# Before the Big Bang: why the huge silence?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 24, 2013, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684 "2013-11-24T17:59:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2014, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/81 "2014-12-23T18:33:27Z")
> [@rsa](#):
>
> All these theories and speculations interest me as much as anyone, however there is really only one answer to the question that is unassailable.
>
> What allows any and all of these possibilities to exist are THE LAWS OF PHYSICS. That is the one prerequisite for everything else, real or imagined.
>
> You may say that there is no evidence that the laws of physics are static. While true, this simply means that the “laws” include one or more randomized variables (or randomizing functions.)
>
> You might argue that the laws of physics are no different than God. While I believe that this is what Einstein meant when he referred to “God” or “the Old Man”, the laws of physics don’t imply any supernatural “super-nature”. By definition, nothing can be more natural than the laws of physics.
>
> YMMV.
>
> Peace
Anyone is of course free to substitute the Laws of Physics for God. However, that is a philosophical question and not a scientific one because there is no way to obtain evidence that the Laws of Physics have any existence independent of the phenomena they describe: no massive bodies, no law of gravity; no particle/waves, no laws of electromagnetism; no atomic nucleus, no laws of strong and weak nuclear force; no energy, no laws of thermodynamics, etc.
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### Author:  [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2014, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/82 "2014-12-23T19:11:54Z")
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Or, another point: in the palm of my hand right now is an infinity of Nothing. Why doesn’t any of it become a Big Bang?
There is a considerable lack of nothing in the palm of your hand. Excluding the sparse bits of actual matter and transitory energy, there is quite an enormous amount of spacetime there, not to mention a rather complicated array of gravitational gradients and magnetic, electrical and strong-force fields.
As others have said, “nothing” is not simply the total absence of anything, it is a philosophically and logically difficult concept, in the context of what we can understand. It would have to be dimensionless, which means without time. It is a pretty fitting description of what “preceded” the Big Bang, about which we understand basically, um, nothing.
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### Author:  [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2014, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/83 "2014-12-23T19:44:15Z")
> [@eschereal](#):
>
> There is a considerable lack of nothing in the palm of your hand. Excluding the sparse bits of actual matter and transitory energy, there is quite an enormous amount of spacetime there, not to mention a rather complicated array of gravitational gradients and magnetic, electrical and strong-force fields.
You misunderstand me. I’m not saying there is nothing in my hand. I’m saying there’s an infinity of nothing in every planck space. Indeed an infinity of “nothing” in zero space, since the nothingness we’ve been talking about in this thread occupies no space.
> [@](#):
>
> As others have said, “nothing” is not simply the total absence of anything, it is a philosophically and logically difficult concept, in the context of what we can understand. It would have to be dimensionless, which means without time. It is a pretty fitting description of what “preceded” the Big Bang, about which we understand basically, um, nothing.
I guess I agree except the point about saying that nothing is not merely the total absence of anything. I would say it depends what flavour of nothing we’re talking about. But I would agree that trying to come up with a particularly strict version – no space-time, matter, laws – gets us into difficulty, as every attempt seems self-inconsistent.
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### Author:  [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2014, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/84 "2014-12-23T21:50:27Z")
Our time axis came into existence with the bang. There may be some other metatime axis that in its own domain “predates” the big bang, but duct-taping that onto our own spacetime and calling it before-the-big-bang makes no sense.
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### Author:  [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2014, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/85 "2014-12-24T02:52:35Z")
> [@bardos](#):
>
> The Huge Silence: Could it be that before the Big Bang there just wasn’t much to talk about?
OK - I wasn’t going to but ---------- Johnny Carson was always sure he knew what happened right after the Big Bang. It was followed by the Big Cigarette.
Be sure to tip your waitress on the way out.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2014, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/86 "2014-12-24T03:28:22Z")
Why, is she gyroscopically stable, to the point where she’ll precess momentarily, then return to her previous orientation?
It seems like a really weird excuse to demonstrate a scientific principle. If you’re going to do that, you should give her some money, for her trouble.
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### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2014, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/87 "2014-12-24T06:17:34Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#):
>
> What came before the Big Bang?
>
> Well, to paraphrase Stephen Hawking in what has become almost a cliché: “It’s like asking ‘What’s north of the North Pole?’”
I don’t think this is a good analogy. The reason you cannot go further “north” than the North Pole is because the Earth is round; meaning that you can only go south from that point on (trying to go further “up north” on the map beyond the North Pole would mean you’re going down south the other side of the globe.)
But time is more like a straight line. 1500 A.D. comes before 1700 A.D., which is before 1900 A.D., which is before 2000 A.D.
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2014, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/88 "2014-12-24T06:27:43Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> But time is more like a straight line. 1500 A.D. comes before 1700 A.D., which is before 1900 A.D., which is before 2000 A.D.
But time came into existence at/during the Big Bang. So, before time existed is meaningless.
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### Author:  [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2014, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/89 "2014-12-24T06:58:02Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> But time is more like a straight line. 1500 A.D. comes before 1700 A.D., which is before 1900 A.D., which is before 2000 A.D.
The problem is that the math of general and special relativity suggest that that is not the case. In spacetime, there are no straight lines, neither for space nor for time. In our frame of reference, time looks linear, but move out of our frame of reference and the marks on the stick change. You cannot even synchronize your watch with the watch of an astronaut on Mars, because the shape of spacetime is different there, your watches with tick differently.
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### Author:  [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2014, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/90 "2014-12-24T13:20:17Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> But time is more like a straight line. 1500 A.D. comes before 1700 A.D., which is before 1900 A.D., which is before […]
The universe is about 13.8 billion years old, so at 200 years each, you can only have “…which is before…” about 69 million times.
Then you’re at the Big Bang, just as if you head North from the equator, eventually you reach the North pole.
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### Author:  [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2014, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/91 "2014-12-24T13:42:02Z")
I’ve always envisioned the Big Bang process as being identical to the inhalation and exhalation process of animals with lungs.
There is physical effort as one inhales , then there is that miraculous moment of gas exchange in the lungs, then then you exhale.
My brain has always told me that the Big Bang is the moment between inhaling and exhaling on a scale that I really cannot comprehend.
What came before was not nothingness- it was the incredible violent collapse into a singular point of everything everywhere before.
The Big Bang is the moment of gas exchange and everything that occurs afterward is like breathing out.
This also explains why our universe is expanding.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2014, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/92 "2014-12-24T14:58:42Z")
> [@eschereal](#):
>
> The problem is that the math of general and special relativity suggest that that is not the case. In spacetime, there are no straight lines, neither for space nor for time. In our frame of reference, time looks linear, but move out of our frame of reference and the marks on the stick change. You cannot even synchronize your watch with the watch of an astronaut on Mars, because the shape of spacetime is different there, your watches with tick differently.
In spacetime, there are straight lines, except they are called [geodesics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesics_in_general_relativity). Broadly, you can say that things move toward each other along a geodesic created by mass warping spacetime because that is the shortest line between the two points.
Nor is the shape of spacetime different on Mars. You’re thinking of time dilation, presumably. Relativistic speed or acceleration does that, but synchronization is still possible. It must be so because even on Earth, speed or altitude will show these effects on a tiny scale but we can still synchronize watches with someone on top of a mountain or in the ISS.
Neither of these effects is relevant to the so-called “finger of time.” Entropy is usually given as the reason we experience time in a one-way linear fashion, although it’s more complicated than that. Even more important is that despite the problems different observers have in conveying their experience of time, time itself is invariant: it always ticks off at one second per second for anyone in any reference frame. Time never slows or speeds up - it just looks that way to outsiders.
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### Author:  [@by-tor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/by-tor)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2014, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/93 "2014-12-24T15:29:40Z")
Maybe time is happening in both directions at once and we can only perceive it in one direction. So the Big Bang is the Big Crunch.
Or maybe there is/was Reverse Time before the Big Bang and the Singularity is the zero point.
Or maybe I just smoked too much pot in high school. 🆒
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2014, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/94 "2014-12-24T16:56:43Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Quoth **Velocity** :
>
> I don’t think this is a good analogy. The reason you cannot go further “north” than the North Pole is because the Earth is round; meaning that you can only go south from that point on (trying to go further “up north” on the map beyond the North Pole would mean you’re going down south the other side of the globe.)
> But time is more like a straight line. 1500 A.D. comes before 1700 A.D., which is before 1900 A.D., which is before 2000 A.D.
This is actually one of the primary features of this analogy: Time is curved, and in the vicinity of the Big Bang, it’s probably curved in a way qualitatively similar to the surface of the Earth.
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### Author:  [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2014, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/95 "2014-12-24T18:34:54Z")
> [@Kamakiri](#):
>
> …Okay, maybe not the “huge silence,” but a silence, anyway. Just for the record, I’m an atheist firmly planted in the real world, don’t believe conspiracy theories in general, and usually trust smart, accredited scientists to not blindly make stuff up or quote 2,000 year-old books written by semi-literate monks.
Your trust is belied by your question and attitude–semi-literate monks (or the sacred texts of the world, or whatever you have in mind) are, on the level of the question posed and responses here in thrust, are those of the smart and accredited–also, like you and scientists, firmly planted in the real world.
They did not blindly make up stuff, but their conceptions – and non-“semi-literate” (huh?) ones like Descartes can even be found in the mouths of smart accredited scientists like **Chronos** when directly addressing them. Neither he nor your ancient antagonists are fucking around for you to strike a pose; the definitions of science and evidence are new, and the borders of theory and hypothesis are always considered.
Occasionally conditions arise where physics, by its own admission, acknowledges a measurement problem–a non-knowability–and no one is unhappy, (except famously some old Jew). That is, why is there a conspiratorial silence about which electrons are where?–better yet, why are you not upset about it? He shut up then and he calculated, and remembered in some way he was an old Jew and let it at that.
> [@](#):
>
> …I’m sorry, “nothing” or “the absence of anything” just doesn’t cut it for me…
Sucks for you.
> [@](#):
>
> … why can’t they at least come up with some sort of an EXCUSE for what they think was around before our universe sprang into existence?..
You want good ones? You use the word “excuse” and simultaneously expect that your self-respecting smart accredited scientists consider that a sensible question whatsoever? They’re not paid for excuses, so why would you “trust” them more than having faith (hated word to atheists) with the people you despise? Because I have no doubt that you–who for starters are not one of the semi-accredited smart ones you cherish–can only understand and use barest metaphors and analogies which, even at the “scientific” level you respect, are based, absolutely, on the same principles.
And the same words, often. To which the response is usually like so:
Ancient monks: God made _x_ happen"
Modern scientists: “Well, when you get down to it, no, this is explainable without such causation and with no need for such a governing principle.”
Conclusion: if the case is explainable more discretely, and nobody’s _hypotheses_ were _fingo_’ed–the modern one, in this case–is complete as far as it goes, or as far as anyone cares, the monks are doing nothing but reification. The words match at the first go, but so what in the ensuing discussion, and are shown the door.
You and I agree here, I think.
But that’s not this, and you want it so–the complete and as far as it goes part–which, as mentioned above and without which Newton should be considered semi-literate–is what you want answers for, and will helplessly appeal for mercy on your troubling thoughts, even for an excuse, to scientists. So did the Psalmists, the Buddhists, whatever, but turned to other sources for intellectual, conceptual/spiritual (oh atheist, you’re spurting spiritual wounds in your post) re-assurance of answers, given perforce as metaphors or analogies. Maybe atheism isn’t for you.
> [@](#):
>
> …It’s all very well to babble endlessly about the Big Bang and dark matter and String Theory…
I know you’re being facetious, but there’s babbling and there’s babbling on these topics, just as the meaning of babbling depends on speaker and hearer.
> [@](#):
>
> …how can I seriously muster a defense against “God created everything”
Unless you have a disputation scheduled, and everyone is like the chronic “_cite_?” SD poster. And nowadays you’re out of luck because clever non-atheists have ruled that faith without proof/cite is within bounds.
> [@](#):
>
> …Hint: I WILL accept “We just don’t have any idea,” or “The human mind is simply not equipped to conceive of such things” but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
🙂 Nice, and pleasant. More pleasant than this post, I admit, for which I apologize. But your opening tone and declarations had so much and piss and vinegar in them, with the same vitriol and contempt “modern” atheists consider the sole property of religious folk directed towards, well, them. What the hell?
Look, you wanna be Aristotelian, you recognize that aporia sucks, but you gotta live with it.
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### Author:  [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/96 "2014-12-24T19:31:42Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#):
>
> I’ve always hated that. There are at least three points on Earth that could be called the North Pole. At any one of them, you can point North. What’s North of the North Pole? Two other North Poles.
what are the 3 “north poles”?
Are you counting the magnetic North Pole as one? If so, why?
There is one place on the surface of the earth where there is no rotation. (well, two, one in the North). I can’t think of anything else that might qualify. Given a rigid earth that is.
So what poles are you referring to?
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### Author:  [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2014, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/97 "2014-12-24T19:56:35Z")
> [@panache45](#):
>
> An interesting, but totally unsupported, theory is that “existence” is composed of an infinite number of bubbles; you can think of them as foam. Each bubble is a universe, and began with its own “Big Bang.” Now where does a bubble come from? What existed before each bubble? The most reasonable answer is: the stuff that bubbles are made of. As each bubble grows and eventually pops, its remains are added to the substance that gives birth to new bubbles.
So, existence=multiverse=some young childthing blowing bubbles in his hypermultiverse equivalent of chocolate milk. The contents of each bubble–every universe–is literally the breath of God. Universes are created at His pleasure, but he gives not one damn about what happense inside them.
- puff–pass \*
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [December 25, 2014, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/98 "2014-12-25T05:02:56Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> This is actually one of the primary features of this analogy: Time is curved, and in the vicinity of the Big Bang, it’s probably curved in a way qualitatively similar to the surface of the Earth.
How far does that analogy potentially hold - time as a dimension being curved?
From the north pole I can go no further north but the space being curved as it is I can go south in many different paths and all those paths actually exist. If the curved analogy is anything more than a confusing morsel then it implies that time is actually a somewhat spherical thing and that as we go away from the north pole that is the Big Bang we eventually will hit a south pole at which point time stops but is also where time starts up in the other direction on many different paths. Is that what is meant to be implied? I don’t think so. Or is it only curved at the start and then straight from there?
Also if time is shaped differently as one approaches the Big Bang then what does 1 microsecond after the Big Bang actually mean? Were there actually an inordinate number of eons within that microsecond?
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### Author:  [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)
#### Post date: [December 25, 2014, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/99 "2014-12-25T07:20:50Z")
> [@rbroome](#):
>
> what are the 3 “north poles”?
> Are you counting the magnetic North Pole as one? If so, why?
> There is one place on the surface of the earth where there is no rotation. (well, two, one in the North). I can’t think of anything else that might qualify. Given a rigid earth that is.
> So what poles are you referring to?
Magnetic North Pole
Geographic North Pole
Santa’s North Pole, looks like a barber pole.
---
### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [December 25, 2014, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-the-big-bang-why-the-huge-silence/674684/100 "2014-12-25T15:14:02Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> Also if time is shaped differently as one approaches the Big Bang then what does 1 microsecond after the Big Bang actually mean? Were there actually an inordinate number of eons within that microsecond?
The universe came into existence, then inflated. The Big Bang today is normally conflated with the inflation phase. So time already existed when the Big Bang occurred, by that definition.
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