventure.org/

http://particleadventure.org/

http://www.astronomycast.com/archive/

...after that lot, you'll sleep for a month!

Welcome to the forum by the way.

[Neverfly]

I am new here and am not a scientist, just a "normal" person.

This question has been bothering me. I occasionally lie awake at night wondering about, expecially after watching stuff on television about it.

I am having trouble accepting the Big Bang theory of creation. If matter cannot be created nor destroyed, how can both be true. Where really does matter come from?

Has space always existed and how is it possible that there is infinity? How can a human even imagine infinity?

What exactly then is anti-matter? Sounds like an oxymoron.

Please someone try to simply explain these things so I can just stop my mind and get more sleep.

What Big Bang Theory of Creation?
The Big Bang Theory deals with the Expansion of the Universe, not its creation.

[Steve Limpus]

I am new here and am not a scientist, just a "normal" person.

If you really are normal you might have trouble fitting in around here.

Kidding.

This question has been bothering me. I occasionally lie awake at night wondering about, expecially after watching stuff on television about it.

We all do that. It might get worse!

I am having trouble accepting the Big Bang theory of creation. If matter cannot be created nor destroyed, how can both be true. Where really does matter come from?

Matter came from the energy 'created' in the big bang, when it cooled from the initial hot conditions. Very hot. Humungously hot. I don't think anyone is going to be able to tell you where the energy came from really. But hey, it wouldn't be fun if there weren't any mysteries left.

Has space always existed and how is it possible that there is infinity? How can a human even imagine infinity?

Space, and time, haven't always existed, at least not our space and time. I'd be a bit suspicious of anyone who tells you they can imagine infinity, but that's just my opinion.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme...ve/5349064.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme...ve/5349364.stm

What exactly then is anti-matter? Sounds like an oxymoron.

It's just matter with the opposite electric charge. Particle Adventure will tell you all about it.

[Bogie]

I am new here and am not a scientist, just a "normal" person.

This question has been bothering me. I occasionally lie awake at night wondering about, expecially after watching stuff on television about it.

I am having trouble accepting the Big Bang theory of creation. If matter cannot be created nor destroyed, how can both be true. Where really does matter come from?

Has space always existed and how is it possible that there is infinity? How can a human even imagine infinity?

What exactly then is anti-matter? Sounds like an oxymoron.

Please someone try to simply explain these things so I can just stop my mind and get more sleep.

Since answers to questions in the Q&A forum are supposed to be mainstream answers, and because some questions can’t be answered in mainstream science, I offer this “against the mainstream” thread with ATM answers to Carole’s questions:

[captain swoop]

I hope you can give us some evidence and support of those ATM idwas, the forum there isn't just a place to tell stories.

[Chris Hillman]

In all the references to the 'Big Bang' There seems to be the implication that it was a singular event that occured aproximatly 13.7 Billion years ago and stopped when all the space and matter of the universe was created.

That may be what bad popular books say, but it is not what the Standard Hot Big Bang Theory says. It would be better to think of mentally time reversing the evolution of the universe. Then, according to the SHBBT, you see galaxies approaching each other, the universe becoming more dense (and the CMB "heats up"); at a certain "time" the density is so high that photons cannot propagate freely, and running back even earlier, blah, blah, but the point is, the SHBBT doesn't really say "spacetime 'began' with a strong spacelike scalar curvature singularity", even though the simplest models created using general relativity (the Friedmann-Lemaitre models) do have such a feature. One way to understand why not is that the SHBBT appeals to physical theory lying beyong the realm of gtr, and at sufficiently large mass-energy densities, there are good theoretical reasons to expect gtr to break down entirely. Thus, the putative "initial singularity" is not really part of what people mean when they refer (correctly) to the SHBBT as enjoying very strong and tightly interlocking observational support. If you like, the SHBBT describes what happens after a certain point in the evolution of the universe; as we try to guess what happened at earlier and earlier times our speculations become less and less well-founded.

See another recent post by myself for some recommended reading which should convey some sense of the nature and strength of this support.

To forestall another VCM: without a deep appreciation of the nature of the pieces of evidence and how they relate to other pieces of evidence, it is impossible to understand the following, but perhaps you will take my word for it: it is true that the history of cosmology has been replete with "revolutions", but it is important to know that no evidence has been "tossed out", rather ever more has been added, becoming ever more tightly interconnected, and the basic conceptual features of the SHBBT (as originally envisaged by Lemaitre and later in much more detail by Gamow) have not been altered by the various revolutions.

Is it possable that the 'Big Bang' was the start of creation that then fragmented and slowed till now there are scattered points of origin of new space and matter ? This might explain the structure and the expansion of the universe.

I think the best short answer is that such questions are impossible to answer "yes" or "no" unless you can express them in mathematical form in a specific theoretical context (e.g. gtr), but as far as I can guess what you might have in mind, your vision is most likely incompatible with modern cosmology. In fact, I had the same reaction as Steve: it sounds like you are trying to reinvent some version of the long-ago discredited "Steady State" theory, which was based upon a notion with no direct theoretical or observational support, "continuous creation", and which was replaced by the SHBBT when the CMB was discovered. Since then, as I just said, there have been many elaborations, and many further suggestions sharing the characteristic of having little or no direct theoretical or observational support have proven popular, but the main conceptual features of the SHBBT have not been altered, although the observational support for these features has gotten ever stronger.

Hope this helps you advance your understanding, Dock!

I am new here and am not a scientist, just a "normal" person.

This question has been bothering me. I occasionally lie awake at night wondering about, expecially after watching stuff on television about it.

I am having trouble accepting the Big Bang theory of creation. If matter cannot be created nor destroyed, how can both be true. Where really does matter come from?

In a sense, the semi-mystical questions which are keeping you awake are not really part of science, although many scientists do talk in public as if they were. The truth is that such questions can be partial motivation for the questions actually asked in the science of cosmology.

As far as the "where does matter come?" question goes, the best first order approximation is what I just said, that an "initial singularity" (a strong spacelike scalar curvature singularity, to be precise) is indeed a common feature of cosmological models, but just because gtr postulates such a thing doesn't mean that anyone believes gtr in this respect--- for reasons I explained.

My answer probably won't help you sleep, unfortunately!

A word of warning: the "answer" offered by Bogie in his new ATM thread is completely incompatible with the SHBBT, meaning it is completely incompatible with an enormous and tighly interlocking set of observational evidence favoring one of the best tested theories in science. (No, I'm not going to say more, since Bogie ought to know better than to say silly things, even in ATM, the BAUT place for dissident claims, almost all of which seem to be equally silly.)

One last bit of advice: the worst mistake an amateur enthusiast can make is to fall for the "Straw Men" caricatures of modern cosmology set up by dozens of persons pursuing an extra-scientific agenda (usually the struggle of Fundamentalism against Everything Else, but sometimes motivated by other religious or sociopolitical agendas, such as promoting the dogmas of Scientology, Lyndon LaRouche, or Marxism). Unfortunately, popsci books also tend to discuss pale shades of the actual science, because the real science is far too complicated, subtle, and technically demanding for anyone who hasn't mastered the math (and more besides) to understand. Most of you will just have to take my word for it that real cosmology is much more fascinating, subtle, and challenging than the public can appreciate. That is regretable, but there's nothing any of us can do about it.

And folks, I can't keep this up (posting in Q&A or even in BAUT). It's not that you don't deserve good answers to your questions. The problem is that you are asking questions which have been asked and answered (not infrequently by me) dozens or hundreds of thousands of times before. Someone called for cosmologists to spend some time patiently answering questions in these forums, and I'll second that. Currently most of these threads unfortunately contain mostly misleading answers to questions which are based upon very common misunderstandings (VCMs), which does tend to compromise the utility of BAUT as an on-line information resource for those with seriously-intended questions about modern cosmology.

[Carole]

Thank you guys. I have been reading a bit about antimatter this evening and will check the links you suggest to become better informed.

It is slightly annoying to have all my questions floating around in my head and one question always leads to a dozen others. LOL

What prompted all this may have been a discussion about energy and our lack of alternative energies.

I was debating with someone that I simply could not believe we could have relied on gas and oil and coal for a hundred years without a more realistice kind of energy being developed. It was my "theory" that the ptb have always suppressed any discoverires that threatened their wealth, etc. I knew Tesla had a sort of handle on antigravity and /or other ideas way back when and that after his unfortunate death, who got his work? Was it stolen or what?

The upshot is that I DO believe alternative energy ideas have always been suppressed. I am not a trusting type when it comes to the government/industrial/military complex and their agendas.

Thanks again. It is always fun to learn and you have given me some places
to explore.

[Steve Limpus]

Hey Carole

It's hard to believe that one day (soon I hope!) people won't look back at us like 'wow... those crazy people used fossil fuels?'

I do like cars a lot, though, so that's a little sad.

I don't think there's much chance of a conspiracy though. I 'trust' that the corporate world is so greedy that if someone had the solution they just couldn't help but be first to deploy it and make a shed load of money.

Most of the 'solutions' I've heard about have had the problem that they are highly inefficient, sometimes you even get less energy out than you put in.

But one day.

[Neverfly]

Hey Carole

It's hard to believe that one day (soon I hope!) people won't look back at us like 'wow... those crazy people used fossil fuels?'

I do like cars a lot, though, so that's a little sad.

I don't think there's much chance of a conspiracy though. I 'trust' that the corporate world is so greedy that if someone had the solution they just couldn't help but be first to deploy it and make a shed load of money.

Most of the 'solutions' I've heard about have had the problem that they are highly inefficient, sometimes you even get less energy out than you put in.

But one day.

Exactly. There's too much independent research and the principles too widely available for a cover up or conspiracy.
The conspirators would never be able to keep up to do their job.

[Kamawoop]

There was nothing, very small, and silence, very quite.

Then something, comparitively big and a noise, maybe a bang.

The universe is expanding, that is clearly compelling evidence that it started from a single point. The known universe was certainly slighlty more constricted yesterday.

[George]

...the SHBBT doesn't really say "spacetime 'began' with a strong spacelike scalar curvature singularity", even though the simplest models created using general relativity (the Friedmann-Lemaitre models) do have such a feature.

Yes, the "Primeval Atom", also described by Lemaitre as "The Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of creation".

As far as the "where does matter come?" question goes, the best first order approximation is what I just said, that an "initial singularity" (a strong spacelike scalar curvature singularity, to be precise) is indeed a common feature of cosmological models, ...

I am curious to know if there is a size estimate for the "singularity", based on the limitations physics places upon itself.

Most of you will just have to take my word for it that real cosmology is much more fascinating, subtle, and challenging than the public can appreciate.

We know; that's why we're here. It is especially nice to have you with us, too. Glad you're here!

And folks, I can't keep this up (posting in Q&A or even in BAUT). It's not that you don't deserve good answers to your questions. The problem is that you are asking questions which have been asked and answered (not infrequently by me) dozens or hundreds of thousands of times before. Someone called for cosmologists to spend some time patiently answering questions in these forums, and I'll second that. Currently most of these threads unfortunately contain mostly misleading answers to questions which are based upon very common misunderstandings (VCMs), which does tend to compromise the utility of BAUT as an on-line information resource for those with seriously-intended questions about modern cosmology.

Most of the fluff seems to be appropriately addressed by laypeople, though some professionals here, thankfully, have been very active, too. Often, the answers must be oversimplified, else nothing is learned.

For serious discussions, I wouldn't mind seeing a "graduate" level established for users here on BAUT to allow professionals and advanced participants to enjoy a less noisy environment for themselves. I would be surprised if the board software didn't allow it. The brief bulletin board I established in '92 had this ability. I suggest this as a layperson, not as one likely to be active at such a level. This idea may seem a little too elitist, but the thought of this board becoming more enjoyable to professionals, already on a higher plane, makes it worth it. The gain would come to all if the more educated community grew in numbers here.

[John Mendenhall]

I'd be a bit suspicious of anyone who tells you they can imagine infinity, but that's just my opinion.

You obviously have never worked in a government office.

[Steve Limpus]

You obviously have never worked in a government office.

...no, I've been sent elsewhere for my sins.

[Acolyte]

For serious discussions, I wouldn't mind seeing a "graduate" level established for users here on BAUT to allow professionals and advanced participants to enjoy a less noisy environment for themselves

The thing that attracted me to BAUT is exactly that it isn't an elitist 'professionals only' site. Those sorts of sites rapidly degenerate into cliquey 'aren't we clever' boards or into bun-fights between the opposite sides in some professional hissy fit.
I think you need the leavening of normal people to allow the rising of ideas & to keep things real. If you can't explain it to intelligent non-professionals then maybe you haven't got it right yet.

This idea may seem a little too elitist, but the thought of this board becoming more enjoyable to professionals, already on a higher plane, makes it worth it. The gain would come to al if the more educated community grew in numbers here

I'm puzzled how it would be a gain to all when 'all' wouldn't be participating. It seems elitist to me & I enjoy the to & fro between those with ideas out of left field & those who must needs defend from the more conventional positions.

I'd suggest, if it ain't broke, don't fix it - BAUT has a lot of traffic at any time I come on - artificially reducing the membership or dividing it would only cause harm to the site IMO.

[Steve Limpus]

Spot on Acolyte.

[thedock]

Thankyou all, I supose that I will need to look elsewhere for meaningful dialogue on this point.

[Neverfly]

Thankyou all, I supose that I will need to look elsewhere for meaningful dialogue on this point.

Meaningful dialog?!
Am I missing something here?

There are a Lot of Excellent answers in this thread!

[Steve Limpus]

Y'all can please some of the people some of the time...