As a thought experiment I like to try to visualize/comprend/apprehend, etc. things like what’ on the other side of a black hole and things like that. Lately I’ve been playing with the thought experiment of what happened before the Big Bang and how did the Big Bang, Bang? I’m not good at ‘Quantum Arithmetic’:eek:or whatever you want to call it, so if you could, try to refrain from using a lot of it. I look at this more from a philosophical paradox type viewpoint. Thanks
“In the beginning there was nothing. God said, Let there be light! And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it.” – Ellen DeGeneres
If you take the perspective that space and time describe the metric in which matter and energy exist, the answer would be, “What ‘before’? There was no ‘before’.” Of course, this is as much metaphysics as cosmology, but worth noting.
(In essence, “before the Big Bang” in this view would be like “colder than absolute zero” or “four-sided triangle” or “three-toed hippogriff” – something it’s possible to construct a meaningful English phrase describing, but which has no real-world referent.
If there was no “before the big bang” (meaning time started at the moment of the big bang), the better question then becomes “what caused the big bang?”
A potentiality.
God’s toilet.
The concept of “before” becomes problematic when you get close to the Big Bang.
As we know from relativity, space and time are intertwined. Our acceleration within space affects how we move forward through time. Being inside a very strong gravitational field is the same as accelerating very quickly, and the gravitational fields around the time of the Big Bang were unimaginably huge. Possibly so huge that time simply “wraps around”.
Imagine tracing the path of a particle backwards in time toward the Big Bang. Eventually you reach a point of maximum density and afterwards you discover that you’re no longer tracing a particle backward, you’re tracing an antiparticle forward. Go back far enough and “before” becomes “after”.
A very annoyed physicist once tried repeatedly to explain twistor theory to me, and it sounded very much like this. The way he explained it to me is that there is in essence only one particle, and that it moves backwards and forwards across the moment of “now.” I’m sure he’d have been pleased to show me pagefuls of Greek symbols, but that was the best he could do with a plain English explanation to an idiot.
Is it possible that prior to the Big Bang, an entire previous universe had collapsed into a black hole or singularity, which then exploded as our Big Bang?
I’m not saying that this did happen, but is it possible that it might have happened?
This actually did happen because in that last universe I was God, which was really a pretty great gig. This time around, I’m just a turd on a couch, which kinda sucks, relatively.
Its impossible to know, but Im certain it has nothing to do with religion or religious concepts like gods or whatever is in fashion nowadays.
The problem with your question is that we can only measure the cosmos we have, so there is no observing things from outside or before the universe, if those things even truly exist. Your question is unanswerable, but you’ll get lots of opinions and theories (like cyclic bangs or an ever expanding universe). Right now, it looks like the ever-expanding universe is winning, so its doubtful that time-space existed previously.
Also, there’s really nothing on the other side of a black hole. A black hole isnt a big hole in time-space, its just something with a whole lot of gravity. Its black because light cant escape it, not because it leads outisde the universe. If you get sucked into one then the atoms that make up your body will be torn apart and stuck onto the surface of the collapsed star that is in the black hole’s center.
I like that. I’m writing a sci fi short story and I would like to use that concept if you don’t mind. The story is in the not too far future and its got a big ass dark matter bomb armed with an A.I. chip gone bad that, of course, blasts you back befor the big bang. It’s really hard to write about this stuff when you have to make it sound plausible even if it’s meaninless. Got to use a lot of words like quantum, continuum, etc.
thanks:D
That’s my working model right now, but this stuff is tuff.
I remind you of all the paperwork involved in being Sovereign Lord of All There Is. It’s literally endless. Why do you think I gave up trying to conquer Earth?
That concept is over 60 years old and pretty much played out by now. When Richard Feynman developed Quantum Electrodynamics one of the fun facts that emerged from it was that electrons and positrons could be modeled as a single particle moving forward (electrons) and backward (positrons) in time. Nobody really takes it seriously as a physical model.
The notion that our universe emerged from a previous universe that collapsed into a black hole is also something that been around for quite a while and is a regular in the popular science magazines. There’s not a particle of proof for it, pardon the pun, but that’s true for everything that tries to explain the currently unexplainable.
And if you don’t understand the concepts in the first place, why would you even attempt to put them in a story when the chances are that your readers will laugh at you for your ignorance when you get them totally wrong?
I’m an agnostic/atheist that is quite solidly grounded in science. But I still don’t get it.
Perhaps physics is just not my bag. Black holes? I get it. But a singularity with no dimensions before time existed has a ‘big bang’ and the universe is created?
Frankly, it sounds like a bed time story.
It’s very much like that Gary Larson cartoon – Wherein some scientist have a huge equation on a chalk board and the middle of it says ‘And then a miracle happened’.
A neutron has a dimension. So does a proton. Saying that the entire universe was packed into a singularity that had no size does not fit with my 3d brain in this 3d world. Someone will come back I’m sure to say that like there was no time, there where no dimensions.
Sometimes I think it’s just a bunch of hooey. Physicists see the universe is expanding and suspect it always has. Then we have the whole anti-gravity dark matter thing.
But then I look at a physics page. According to it protons and neutrons are made of quarks. And quarks are points. Singularities. If that’s the case. I guess I don’t really exist. Tell that to the cop giving you a speeding ticket.
.Which is larger, the proton or the neutron?
But then on the other hand. I deal with a type of singularity every day. GIS data. Points. It has no dimension. Just a location and data.
Where did this all come from in the first place? But now I’m dwelling into the metaphysical. It’s damn near enough to make you believe in god. But where in the heck is god from?
I’m glad it’s Friday.
As if “What came before the Big Bang?” wasn’t imponderable enough, you have to go and ask a question like this?!
We don’t know; we just observe that it happens. And if you’ve seen the SyFy channel, you know it happens more often than not.
Let’s pretend that we are living in a living thing. Let’s pretend this for a moment. If this is true, perhaps something outside of this universe had something similar to sperm which went into something similar to an ovary, which then banged (A.K.A. developed) into what we call our universe. I mean we have microscopic things inside us.
If this were true, I suppose Earth could be the Universiot’s brain. Yes, I did just make up a word. A poor one at that.
It was the brilliant Sidney Harris, not the puerile Larson.
It was the Big Foreplay.