Stiltzkin

Nice reference to Calvin & Hobbes!

Scientists with Ph.D.s tend to come up with fascinating theories... but I'm not going to trust everything they say just because they have three fancy letter after their name

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TIO

It may already have been said, but there was no before the big bang! Not only was space and matter created, but time was as well. The instant of the big bang (as far as such things are created) was the zero of the timeline, and there are no negative positions from that point.

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Strewth

cliche

TIO - my point exactly. Like 'North of the north pole', it just don't exist

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I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones. -- John Cage (1912 - 1992)

goatfire

i tend to think of time existing....it is a dimension its just that we can only be exposed to cross sections of it.
think of the analogy of a 2D being who exists on a surface. If it came into contact with a 3D being it would not be capable of seeing the entire 3D being at once but only cross sections of it as it passes through the 2D plane. Say the 3D object was a simple shpere.....the 2D creature would see a small circle growing into a larger circle then decreasing to a smaller circle before disappearing. Now bring the analogy to a 3D world as in interacts with a 4D "thing". We could only see "cross sections" of this dimension. If we could "jump up" to the 4D realm we would be able to see the entire 4D world and not just little parts of it. We would see our lives from beginning to end as on big "blur". sorry this was sort of a ramble.

Moonduck

Not a ramble at all, Goatfire. It was the subject of an interesting work of fiction called "Flatland". Check it out some time.

Time does not exist as we think of it. We think of time as some linear dimensional thing that progresses in a direction, yet we have no basis for such a concept as we cannot truly gain perspective on time. We are the 2D critter in the 2D world, as you say.

The most interesting fallacy in the time concept is the idea of the present, and that we exist in the present with the past 'behind' us and the future 'ahead' of us. We do not exist in the present. We cannot perceive the present as it does not exist for us. We perceive sensory imput (if you accept the various terms at all) only as quickly as the information reaches our brains and is processed. In other words, we operate on data that is a few microseconds old once we get it, then a few milliseconds old once we process it for comprehension. We exist ever so slightly in the past, but do not perceive it as such.

I wrote an extensive paper on this as the subject for my thesis in college. The greatest moment of my presentation and defense was watching my professors argue with each other over my paper. They were more interested in the questions I brought up than in firing off questions at me. It was the onlyt ime in my college career that I really felt like I'd accomplished something. Then they got past it and started grilling me right hard, so the feeling didn't last for long.

Mephisto2

Not according to the books I've read.

And not according to accepted theoretical physics today.

Read the Elegant Universe by Brian Greene for starters.

Then pick up copies of:

Just Six Numbers - Martin Rees
Before the Beginning, Our Universe and Others - Martin Rees
Wrinkles in Time, The Imprint of Creation - George Smoot & Keay Davidson
Beyond Einstein - Michio Kaku & Jennifer Thompson

Then we'll talk...



Mr Mephisto

Brdd99boy

I think I can explain this rather easily.
God is perfect and always has been. If God is perfect he can not and has not ever changed. (Any change from perfection goes to imperfection.)
If God had "created the universe" he would have changed from not being a creator to being a creator. Therefore the universe has always existed it was never "created"

shred_head

Right now it doesn't really matter what happened before the Big Bang because it probably won't ever be known for certain. The fact that all the science and math known today break down at the singularity of the Big Bang makes it impossible for us to know what happened before. It does make it open to all sorts of possibilites though seeing how anything could have happened as long as it resulted in the beginning of our Universe.

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asaris

I'd like to see evidence for this claim.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

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wwcd101

I think we all still have a lot to learn in this area.

Until then, I don't think of all this as so much the big bang, but as a lot of smaller bangs... like you would get if playing with an endless sheet of bubble wrap.

Thanks for listening.

icy_ca

I like two ideas so far. One is the universe contracting to the point of maximum density then exploding outward. The big bang. This could happen n times.
If this universe is expanding, then something has to be contracting at the same rate. Nature abhors a vacum.
So somewhere something is contracting towards it's own big bang. Similar to the cylinders in a diesel engine...
But this doesn't answer the question of where the energy and matter came from. Just a nice hypothesis for what is happening not what has happened.
Idea two says that the universe is like a pond where a pebble was tossed in. The rings spread outward at varying speeds and eventually overlap until the energy of the stone is dispersed across the body of water or another stone is thrown in to infuse more energy and mass to the system.
Now that I think of it...and I'm sorry if I'm rambling but this is thought provoking.
Picture a balloon being inflated. Now with the thickness of the rubber or latex not being even, there are stronger and weaker sections. Eventually a weak spot will breach allowing all the pent up air and energy out in one big explosion. Filling the balloon will occur at different rates of speed and I'm faltering sorry.
If someone else can pick up the balloon and run with it please...

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