Like I said: What surrounded the primordial atom that gave rise to the big bang? Was it some sort of energy? Was it nothingness? Whatever it was, it didn’t hold our current set of physics. People who do math on this sort of thing can’t go back before the first 200ms to try and quantify what happened. The universe in that span of time grew to be incredibly large (relative to it’s starting size) that our laws of physics say is impossible. The universe that formed (“us”) had a different set of physics than what propelled the big bang.
So, did the big bang completely consume it’s starting milieu or did it press it outward to make room? If it completely consumed it, there is nothingness outside our universe where our laws of physics don’t apply. If it pressed it outward, there is something outside our universe, but our laws of physics still don’t apply there.
That being said, my original statement was a joke. Even if true, it has no bearing on us until we somehow find a way to cross the universes’ edge and play with whatever is there.
Doesn’t *need *to nothingness. Could be emptyness. Infinite emptyness with, maybe, even more ‘bubbles’ of galaxies forever expanding and shrinking in their own right.
It’s not the ‘rules’ of physics that require nothing to be something - its the impossibility of proving that something is nothing - how does one define ‘nothing’ in any sense? how does one then go about detecting “nothing” ?
In the sense of modern physics/cosmology, etc - its more that they have discovered that there is something everywhere - there is no space where nothing is the only thing there.
Going back far enough - possibly to the thing that caused the big bang - its impossible to know what was external to the thing that banged, it is also impossible to describe what is beyond the edge of our universe - because if there is something there - it is not nothing - even if that something is beyond our modern grasp of physics (or even changes the rules of same) - that is not nothing - that is something.
Again we are talking of the edge of our observable universe, the galaxies and gas clouds we can see distancing. The real universe, in the sense of everything there is, might be bigger. There doesn’t need to be an ‘edge’, if it is indeed expanding into something, namely empty space.
“empty” or “empty space” != “nothing” - by definition, the space is there and is therefore “something” for us to expand ‘into’ - if it were ‘nothing’ - you can’t expand into “nothing”.
"empty space beyond our ‘observationable’ abilty, may indeed be “void of anything” - but since we cannot observe or test that - there is no evidence for or against it - it may well be where all the socks have gone.
and I agree - since it is ‘ever exanding’ - calling anything an ‘edge’ is a misnomer - but from an observational standpoint - and for calculations, etc - it has a definitive meaning.
I think another way to put the “edge of the observable universe” is to think of it as more of ‘our’ limitation and not a limitation on the universe itself.
Yes, all this wondering about “what was there before the big bang” or what “mysterious” instance caused the big bang or “is there an outside when space and time only exist within the universe” would be answered if there is just infinite empty space with our observable collection of galaxies expanding and shrinking ad infinitum. No beginning, no end.
certainly - while some posit that it must have been an external ‘force’ that caused it, I find it far simpler to say it “just happened” - occam’s razor and all that. They’ve also observed this type of thing in that ‘quantom foam’ bit (which is way beyond me to explain).
End of the day - it becomes about the evidence - we have evidence for the big bang - we have ‘some’ evidence that the ‘big bang’ can just happen without external force* - we have zero evidence for a ‘supernatural entity’ to have ‘caused it’.
I worry abit about Schrodinger in this - but like I said, that is beyond my understanding other than what little I’ve read from links from this board.
These are more linguistic arguments than physics arguments. There may be some underlying “metric,” some “place” that is of a different physical dimensionality than our own space. There might be “something” – empty or not – into which our universe is expanding.
But…there also might not. There simply isn’t any evidence, and there isn’t any likelihood of such evidence arising. Such “regions,” if they “exist,” are absolutely beyond our ability to view…at least at this time. Who knows? Maybe some clever physicist will come up with a periscope that peeps into these regions. But for now, we’ve got nothing.
Human language just isn’t made to deal with the “existence of nothing.” The words are contradictory, but the concepts don’t have to be.
While I am admittedly having a bit of fun with the linguistic aspect of it - can you point out where any of my arguments were incorrect from a physics standpoint ? (even if greatly simplified)
I think I also functionly said what was in your response - that we simply don’t know what we’re expanding “into” -
simster: we may be closer to agreement than I had thought. I took issue with your phrase “you can’t expand into ‘nothing.’” I’m not at all sure that’s correct. We might be expanding into nothing; or we might simply be expanding within the confines of our universe itself. There are ways of expressing both ideas geometrically, and, alas, no way to test either proposition.
In your more recent post, you say, “. . . we simply don’t know what we’re expanding ‘into.’” With this, I wholly agree: we simply don’t know.
That was my only gripe: I thought you made too definite a declarative statement in an area where “…we simply don’t know.”
(Decades of participating in these kinds of philosophical, theological, and political debates have made me extremely chary of making definite declarative statements. Why, they’re always wrong, don’t you see? )
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