• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Big Bang expanded into nothingness?

Heyo

Veteran Member
In another thread, the big bang expansion was breifly mentioned. A question was asked, rough paraphrase, "Didn't the big bang expand into infinite space?" The answer given was, also rough paraphrase, "No, space itself expanded." I did a tiny bit of reading on this, and I think I understand the idea. My question is, "If space itself expanded, then is the domain of the expansion infinite nothingness?"
It's an open question and as it seems today the universe is "flat" - which is in conflict with the notion of space expanding into nothingness. In a flat universe, space was always there.
 

The Sum of Awe

Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
In another thread, the big bang expansion was breifly mentioned. A question was asked, rough paraphrase, "Didn't the big bang expand into infinite space?" The answer given was, also rough paraphrase, "No, space itself expanded." I did a tiny bit of reading on this, and I think I understand the idea. My question is, "If space itself expanded, then is the domain of the expansion infinite nothingness?"
When is time? Where is space? If you ask me space is just space, nothingness doesn’t exist because it isn’t a thing.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
It's an open question and as it seems today the universe is "flat" - which is in conflict with the notion of space expanding into nothingness. In a flat universe, space was always there.
Was it? I do not get that. The expansion of space is an increase of distance between two objects. It is as if the "fabric of space" stretched itself. I know that the "ether" concept is dead but the analogy that I like is if one thinks of 3D space as the surface of a 2D balloon that is inflating Now let's put some ants on it. As the balloon inflates the distance between any two ants increases. if two ants are far enough away the balloon may be able to inflate faster than the ants can move. in 3D space that would be similar to two galaxies that are so far apart that space the distance between two galaxies is increasing faster than the speed of light. The balloon is not inflating into plane, which is what the balloon appears to be to the ants, and endless plain, it is expanding at 90 degrees to the plane The increase in distance is just a result of that.

At any rate space may not be expanding into "space" but into another dimension that we cannot sense and the increase in 3D space is a result of that.

Wikipedia has a much better attempt to state it than I can:

"The expansion of the universe is the increase in distance between any two given gravitationally unbound parts of the observable universe with time.[1] It is an intrinsic expansion whereby the scale of space itself changes. The universe does not expand "into" anything and does not require space to exist "outside" it. This expansion involves neither space nor objects in space "moving" in a traditional sense, but rather it is the metric (which governs the size and geometry of spacetime itself) that changes in scale. "


They seem to be saying that even my extra dimension is not needed. Ow my head!
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
Was it? I do not get that. The expansion of space is an increase of distance between two objects. It is as if the "fabric of space" stretched itself. I know that the "ether" concept is dead but the analogy that I like is if one thinks of 3D space as the surface of a 2D balloon that is inflating Now let's put some ants on it. As the balloon inflates the distance between any two ants increases. if two ants are far enough away the balloon may be able to inflate faster than the ants can move. in 3D space that would be similar to two galaxies that are so far apart that space the distance between two galaxies is increasing faster than the speed of light. The balloon is not inflating into plane, which is what the balloon appears to be to the ants, and endless plain, it is expanding at 90 degrees to the plane The increase in distance is just a result of that.
The balloon model is one of curved space. The "surface" of the universe is finite.
In a flat model, there is no balloon but an infinite rubber sheet. And that had to be always there because there is no physical/mathematical transition that we can think of from finite to infinite.
 

Alien826

No religious beliefs
That's exactly my take, that the current universe of space-time is a big thing we all got in common but I see more.

Most of us have much more that we can sense. Most of us have say, a sense of humor, a sense of justice, a feeling for right and wrong --these are all ideas that (pretty much) any one of us can come upon and anyone else can see the same thing separately, and independently come to the same conclusion. What I'm seeing is that our minds allow us to transcend far beyond the limits that our space/time imposes.

That depends on whether you think these ideas can arise as part of the material universe or not. If thinking is a function of the brain, then there is no contradiction. Imagine you are standing on the Moon. Not hard, because there have been plenty of pictures of the lunar astronauts. Are you actually there? Now imagine something "outside the universe". Are you experiencing something real? I submit that in both cases it's all going on in your brain, which is very much part of the space-time universe.

Not to denigrate feelings and imagination of course. They both add a wonderful dimension to our lives.
 

Alien826

No religious beliefs
The balloon model is one of curved space. The "surface" of the universe is finite.
In a flat model, there is no balloon but an infinite rubber sheet. And that had to be always there because there is no physical/mathematical transition that we can think of from finite to infinite.

There are three possibilities, zero curvature (flat), positive curvature and negative curvature. It's all to do with the average density of the universe and the amount of energy present (something like that). The way I understand it, in a positively curved universe there is not enough energy to keep the universe expanding and it will eventually start collapsing back into the singularity. Negative curvature means that there is enough energy to keep the expansion going forever. Zero curvature is where it is balanced and eventually the universe gets to a point of stasis. Positive curvature implies a finite universe and the other two an infinite one, though not everyone agrees on that.

Here's a link that says it more accurately.

 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
The balloon model is one of curved space. The "surface" of the universe is finite.
In a flat model, there is no balloon but an infinite rubber sheet. And that had to be always there because there is no physical/mathematical transition that we can think of from finite to infinite.
I do not think so, The balloon model would apply to a flat universe too. The balloon is flat in two dimensions..
 

Alien826

No religious beliefs
Was it? I do not get that. The expansion of space is an increase of distance between two objects. It is as if the "fabric of space" stretched itself. I know that the "ether" concept is dead but the analogy that I like is if one thinks of 3D space as the surface of a 2D balloon that is inflating Now let's put some ants on it. As the balloon inflates the distance between any two ants increases. if two ants are far enough away the balloon may be able to inflate faster than the ants can move. in 3D space that would be similar to two galaxies that are so far apart that space the distance between two galaxies is increasing faster than the speed of light. The balloon is not inflating into plane, which is what the balloon appears to be to the ants, and endless plain, it is expanding at 90 degrees to the plane The increase in distance is just a result of that.

At any rate space may not be expanding into "space" but into another dimension that we cannot sense and the increase in 3D space is a result of that.

Wikipedia has a much better attempt to state it than I can:

"The expansion of the universe is the increase in distance between any two given gravitationally unbound parts of the observable universe with time.[1] It is an intrinsic expansion whereby the scale of space itself changes. The universe does not expand "into" anything and does not require space to exist "outside" it. This expansion involves neither space nor objects in space "moving" in a traditional sense, but rather it is the metric (which governs the size and geometry of spacetime itself) that changes in scale. "


They seem to be saying that even my extra dimension is not needed. Ow my head!

The ants don't get further apart from their own perspective. They are part of the surface of the balloon, and expanding too. As your last quote said, it's the metric that changes. Think of it as measuring a distance with a yardstick. The result is say 10 yards. Now the universe expands a bit and you measure again. The distance between the two points is greater, but the yardstick is bigger too, so you still get a distance of 10 yards. And you are bigger too, so it all seems the same to you.

(Readers outside the USA should think of it as meters. ;) )
 

We Never Know

No Slack
Reality is sometimes weirder than fiction. Space itself expands. The idea of it expanding into something may be nonsensical. Worse yet, the universe could have already have been infinitely large at the time of the Big Bang. We really do not know how compact it was at the time of the Big Bang. As we move backwards in time getting closer and closer to the time of the Big Bang all of our physics breakdown. We not only don't know, with our current state of knowledge we cannot know for sure what happened. When the Big Bang occurred the universe expanded extremely quickly. Matter did not exist then, but for fun lets say that there were two protons. They could start just a fraction of an inch away from each other and in a fraction of an inch away from each other and less than a second later be a light year away from each other. This is not movement as we would usually conceive of it. Neither one accelerated to accomplish this. The analogy given to help people to understand ants on a balloon. And space is the balloon itself. To ants can be standing on the balloon, not crawling on its surface at all. Suddenly two ants that were close enough to use their feelers on each other are a foot apart. Neither one crawled, but to get to the other a lot of crawling would be required.

Space is still expanding today and since it is a uniform expansion the further away that an object is the faster it is retreating from us. There are galaxies retreating faster than the speed of light. The light that they emit now we will never see.

"Matter did not exist then"

Either matter and energy always existed or these are wrong

Law of Conservation of Mass..
-mass can neither be created nor destroyed,

Law of conservation of energy..
-energy can neither be created nor destroyed
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
"Matter did not exist then"

Either matter and energy always existed or these are wrong

Law of Conservation of Mass..
-mass can neither be created nor destroyed,

Law of conservation of energy..
-energy can neither be created nor destroyed
You forgot one important fact. Both positive and negative energy exist. Energy is just bookkeeping if you ask a physicist. It is not something that necessarily has its own existence. When the energy of the universe is measured, and that can be done, it shows that as accurately that they can measure it is zero. As long as the total energy of the universe is zero those laws have have not been violated.
 

Alien826

No religious beliefs
Why? The balloon only is a rough analogy of how the expansion works. It has nothing to do with the curvature of space.
It's a way to look at it that helps people to understand. Space is curved ... balloon is curved. Space expands ... balloon expands. The analogy pretty much ends there, but you can't get away from the fact that the curved balloon represents curved space. It can't represent flat space, even in an analogy, because balloons are not flat.
 

We Never Know

No Slack
You forgot one important fact. Both positive and negative energy exist. Energy is just bookkeeping if you ask a physicist. It is not something that necessarily has its own existence. When the energy of the universe is measured, and that can be done, it shows that as accurately that they can measure it is zero. As long as the total energy of the universe is zero those laws have have not been violated.

I didnt forget anything. You where talking at the time of the big bang, not of the current universe.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
It's a way to look at it that helps people to understand. Space is curved ... balloon is curved. Space expands ... balloon expands. The analogy pretty much ends there, but you can't get away from the fact that the curved balloon represents curved space. It can't represent flat space, even in an analogy, because balloons are not flat.
Yes, but now you are trying to follow the balloon analogy too literally. It is usually used only to explain the expansion. It does not need to apply to the curvature. Just as the shape of the universe does not mean that the universe itself is spherical, flat, or saddle shaped. What the heck would a saddle shaped universe look like anyway? The images that go with that are not the actual shape of the universe. It merely tells us what very very ancient light would look like as observed from the Earth.

1679509360995.png


Taking an analogy too far or too literally breaks them That is not their purpose.
 

We Never Know

No Slack
Okay, fine. You did not understand and you still do not understand because at times you refuse to listen. The explanation still holds.

Of course its always them, not you.

And the universe has an anti-matter shortage as well.

Theologically the universe should not exist

"According to the standard model of physics, the universe had equal amounts of antimatter and matter when it was created. The problem with that is the fact that each antimatter particle should have canceled out its corresponding matter particle, leaving nothing behind. Except they didn't, and here we are left wondering why"



Is the shortage of anti-matter problem solved?

"Scientists believe that in the very hot and dense state shortly after the Big Bang, there must have been processes that gave preference to matter over antimatter. This created a small surplus of matter, and as the universe cooled, all the antimatter was destroyed, or annihilated, by an equal amount of matter, leaving a tiny surplus of matter. And it is this surplus that makes up everything we see in the universe today."

 
Last edited:

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Of course its always them, not you.

And the universe has an anti-matter shortage as well.

Theologically the universe should not exist

"According to the standard model of physics, the universe had equal amounts of antimatter and matter when it was created. The problem with that is the fact that each antimatter particle should have canceled out its corresponding matter particle, leaving nothing behind. Except they didn't, and here we are left wondering why"



Is the shortage of anti-matter problem solved?

"Scientists believe that in the very hot and dense state shortly after the Big Bang, there must have been processes that gave preference to matter over antimatter. This created a small surplus of matter, and as the universe cooled, all the antimatter was destroyed, or annihilated, by an equal amount of matter, leaving a tiny surplus of matter. And it is this surplus that makes up everything we see in the universe today."

I was not talking about matter and antimatter. That is a totally separate issue.
 
Top