# What's the latest on the Big Bang? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 30, 2004, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-latest-on-the-big-bang/271945 "2004-10-30T00:03:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Blackacre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@Blackacre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackacre)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-latest-on-the-big-bang/271945/1 "2004-10-30T00:03:16Z")
I am rephrasing this [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=5428258#post5428258) so that I might not scare the MODs and get mistakenly shuffled off to GD again. What I am asking is if anyone might know what the latest is on the Big Bang theory? Is it waxing/waning? Are there any competing SCIENTIFIC theories? Anything more on what happened prior to the Big Bang, etc. I AM NOT INTERESTED IN/SEEKING “gOD” STUFF!!! Thank you. =D BA ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-latest-on-the-big-bang/271945/2 "2004-10-30T00:34:18Z")
> [@Blackacre](#): > > I am rephrasing this [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=5428258#post5428258) so that I might not scare the MODs and get mistakenly shuffled off to GD again. What I am asking is if anyone might know what the latest is on the Big Bang theory? Is it waxing/waning? Are there any competing SCIENTIFIC theories? Anything more on what happened prior to the Big Bang, etc. I AM NOT INTERESTED IN/SEEKING “gOD” STUFF!!! > > Thank you. =D > BA I wasn’t scared, nor was I mistaken. If you didn’t understand what all the replys to your OP in the linked thread were getting at, then I figured you needed to slug it out in Great Debates. ---
**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:** [October 30, 2004, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-latest-on-the-big-bang/271945/3 "2004-10-30T01:14:03Z")
Well, there haven’t been any really interesting developments in the past few billion years… But more seriously, there are no scientific competitors for the Big Bang theory as a whole. There is still a great deal of discussion of specifics of the theory, however (exactly how dense was the Universe as a function of time, what’s the composition of the Universe at various times, etc.). It’s not getting any more widely accepted, for the simple reason that essentially all cosmologists already accept it. And according to most present models of the Big Bang, any questions involving “before the Big Bang” are not only unanswered, but meaningless, since time itself started with the Big Bang, and there can be no “before” without time. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-latest-on-the-big-bang/271945/4 "2004-10-30T01:19:03Z")
[Scientists zero in on why time flows in one direction](http://www.physorg.com/news1734.html) > [@](#): > > The big bang could be a normal event in the natural evolution of the universe that will happen repeatedly over incredibly vast time scales as the universe expands, empties out and cools off, according to two University of Chicago physicists. ---
**Author:** ![Blackacre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@Blackacre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackacre)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-latest-on-the-big-bang/271945/5 "2004-10-30T06:23:50Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > I wasn’t scared, nor was I mistaken. If you didn’t understand what all the replys to your OP in the linked thread were getting at, then I figured you needed to slug it out in Great Debates. Of course I “understood” what the posts were getting at, but they were non-responsive. Bleh. BA ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-latest-on-the-big-bang/271945/6 "2004-10-30T10:10:21Z")
> [@Blackacre](#): > > Of course I “understood” what the posts were getting at, but they were non-responsive. Bleh. > > BA And your dodgy question and following resonse were not only one sentence, but vague, confusing and, well, insipid. ---
**Author:** ![Iceland\_Blue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/4bbf92/32.png) [@Iceland\_Blue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iceland_Blue)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-latest-on-the-big-bang/271945/7 "2004-10-30T10:19:11Z")
Do we actually know what caused the Big Bang? So far all I’m getting is ‘there was nothing and then it exploded’? I do have a theory about this 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-latest-on-the-big-bang/271945/8 "2004-10-30T10:54:12Z")
> [@Iceland\_Blue](#): > > Do we actually know what caused the Big Bang? So far all I’m getting is ‘there was nothing and then it exploded’? > I do have a theory about this 🙂 A few general points: 1. If there was no time (as we commonly know it), causality is irrelevant if not impossible. Or at least really, really complicated. In order to have “X then Y” you need one thing to follow another in time. 2. There wasn’t “nothing”; there was _everything_. It was just all at one point. Also, remember we’re not just talking about an empty space which becomes filled with matter after the explosion; the space itself was created as well. Mindbending stuff. 3. If this theory involves “God did it”, you’ve just met the “[God of the Gaps](http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/god_of_gaps.html)”. Say hello. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-latest-on-the-big-bang/271945/9 "2004-10-30T12:03:17Z")
Wouldn’t “brane theory” count as something new? (Feel free to google that…) ---
**Author:** ![dogbutler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogbutler/32/428_2.png) [@dogbutler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dogbutler)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-latest-on-the-big-bang/271945/10 "2004-10-30T15:28:33Z")
Brane and Brane! What is [brane](http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/bigbang_alternative_010413-1.html)? ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-latest-on-the-big-bang/271945/11 "2004-10-30T17:57:25Z")
I would like to reiterate this point (made by **Chronos** and **Gyrate** above, and by me in the thread linked to in the OP): The commonly accepted theory is that time began with the Big Bang. Thus, it is meaningless to talk about what caused the Big Bang. The Big Bang isn’t even an “event” in the usual sense. (I don’t mean in the relativity sense, I mean in the every day sense of “a thing that happened”.) It’s just the starting point. It isn’t that there was nothing, and then the Big Bang happened. There was _never_ nothing. There is no such time as “before the Big Bang.” It _can’t_ have a cause in the usual sense (i.e. an event that happened before it that directly led to it happening), because there was no time before the Big Bang in which this cause could take place. Also: I wish this were an appropriate forum for expressions of my opinion, because I would love to say something about people who post vague one-sentence questions and then complain when they don’t get the response they want, rather than appreciating how much more effort people put into answering their questions (not to mention trying to guess what the hell they’re talking about) than they put into asking them. Maybe I should say it [somewhere else.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=5430222#post5430222) ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2004, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-latest-on-the-big-bang/271945/12 "2004-10-30T18:38:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Well, there haven’t been any really interesting developments in the past few billion years… > > But more seriously, there are no scientific competitors for the Big Bang theory as a whole. There is still a great deal of discussion of specifics of the theory, however (exactly how dense was the Universe as a function of time, what’s the composition of the Universe at various times, etc.). It’s not getting any more widely accepted, for the simple reason that essentially all cosmologists already accept it. And according to most present models of the Big Bang, any questions involving “before the Big Bang” are not only unanswered, but meaningless, since time itself started with the Big Bang, and there can be no “before” without time. Is the brane-world-derived “Ekpyrotic Universe” on the outs, then? ---
**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:** [October 31, 2004, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-latest-on-the-big-bang/271945/13 "2004-10-31T23:15:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Is the brane-world-derived “Ekpyrotic Universe” on the outs, then? I’m not familiar with that word, but I presume you’re referring to the model where the Big Bang was caused by two branes colliding in a higher-dimensional space? There’s really not enough information as yet to evaluate that hypothesis one way or the other. That’s why I said that there is no notion of time before the Bang in most models, rather than all. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2004, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-latest-on-the-big-bang/271945/14 "2004-10-31T23:43:05Z")
Yep, that’s the one. The word comes from the ancient Greek, _ekpyrosis_, meaning, “conflagration”, or something like that. I guess the idea is the two branes periodically smack together, and when they do, it causes every point in space to expand in an inflationary manner, and pumps the branes full of energy, which I guess then gives rise to all the matter and energy we see, just like the Big-Bang would. CMB anisotropy is maybe derived from ripples in the branes, causing them to collide in various regions some small unit of time differently than in other regions. I guess I don’t see the point, personally, other than to provide yet another example of what extra dimensions can do for you if you are willing to believe they exist. Since the branes are assumed to be eternal, I guess the issue of first causes gets pushed back a step, but doesn’t go away; and if we can’t disprove the other brane’s possible existence with any conceivable experiment, yet must accept it is there, I don’t see how the ekpyrotic model avoids being any more metaphysical than the question “what came before the Big Bang”. Then again, I could be full of crap, and must certainly admit I’m manifestly unqualified to make a rigorous critique of the hypothesis. It’s the only remotely viable alternate candidate to the Big Bang hypothesis that I know of, and I wondered what its current state of acceptance might be, e.g. does it seem more interesting, or less, since its introduction. ---
**Author:** ![mitchythekid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c67d28/32.png) [@mitchythekid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mitchythekid)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2004, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-latest-on-the-big-bang/271945/15 "2004-11-01T00:10:22Z")
Try some liturature from Stephen Hawking,he’s got some really good books out,they opened my mind to alot about the subject. 🙂