What was there before the big bang?

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by Asexperia, May 19, 2019.

  1. TheFrogger Banned Valued Senior Member

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    The only way to know for certain what there was before the Big-Bang would be to go there.

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  3. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Not necessarily. Besides, how do you propose to go there? Got a time machine?
     
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  5. TheFrogger Banned Valued Senior Member

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    What, like a refrigerator or something?

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  7. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    I see. You are wasting our time here as well as in the other thread. Enjoy your break from the forum.
     
  8. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    By definition if something existed before the Big Bang, the Big Bang didn't mark the absolution beginning.

    The Big Bang theory doesn't claim to be the beginning. It's a bit "disingenuous" perhaps but it claims to explain what happened a fraction of a second after the beginning.

    The way it's usually presented though is that 13.82 billion years ago there was a phase change (at a minimum) and the Universe was smaller and hotter than we find it to be today. Beyond that, it's just speculation.
     
  9. Asexperia Valued Senior Member

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    I think that there could be some kind of Energy without movement, neither change, nor time. That energy mother no longer exists because it became matter and in the forms of energy that we know.
     
  10. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    This may be of interest.

     
  11. mmatt9876 Registered Senior Member

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    If I am correct before the Big Bang the universe existed as a singularity. So I guess the universe was always there just not as we know it today.
     
  12. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    A "singularity" or infinity, is just where mathematics breaks down, resulting in the singularity. We don't know what, if anything, was before the Big Bang.
     
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  13. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    Well, Twinkies existed before time began.
     
  14. mmatt9876 Registered Senior Member

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    So until we have the math we will not know how, or even if, the universe existed before the Big Bang.
     
  15. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    It's not about getting the math. It's about getting evidence, making predictions that are testable.

    When you get a singularity/infinity it's generally just the math breaking down. That's probably not the reality.
     
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  16. mmatt9876 Registered Senior Member

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    Right. We need evidence. We get evidence by running experiments. If we cannot test the validity of something we are left where we started.
     
  17. river

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    We know that before BB is physically based . ( BB speaking ) . The physical has always existed ; for infinity .

    This mindset is disappointing .
     
  18. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Latest knowledge and data tells us that the BB was the evolution of space and time [spacetime] as we know them, from t+10-43 seconds.
    The BB also is only applicable for the observable universe.
    http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/infpoint.html
     
  19. mmatt9876 Registered Senior Member

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    Evidence, my mistake.
     
  20. mmatt9876 Registered Senior Member

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    Thanks. So the entire universe was not concentrated into a point at the time of the Big Bang but the observable universe was, right?
     
  21. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Bingo! And all the BB covers is from t+19-43 seconds and the evolution of space and time, as we know them...whatever stage it existed in before is unknown.
    Here also is a great speculative piece about the BB/universe arising from nothing....https://www.astrosociety.org/publication/a-universe-from-nothing/
    A Universe from Nothing:
    "In the inflationary theory, matter, antimatter, and photons were produced by the energy of the false vacuum, which was released following the phase transition. All of these particles consist of positive energy. This energy, however, is exactly balanced by the negative gravitational energy of everything pulling on everything else. In other words, the total energy of the universe is zero! It is remarkable that the universe consists of essentially nothing, but (fortunately for us) in positive and negative parts. You can easily see that gravity is associated with negative energy: If you drop a ball from rest (defined to be a state of zero energy), it gains energy of motion (kinetic energy) as it falls. But this gain is exactly balanced by a larger negative gravitational energy as it comes closer to Earth’s center, so the sum of the two energies remains zero.

    The idea of a zero-energy universe, together with inflation, suggests that all one needs is just a tiny bit of energy to get the whole thing started (that is, a tiny volume of energy in which inflation can begin). The universe then experiences inflationary expansion, but without creating net energy.

    What produced the energy before inflation? This is perhaps the ultimate question. As crazy as it might seem, the energy may have come out of nothing! The meaning of “nothing” is somewhat ambiguous here. It might be the vacuum in some pre-existing space and time, or it could be nothing at all – that is, all concepts of space and time were created with the universe itself.

    Quantum theory, and specifically Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, provide a natural explanation for how that energy may have come out of nothing. Throughout the universe, particles and antiparticles spontaneously form and quickly annihilate each other without violating the law of energy conservation. These spontaneous births and deaths of so-called “virtual particle” pairs are known as “quantum fluctuations.” Indeed, laboratory experiments have proven that quantum fluctuations occur everywhere, all the time. Virtual particle pairs (such as electrons and positrons) directly affect the energy levels of atoms, and the predicted energy levels disagree with the experimentally measured levels unless quantum fluctuations are taken into account.

    Perhaps many quantum fluctuations occurred before the birth of our universe. Most of them quickly disappeared. But one lived sufficiently long and had the right conditions for inflation to have been initiated. Thereafter, the original tiny volume inflated by an enormous factor, and our macroscopic universe was born. The original particle-antiparticle pair (or pairs) may have subsequently annihilated each other – but even if they didn’t, the violation of energy conservation would be minuscule, not large enough to be measurable.

    If this admittedly speculative hypothesis is correct, then the answer to the ultimate question is that the universe is the ultimate free lunch! It came from nothing, and its total energy is zero, but it nevertheless has incredible structure and complexity. There could even be many other such universes, spatially distinct from ours."
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    Now while the above is certainly speculative at this stage, it is speculation based on current scientific knowledge and data.
     

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