# Big bang and gravity **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 28, 2000, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-bang-and-gravity/38699 "2000-10-28T02:43:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![howardsims](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e8c25b/32.png) [@howardsims](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/howardsims)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2000, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-bang-and-gravity/38699/1 "2000-10-28T02:43:07Z")
If light can’t even escape a black hole… and the original singularity of the big bang is waaaay bigger than any black hole, why didn’t gravity keep the big bang from happening? Also, I know it took awhile before electrons and protons formed after the big bang… but were there always photons? Or were they just some elemental force that needed to cool before forming photons? ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2000, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-bang-and-gravity/38699/2 "2000-10-28T03:19:22Z")
The Big Bang has a lot of special properties. Remember, in a black hole situation, you have a sphere around the hole known as the Event Horizon. Once light goes past the EH, it’s history. But you have to remember, at the time of the Big Ball o’Stuff, there was _no space_ outside, so the event horizon is infinately small. I think. Chronos, help!! ---
**Author:** ![TheNerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@TheNerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheNerd)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2000, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-bang-and-gravity/38699/3 "2000-10-28T03:21:50Z")
Friedo makes an important point. Nothing did escape the big bang. Space itself is expanding which is far different from matter escaping from one area of space to another. ---
**Author:** ![SoulFrost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f07891/32.png) [@SoulFrost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SoulFrost)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2000, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-bang-and-gravity/38699/4 "2000-10-28T04:16:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Or were they just some elemental force that needed to cool before forming photons? The Four Forces, one of which is Gravity, were (probably) all unified in the heat of the Big Bang. Once the universe cooled below a critical point, the Forces seperated. The whole of space/time and matter/energy existed within the singularity-- there was no “outside” or “inside”. Hard to visualize, I know, but consider it to be like trying to step outside the universe…you’d never reach the edge, let alone go beyond it. There’s an idea that no matter where you are in the universe, you are precisely in the center of it. The same likely held true for whatever was inside the singularity, at least to some degree. When it’s all said and done, exactly how that strange unified force affected that strange space-matter singularity is quite beyond me. -David ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2000, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-bang-and-gravity/38699/5 "2000-10-28T04:21:19Z")
Now, I assume the four forces you are talking about are gravity, electromagnetic, weak, and strong. But I’ve always wondered, where does heat fall in? Is is a force? (Haven’t yet gotten around to taking that general physics class.) ---
**Author:** ![DeutschFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@DeutschFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeutschFox)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2000, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-bang-and-gravity/38699/6 "2000-10-28T04:40:52Z")
It seems you are making an assumption that the universe started from a “black hole” concept. This may not be the appropriate boundary condition to put on the universe’s creation. What energy source could overcome the black hole forces, particularly as defined by current whomevers? Another, yet illogical explanation, is that the universe’s matter and energy were formed from “nothing”. There is a probability, while very miniscule, which could account for the creation from nothing and is not really that much smaller that a “black hole” type origin! ---
**Author:** ![SoulFrost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f07891/32.png) [@SoulFrost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SoulFrost)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2000, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-bang-and-gravity/38699/7 "2000-10-28T04:58:16Z")
Heat is energy, not one of the fundamental forces. Adding to what **DeutschFox** said, there is another school of thought that suggests that there was once another fundamental force which somehow decayed into some sort of plasma-like stuff, which eventually cooled into the original energy, which was in turn converted into matter. It is thought that this was the trigger for the Big Bang. I have no idea where to find a cite for this, and I don’t know how widely accepted it is. There’s also the “Bubble Theory” which has been gaining ground over the past few years…on paper, it’s possible (though not likely) that whole new universes could be created in a lab. Take that as you will. -David ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2000, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-bang-and-gravity/38699/8 "2000-10-28T21:04:14Z")
**TheNerd** ’s answer is the most accurate: Nothing did escape the Big Bang. It’s all still inside the Universe. Of course, we also don’t know what form gravity took, In The Beginning. Pretty much nothing makes sense before the Planck time, approximately 10[sup]-43[/sup] seconds after t=0. ---
**Author:** ![DeutschFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@DeutschFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeutschFox)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2000, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-bang-and-gravity/38699/9 "2000-10-30T02:59:48Z")
Again, it seems that we are attempting to apply the characteristics of a black hole, hardly defineable(sp) itself, to the the origin point of the big bang. Has this been shown to be the case? Could a black hole, as we think we understand one, begin expanding and what would initiate its expansion? ---
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2000, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-bang-and-gravity/38699/10 "2000-10-30T11:04:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by howardsims \* > **… and the original singularity of the big bang is waaaay bigger than any black hole, why didn’t gravity keep the big bang from happening?..** Some estimates of the universal singularity place it at the size of a proton. Many black holes are probably quite larger than that. ---
**Author:** ![Phobos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Phobos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phobos)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2000, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-bang-and-gravity/38699/11 "2000-10-30T15:13:20Z")
[http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q1357.html](http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q1357.html) ---
**Author:** ![DeutschFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@DeutschFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeutschFox)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2000, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-bang-and-gravity/38699/12 "2000-10-30T21:15:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Phobos \* > \*\*[http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q1357.html](http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q1357.html) \*\* Good research Phobos …