Asmodean said:
Yes. That’s why we fight creationists.
Feel free to explain what you’re talking about here. 'Cus you’re sure not making much sense the way I see it.
Sure, science can disagree with itself and not be wrong. So can religion. Christianity is a little more specific, and relativistic theory is a little more specific. Each one is rather consistent with itself, much like any specific religion and specific branch of science.
What really seperates the two is that science tries very hard to incorporate new ideas, while religions use centuries old teachings.
I don’t hate religion like my namesake did, I feel it had, and perhaps still has, its purpose; however, I do not feel that it has much to teach as far as “the way things are.” Call me crazy, but it could have hinted at the dinosaurs, yeah?
David B wrote:
I think Scylla meant “steady state” in the super long long long long run. I.e. he meant that a billion trillion zillion whillion jillion years from now, after the next Big Crunch, we’ll have another big bang, and then a few billion years later we’ll be in basically the same state we’re in right now. As opposed to the prospect of an “open” or “flat” universe which will keep on expanding forever and never return to something like its current state.
And incidentally, Scylla, the best evidence we currently have does not suggest a steady-state universe. Our best estimates of the universe’s mass still put it well below the “closed universe threshold,” even when we take all the known dark-matter into account. This means our best models predict an “open” universe that will never shrink back down into a Big Crunch.
Actually as the author of the comment, I can assure you it didn’t. I was only observing that one of these ‘Everything we think we know is wrong, Prove you exist, All hail the shadows on the wall’ threads seems to pop up here on a schedule so regular that you could set your watch by it.
I applaud your optimism. Just wait until the 3rd. 
I heartily apologize. Indeed I had wrongly used the term “steady state universe.”
Evidence right now, based on estimates of the mass of the universe and relative velocities, suggests a flat universe.
What that means is nothing exists before the Big-Bang. The BB occurs the universe flies apart, but there isn’t quite enough mass to make it pull back together into a Big Crunch. There’s also too much mass for it to keep flying away. Gravity just steadily slows down the expansion, but never quite stops it.
DavidB:
Yeah, I actually was reading some creationist stuff and mixed up my terms.
The cause of the Big Bang is fundamentally unknowable because there can be no evidence to show where it came from or how it occured, since before the Big Bang there was neither time no space.
We can guess, but as Jshore points out whether you call it a lingering virtual pair or a pair of sea bass is an equally good guess.
The way that I see it,
In order to empirically test a theory, we need to make observations. According to our best current theories, our observational limit, is the universe boundary (in distance) and t>0 (in time, where t is the time since the big bang).
Therefore we cannot possibly empirically test, that which is beyond our universe in space and time. We can hypothesise, but that is all. Theories such as the Cosmological anthropic principal, may require the existence of many universes (multiversal theories), and other dimensions in space and in time, both within our universe and external to (eg string theory).
The time dimension and three spatial dimensions that we know and exist in, were created with the big bang. That is not to say that nothing existed external to our universe when the big bang occurred, just that it would have to exist in other dimensions. Such existence may or may not have caused the creation of our universe, again we can hypothesise, but not test. If it pleases people then we can call this external existence, God, then fine, but because it exists outside of our dimensions, it is totally unknowable (both to us and to anything else that exists within the dimensions of our universe).
IMHO Given limitations to the scope of our knowledge, should not stop us exploring and trying to make sense of that, which we can observe, this is one role of science, and is the only way we can hope to improve our understanding in such questions.
Scylla said:
Um, if it doesn’t stop, then it does “keep flying away” – even if at a slower pace.
I’m sorry, but I disagree. As I noted already, just because we can’t figure out something now doesn’t mean we will never figure it out.
David B:
Like a limit equation or a half life.
The question of How the BB happened or what happened before the BB is fundamentally unknowable as a matter of definition.
We may be able to figure out potential mechanisms about how it might have occured. In order to verify them, you would have to be outside the universe, which you can’t do. Even if you could, you would be outside the universe, and hence unable to observe it.
To get an idea of the cunundrum, try this:
Take your index finger and your thumb of une hand and make a circle. Next take the thumb of you other hand and stick it up thorugh the circle. Now, as fast as you can, pull your thumb out of the circle and try to grab your thumb sticking out of the circle. No matter how fast you try your thumb is always gone by the time your hand crosses the top of the circle by definition of the experiment.
Here’s some cool links:
This first is particularly good.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/980720/20bang.htm
http://home.flash.net/~csmith0/bigbang.htm
Here’s a good quote from this site:
http://members.nbci.com/Templarser/big-bang.html
Dr. Matrix:
Actually the Hubble telescope has a picture of what they believe is a black hole complete with Hawking radiation.
Scylla said:
You can repeat yourself all you want, but I’ll still hold to what I said – just because we can’t figure it out now doesn’t mean we’ll never figure it out.
Not necessarily. There may be other ways to verify it. Do I know of any? No. But (sing along with me here) that doesn’t mean we’ll never be able to figure it out.
The radiation coming from the black hole we observe is not Hawking radiation. It is caused by the acceleration of infalling matter. Hawking radiation is thermal and the temperature of a stellar or larger sized black hole is less than the 3 degree background radiation. The smaller the black hole, the hotter it is. In order to directly observe Hawking radiation (with our current technology), we would have to find a primordial black hole - one created by the Big Bang and not by stellar collapse.
Actually, current evidence indicates that the universe’s expansion may be accelerating. It says so right in the first article you cited, Scylla. It is a pretty good article, I agree. Here is a quote from that article:
That’s one of the leading theorists in the world’s opinion on the subject.
Now, I also see in this article where you got the idea expressed in the OP:
These, however are the opinions of the author of the article. I don’t know what his credentials are in the field of physics, but it seems his day job is a reporter.
As for the other article you quote,
Yup. This is not a statement that what happened before the Big Bang is unknowable. It’s part of the theory that Guth developed, in which the Big Bang resulted from quantum fluctuations in the nothing that existed before the big bang. It is a theory which leads to predictions which may eventually be observable.
This is the cover story from last month’s Discover.
http://www.discover.com/current_issue/index.html
I found the idea of “multiverses” intriguing, though the admittedly dumbed down explanation of a “self reproducing inflationary universe” taxed my poor little lawyer-brain.
And I have no hope of grasping how they believe “proof of some kind is at least theoretically possible.”
But it certainly is a conceivable alternative to “what happened before BB” to suggest that the universe “os like a growing fractal, sprouting inflationary domains that sprout more inflationary domains, with each domain spreading and cooling into a new universe. … Our universe is just one of the sprouts.”
Enjoyable article, IMO. I especially liked the bit about the 6 magic numbers that make life possible in this “off-the-rack” universe. Man, Ima gonna wow em at the cocktail parties over the holidays!
I’ve got to agree with Scylla here. It’s not a case of figuring it out; we’ve already figured it out. If the BB happened as we think then, by definition, we can’t know with any degree of certainty how it started.
Saying that we don’t know that we’ll never figure it out, is a bit like saying that you don’t believe Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem because we might be able to figure it out eventually.
Of course, we might be thinking of the beginning of the Universe in completely the wrong way, and with a different theory we might be able to prove how the universe started, but then it wouldn’t be the BB.
On a related note, an excellent book I was reading (till my bag was stolen 
) is Impossiblity, by John D. Barrow (ISBN: 0099772116). This talks about the limits of science, not because the theory is wrong, but because the theory predicts that it cannot predict further.
NB. This isn’t a religious based book, and is in fact rather anti-religious, so if you’re looking for “science is wrong” type things, look elsewhere. OTOH, I’m religious as well as interested in science, and I enjoyed it.
Scylla. You scientists think you’re so great. You’re no better than those who have a faith-based world view.
Scientist. Why do you say that? Faith seeks to retain the constancy of its ideas by incorporating the observable; science seeks to refine and, if necessary, reject its ideas based on the observable.
Scylla. Yeah, but when you guys run up against something you don’t know or can’t understand you don’t allow people to question you on it. You won’t accept alternate theories. Like my Two Giant Sea Bass theory.
Scientist. Well, if those alternate theories don’t fit in with what we do know about the observable universe–
Scylla No dice. If you set yourself up as opposed to the ‘closed-mindedness’ of a faith-based worldview, then you’re duty bound to entertain any and all theories that come down the pike, or else you’re no better than the people you claim to be against.
Scientist. Oh.
I’d like to respond to Scylla’s thoughtful OP by pointing out a catch-22 related to cosmology that science hasn’t yet sorted out. Under most interpretations of quantum physics, you move from the shadowy quantum level to the familiar classical level only upon measurement, or a measurement-like event. Measurement is accompanied by a ‘collapse of the wave function’, ‘decoherence into separate worlds,’ for example, (depending on the interpretation). The result is a definite result of the measurement process (vs. an ambiguous result before the measurement.)
If we accept that the quantum level has existed since the Big Bang, how does one arrive at the classical level prior to the existence of any observers capable of measurement-like events? Neither the standard interpretation nor the many-worlds interpretation (of Everett, DeWitt or Deutsch) provide an answer to this. The classical level (and thus general relativity) is simply presumed in Guth’s inflationary model, for example.
Gell-Mann & Hartle have taken this issue on by extending the ideas of Everett, generalizing the definition of decoherence to include measurement as a special case. In their view, then, observers are not necessary for decoherence. However, there’s no experimental evidence of decoherence occurring other than upon measurement. Put another way, the body of evidence remains in support of the standard interpretation, or its exact equivalents.
Oh, and occasional looks in from the guy upstairs is not an acceptable scientific explanation of non-measurement decoherence.
What about those who are not “literal Creationists”? We who believe in the Divine’s role in the development of the Universe, but not as the Creationists depict it, seem to be left out in this argument. Science is only explaining the process of evolution and the making of the galaxies. They have not proven that there was absolutely no Divine guidance as a factor in these developments. More likely, science may have proven the contrary.
OK, a little GQ but related to this thread.
I read the OP as referring to what happened to set Big Bang in motion. I was taught in high school and college that all natural laws were set at Big Bang or shortly after when the electroweak force and the strong force separated, followed by the electromagnetic and weak forces. Or something like that.
So, if there were no “laws of the Universe” before Big Bang, science cannot address what happened before, as there is no way to make hypotheses when there is no system in place.
This leads to the implication that there are no “figments” persisting from before Big Bang. There are no parts of the observable universe that cannot be explained using the four visible forces.
Am I wrong in this?
When we talk about repeated expansions/contractions before the Big Bang, or what is happening outside of the Universe, or what set Big Bang in motion are we making guesses or are we making hypotheses? The differ as a hypothesis depends existence of data to prove or disprove it.
Are there data which may prove or disprove hypotheses about what happened before Big Bang?
Thanks
Er, Nature. Edwino, what you have there is the “ONE FORCE” that existed in the primordial chaos. As the universe expanded and cooled, the force’s symmetry broke, and the one became two, two became four.
The above is a complete lie.
Anyway, the theory states that as we approach higher temperatures, dissimilar forces show that they are, in fact, two sides of the same force. It is generally accepted the the electromagnetic force and the weak force are one and the same at certian temperatures. It is expected that the Strong Force joins the fray at even higher temps. The superforce that includes all four has not been completely theorized other than people think it exists. Grand Unified Theories is one of the names for this topic. GUTs.
Capacitor, what about people like that? If you still have to have a god after all of this, then fine, find an area science admits a lack of understanding in and put it there. Just don’t get too upset when we kick it out again years later.
Though it is perhaps amusing that science has come to the same point as the OP brings it to, it was actually always there. And yet I don’t find televisions mystical just because I don’t know how to build one. Similarly, as a child, I never thought about God unless I was forced to go to church. Just didn’t seem to matter to me.
To say “I don’t know how…etc” does not mean “God exists! You proved it yourself by not knowing something!” If that were true, well…maybe I’ll take that to the BBQ pit instead of spelling it out here.
capacitor said:
And your point is what, exactly?
In a scientific discussion, the issue is, well, science. If you want to believe that God played a role in there somewhere, bully for you. But if you aren’t claiming that He performed miracles and changed the laws of physics or created man in the Garden of Eden, then I just don’t see the complaint. You aren’t left out – it’s just not part of the discussion.
Um. Care to back that one up?
I beg your pardon? I think this is something you should share with the rest of the class.