# Has something existed forever? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 17, 2002, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-something-existed-forever/119377 "2002-07-17T08:24:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-something-existed-forever/119377/41 "2002-07-18T20:34:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Since Chronos hasn’t yet responded, let me try to explain why the protons are older. Basically it has to do with the fact that photons are easily created and destroyed. The background radiation you see right now is basically from a time when the universe finally became transparent… that is a time when photons were no longer running the risk of being destroyed after being created. Thus the photons of the CMB are younger than the protons that formed after the Big Bang’s initiation. Yeah, butis it not possible to have photons that were at the edge of the then-universe which have always been travelling outwards, never being absorbed? Such photons, if they existed, would be as old as or older than then protons. Or is it that the protons filled all of space, and there was no outside? I have to admit, I’ve never studied the Big Bang. I know that _most_ photons didn’t get released until the universe became transparent, but that doesn’t make it obvious to me that all of them did. ---
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-something-existed-forever/119377/42 "2002-07-18T20:34:45Z")
Actually, **Libertarian** , I was agreeing with you. I, too, found the quantum-fluctuation theory interesting, because it presupposed some mechanisms predated the universe. And where did those mechanisms come from…? Hence the reference to the chicken-and-the-egg. Although I _suppose_ what predated the universe could have been an apparent void, but not a true nothingness since certain mechanisms would have been in place since the non-beginning of the infinity that predated the the birth of the universe – that is, this qualified nothing – a near-nothing with certain exceptions – had simply always been there, as Christians describe God as having always been there. That last sentence made my head hurt. And I wrote it… ---
**Author:** ![Beastal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Beastal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastal)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-something-existed-forever/119377/43 "2002-07-18T21:02:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DrMatrix \* > \*\*The Big Bang is a singularity. There are some laws that do not apply to singular points. It’s not so much that the laws were violated, but that they do not apply. I maintain: > a) There was no before the Big Bang. > b) To say “The universe was created by …” implies there was a before the Big Bang.The difference between the nothing of a vacuum and the nothing outside the universe is that a vacuum has extent in space and a duration in time. That is it takes up space and exists for a time. Space and time are only well-defined withinin the universe. To say there was nothing before the Big Bang means Nothing – no matter, no energy, no space, no time. \*\* Maybe I am not explaining my question clearly enough. Do you agree that the matter needed to allow the Big Bang to occur, is finite? If so, we know that this matter is not infinite, and must have been created. Now, the matter that allowed the Big Bang to occur, at some point, _came in to existence_. Where this happenned, when this happenned, the laws of thermodynamics were mysteriously absent. So, what we have is: A point in time, or a place, where the laws of thermodynamics do not apply. If there was no ‘before big bang’, the answer must be: A place that exists **outside** of space time, where the laws of thermodynamics are not in place. No? ---
**Author:** ![JS\_Princeton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@JS\_Princeton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JS_Princeton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-something-existed-forever/119377/44 "2002-07-18T21:15:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CalMeacham \* > \*\* > > Yeah, but is it not possible to have photons that were at the edge of the then-universe which have always been travelling outwards, never being absorbed? Such photons, if they existed, would be as old as or older than then protons. > > Or is it that the protons filled all of space, and there was no outside? I have to admit, I’ve never studied the Big Bang. I know that _most_ photons didn’t get released until the universe became transparent, but that doesn’t make it obvious to me that all of them did. \*\* There is no “edge” the way you describe it. The universe is everything… the observable universe is everything observable. If these photons you speak of were at some mythological “edge” heading “outwards” then there would be no way for them to reach us and thus they’d be outside the observable universe. It’s better to think of the universe as being somewhat homogenous in that there isn’t an “edge” or an “interior”. Rather it is a self contained entity. Furthermore, we’re dealing with mean free paths when we’re talking about photons that are not released at recombination. There just too short for them too have survived. It’s basically a statistical mechanics problem. So the short answer remains, no, the photons are not older than than the protons. ---
**Author:** ![JS\_Princeton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@JS\_Princeton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JS_Princeton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-something-existed-forever/119377/45 "2002-07-18T21:24:18Z")
> [@](#): > > Do you agree that the matter needed to allow the Big Bang to occur, is finite? No. There is no “matter needed to allow the Big Bang to occur.” > [@](#): > > If so, we know that this matter is not infinite, and must have been created. Now, the matter that allowed the Big Bang to occur, at some point, _came in to existence_. Where this happenned, when this happenned, the laws of thermodynamics were mysteriously absent. How so? The laws of thermodynamics were there… we’re dealing with incredibly huge amount of energy that we haven’t begun to probe yet in our limited laboratories. To put it another way, someone once said a singularity is where nature divided by zero. We just don’t have a way of defining such a thing. Thermodynamics are there… just because you or I don’t understand the processes don’t mean that they aren’t there. From there, we really can’t come to the conclusion to which you want to come. ---
**Author:** ![Beastal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Beastal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastal)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-something-existed-forever/119377/46 "2002-07-18T21:45:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JS Princeton \* > \*\* > > No. There is no “matter needed to allow the Big Bang to occur.” \*\* Huh? The Big Bang was made up of **entirely** immaterial components? ---
**Author:** ![JS\_Princeton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@JS\_Princeton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JS_Princeton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-something-existed-forever/119377/47 "2002-07-18T22:22:05Z")
no… the Big Bang is an event in space-time. No matter necessary. Matter is necessary for our own existence, not for the Big Bang’s. However, inflationary models and quintessence may give rise to arguments about the neccesity of vacuum energy and the like, but for now it’s best for us (and for the sake at arriving at a destination of trying to get a non-answer to the OP) to say that there really was no “material” component to the Big Bang. It was just an accident of the way things happened that matter exists. ---
**Author:** ![Beastal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Beastal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastal)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-something-existed-forever/119377/48 "2002-07-18T22:36:32Z")
Ok, do we know anything that is required in the recipe for a big bang? If so, is it finite, and if it is, what is defining it? ---
**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:** [July 18, 2002, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-something-existed-forever/119377/49 "2002-07-18T22:48:17Z")
Before the Time of Last Scatter, photons had an extremely short mean free path (due, in fact, to them colliding with the ionized protons and electrons all over the place). Now, this is just a _mean_ free path, and some photons would travel further. There is a nonzero probability for a photon to travel any given length, but you would need an awfully big universe for that to be expected to happen. I haven’t done the math, but I’m confident that there is a vanishingly small chance that any photon in the observable universe dates back to a time before protons formed. ---
**Author:** ![zen101](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c68b51/32.png) [@zen101](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zen101)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2002, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-something-existed-forever/119377/50 "2002-07-19T07:03:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JS Princeton \* > \*\ ***Zen101** , good try, but you’re going in the wrong direction. I want you to tell me why there was entropy at the point of the singularity at the big bang. \*\* Well you put it really specifically and I’m afraid my conception and understanding of entropy verges on a faith moreso than pure math but I’ll give it a shot. We are talking about pre-existence----\>now and what could have existed from there to here. You mentioned mentioned “time” which I feel is close, but off by a thought, time is a concept which requires two things and intelligence to come up with it and a method of measuring it. “Duration” would have been more on the nose, but even then you need space before you can have duration. In nothingness there are no events to measure duration and therefore duration cannot exist. Space came after the nothingness so throw that one out too. The monoblock is presumed to be it, but if you give an average density to an infinite universe then the monoblock had to be infinite as well. For the sake of sanity it is regarded that infinite something-ness is the same as infinite nothing-ness in that both are equal to such an extent that neither can be quantified. Both are a non-non. The first instant of the universe had to be the transition from infinite nothing (or) infinite something to infinite space with something in it, a hybrid. At the instant of translation duration begins, duration measured with decay of stability, matter, and everything else. Entropy. Before the universe began to decay it did not exist, but the moment it began it also began to cease. Philosophically, nothing can die until it begins to live. This entire line or reason both applies and defies Occam’s Razor. And is probably why some physicists become religeous and other’s become Athiests. I have seen the argument to prove and disprove a god, and both arguments were equally murky and equally clear and thus suited my innate desire for symmetry. As I said, speculation on the infinite is philosophy anyhow so it may be that we are all riding the back of an elephant. Infinite space provides infinite variety so theorhetically we are all right and all wrong depending on where we stand when we make our opines. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2002, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-something-existed-forever/119377/51 "2002-07-19T11:06:23Z")
DrMatrix > [@](#): > > The difference between the nothing of a vacuum and the nothing outside the universe is that a vacuum has extent in space and a duration in time. I’m sure you didn’t mean that quite like it sounds. The nothing of a vacuum is in fact teeming with electromagnetic fields, or zero point energy. Obviously, it is impossible to remove all energy from a (natural) system. That would leave particles at rest, which would be an absurdity since then you would know both their position and momentum. ---
**Author:** ![JS\_Princeton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@JS\_Princeton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JS_Princeton)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2002, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-something-existed-forever/119377/52 "2002-07-19T16:38:09Z")
**Zen101** , if I understand your reasoning correctly you are positing that even if entropy was zero at the point of the singularity, it existed at epsilon beyond the singularity. Since I really can’t say whether time or space existed at the singularity, I have to give you the benefit of the doubt and allow for your “entropy” quip to stand. Well done. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-something-existed-forever/119377.md?page=2)