# Does the Big Bang violate the laws of thermodynamics? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 30, 2002, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-big-bang-violate-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/100926 "2002-03-30T14:23:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Beastal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Beastal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastal)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2002, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-big-bang-violate-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/100926/1 "2002-03-30T14:23:41Z")
That is, energy can not be created or destroyed? ---
**Author:** ![Stupendous\_man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Stupendous\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stupendous_man)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2002, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-big-bang-violate-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/100926/2 "2002-03-30T14:26:13Z")
No. The energy is still present. It just changes forms. and gets distributed over a larger area. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2002, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-big-bang-violate-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/100926/3 "2002-03-30T14:38:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Beastal \* > \*\*That is, energy can not be created or destroyed? \*\* At the present time, it seems to me, scientists sort of dodge the problem Isn’t it the case that by making some reasonable assumptions most characteristics of the universe can be computed back to Planck Time? That is, the Big Bang model predicts the abundances of various elements, and as a valid inference the existence and character of the background microwave radiation. But before Planck Time, nothing is known about how things acted and presently known physical principles can’t be used to figure it out. ---
**Author:** ![lucwarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@lucwarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lucwarm)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2002, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-big-bang-violate-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/100926/4 "2002-03-30T14:39:14Z")
Just to add to **Beastal** ’s question, what about the entropy and enthalpy of the universe? Since heat cannot flow out of the universe, how can the enthalpy change? What about entropy? Was entropy at the moment of the big bank at an all-time low? (Sorry if this is a hijack, **Beastal** , but since you were asking about the Big Bank and thermodynamics, I thought it would be appropriate) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2002, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-big-bang-violate-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/100926/5 "2002-03-30T14:52:50Z")
I always thought “Big BANK” theory held that jamming too many pennies into a plastic pig would cause its mass to compress into a neutron star. As for Big BANG, it does create certain problems when viewed with thermodynamics, but I always preferred to believe that the law of physics as we know them didn’t even exist until the universe had already started, i.e. for that first million billion trillion zillionth of a second, all bets were off. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2002, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-big-bang-violate-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/100926/6 "2002-03-30T14:53:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lucwarm \* > \*\*Just to add to **Beastal** ’s question, what about the entropy and enthalpy of the universe? Since heat cannot flow out of the universe, how can the enthalpy change? What about entropy? Was entropy at the moment of the big bank at an all-time low? > > (Sorry if this is a hijack, **Beastal** , but since you were asking about the Big Bank and thermodynamics, I thought it would be appropriate) \*\* Heat doesn’t have to “flow out of the universe” for energy to become unavailable. Look at it this way. Anything that is at a temperature higher than absolute zero (-273.something or other) below 0[sup]o[/sup]C) contains energy. This energy can only do something when it moves from a higher to a lower temperature. When it does that, the low temperature is raised and the high temperature is lowered. Eventually they will be equal and energy will no longer flow. There is plenty of energy but none of it is available to do work. And, as I said, the present physical principles can’t be applied before Planck Time. So you can’t legitimately talk about entropy at the instant (assuming that’s the word since time didn’t exist either) of the Big Bang. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2002, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-big-bang-violate-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/100926/7 "2002-03-30T15:20:11Z")
[http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo.html](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo.html) Lots of answers here. ---
**Author:** ![Urban\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Urban\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urban_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2002, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-big-bang-violate-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/100926/8 "2002-03-30T16:25:04Z")
First of all I don’t think Big Bang violates any laws in Thermodynamics. What you are thinking is the Conservation of Matter and Energy. According to modern physics, physical laws are 4-dimensional constants that hold true within this universe. Before the Bang, these laws didn’t exist. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Lao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dr.Lao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Lao)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2002, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-big-bang-violate-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/100926/9 "2002-03-30T21:37:41Z")
A better way to think of the first law is “The energy of the universe is constant.” And it is, from the Big Bang (the beginning of the universe) on. ---
**Author:** ![Wisest\_Novel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wisest_novel/32/13329_2.png) [@Wisest\_Novel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wisest_Novel)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2002, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-big-bang-violate-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/100926/10 "2002-03-30T21:51:56Z")
[The Universe is Just One of Those Things That Happens From Time To Time](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=105326&highlight=universe) contains a theory which addresses the conservation problems. As my days of hard-core astrophysics are behind me, I’ll leave the rigorous contemplation of its merits to the younguns. However, it’s mighty appealing on its face… ---
**Author:** ![Rman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/96bed5/32.png) [@Rman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rman)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2002, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-big-bang-violate-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/100926/11 "2002-03-30T22:46:34Z")
nice… they brought up the theory of multiplicity (aka the “many worlds theory”)… great stuff 🙂 read the book that stephen baxter had published, “the time ships”. its a good book… I’ll go back to lurking now. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2002, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-big-bang-violate-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/100926/12 "2002-03-31T22:18:19Z")
I believe you could also argue that the laws of physics were created _by_ the Big Bang, so you couldn’t be violating a non-existent law beforehand, as it were. ---
**Author:** ![3waygeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/e95f7d/32.png) [@3waygeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3waygeek)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2002, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-big-bang-violate-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/100926/13 "2002-04-01T02:46:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by rjung \* > \*\*I believe you could also argue that the laws of physics were created _by_ the Big Bang, so you couldn’t be violating a non-existent law beforehand, as it were. \*\* That’s the answer I got 18 years ago when, as a physics undergrad, I asked the same question of our resident cosmologist. ---
**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2002, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-big-bang-violate-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/100926/14 "2002-04-02T03:59:47Z")
Thermodynamics has nothing to do with it. The laws of Thermodynamics were promulgated before the advent of modern atomic theory. In fact, classical thermodynamics doesn’t even mention atoms, electrons, etc…you can’t correlate something that happened when the universe was extremely strange with 19th century mechanics. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2002, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-big-bang-violate-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/100926/15 "2002-04-02T20:54:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by rjung \* > \*\*I believe you could also argue that the laws of physics were created _by_ the Big Bang, so you couldn’t be violating a non-existent law beforehand, as it were. \*\* So it’s like a First Cause that is outside the chain of causation? velly intelesting.