Big Bang: Whodunit?

Terry Sampson · Oct 31, 2019

Bob the Unbeliever said:
Which DOES claim "something from nothing". Which is why you are so confused...

That's what I tried telling him, but he's not buying it from me. How's about you arm-wrestling with him? I have a One-on-one thread to set up.

usfan · Oct 31, 2019

ImmortalFlame said:
I think it would seem strange to just pull a number out of thin air that is as specific as trillions of a trillionth of a second.

..maybe.. but maybe not. Lots of 'papers' print assumptions, beliefs, and biases, without batting an eye. How would one measure 'trillions of a trillionth of a second?' ..sounds more like a guess, than something empirical.

And how would all the matter in the universe, cooped up in some particulate purgatory, suddenly be freed, storming across the universe like kindergartners on recess?

This is a fascinating belief.. with very spurious claims of 'evidence!' It sounds more like a leap of faith.. a religious belief about origins that gives any ancient myth a good run for its money!

usfan · Oct 31, 2019

For the ex nihilo group, what fine point of distinction can be made from 'nothing', to a particle invisible to the eye?

This is more like the old monastic debate on how many angels can fit on a pin's head..

ImmortalFlame · Oct 31, 2019

usfan said:
..maybe.. but maybe not. Lots of 'papers' print assumptions, beliefs, and biases, without batting an eye. How would one measure 'trillions of a trillionth of a second?' ..sounds more like a guess, than something empirical.

Well, read the paper and see if you can find out how they came to that conclusion.

usfan said:
And how would all the matter in the universe, cooped up in some particulate purgatory, suddenly be freed, storming across the universe like kindergartners on recess?

You're asking the wrong person, I'm afraid.

usfan said:
This is a fascinating belief.. with very spurious claims of 'evidence!' It sounds more like a leap of faith.. a religious belief about origins that gives any ancient myth a good run for its money!

If that's what it sounds like to you. But from what I've read it's based on empirical observations. I can only recommend you read the research and see for yourself if you think there is a reasonable basis for it.

Terry Sampson · Oct 31, 2019

Polymath257 said:
But to get the actual, scientific theory may take more than just simple algebra. I would be good if you know at least how to deal with a coordinate (x,y) plane.

I know what a two-dimensional reference frame looks like, even if it takes me a while to do the calculation or find someone to do it for me. Do you know what Loedel diagram looks like. It's not necessary to follow the first part of my "argument", but you may need it to follow another topic that I may try to add on the first part, ... if I can ever get out of this thread.

Ouroboros · Oct 31, 2019

usfan said:
This is more like the old monastic debate on how many angels can fit on a pin's head..

Hmm... I never could figure that one out. :/

5, 42, as many as it takes to keep the pin floating in the air? Can they stand parallel to the ground? So many questions...

usfan · Oct 31, 2019

ImmortalFlame said:
Well, read the paper and see if you can find out how they came to that conclusion.

Which study? Did you quote one, or are you referring to the one i sourced in the OP (originally posted by polymath, himself!)

I did read that one carefully, and found no methodology for the measurement of 'trillions of a trillionth of a second!', some 13.77 billion years ago.. (which sounds like a research paper way of saying, 'we don't know, but have to say something!)

I have read a LOT of 'studies', over the years, and they has reinforced my skepticism to Gibraltar like proportions.

But people can (and will!) believe whatever they want..

usfan · Oct 31, 2019

Ouroboros said:
Hmm... I never could figure that one out. :/

5, 42, as many as it takes to keep the pin floating in the air? Can they stand parallel to the ground? So many questions...

You have mixed your philosophical metaphors..

'42' is the Answer, to the 'Meaning of life, the universe, and everything'..

usfan · Oct 31, 2019

Terry Sampson said:
I know what a two-dimensional reference frame looks like, even if it takes me a while to do the calculation or find someone to do it for me. Do you know what Loedel diagram looks like. It's not necessary to follow the first part of my "argument", but you may need it to follow another topic that I may try to add on the first part, ... if I can ever get out of this thread.

This thread is a punishment.. an origins purgatory.. for those who are in limbo with their beliefs..

Polymath257 · Oct 31, 2019

Terry Sampson said:
I know what a two-dimensional reference frame looks like, even if it takes me a while to do the calculation or find someone to do it for me. Do you know what Loedel diagram looks like. It's not necessary to follow the first part of my "argument", but you may need it to follow another topic that I may try to add on the first part, ... if I can ever get out of this thread.

I had not seen them under that name, but I am quite conversant with general Minkowski diagrams (of which the Loedel diagrams are a special case).

exchemist · Oct 31, 2019

Terry Sampson said:
Excuse me? It's been about 40 years but I was a Latin major for about 2.5 year at San Francisco State University, ... and a pretty good one, I might add. ex nihilo nihil fit. Out of nothing, nothing is made. Ex nihilo means nothing, nada, zip.... unless and until folks start taking a saw and a hammer to it. Then it can mean anything you want it to mean. BTW: "energy" is "something" for reasonable folks.

Er, well, not quite. Energy is a property of something. It is meaningless to speak of energy without reference to some physical system.

"Pure energy" belongs to Star Trek, not science.

Ouroboros · Oct 31, 2019

usfan said:
You have mixed your philosophical metaphors..

'42' is the Answer, to the 'Meaning of life, the universe, and everything'..

But maybe there were 42 eggs on the other side of the street, and that's why the chicken crossed the road. :shrug:

The eggs must've gotten there first.

(Love the Hitchhiker's books btw.)

PureX · Oct 31, 2019

ImmortalFlame said:
Why was something needed to?

Everything that currently exists, exists as part of an ongoing event taking place. This naturally begs the question of what set the event in motion? And what, if anything, will bring it to a halt? Saying that there may not be an answer to these questions is just a pointless way of avoiding the fact that we are being confronted by the question.

viole · Oct 31, 2019

usfan said:
Most people believe the present theory of a 'big bang', for the origins of the universe. Here are some points to ponder, about this theory:

1. Who or What initiated this big bang, compressing the universe into a small size, then exploding it into the universe?
2. What is the difference between a 'big bang', and a Creation event?
3. How does light appear to us, which would take 'millions of years!' to get to us from the far reaches of the universe?

I have been referred to this link, as the most recent authoritative data behind the theory of big bang:

WMAP 9 Year Mission Results

WMAP's "baby picture of the universe" maps the afterglow of the hot, young universe at a time when it was only 375,000 years old, when it was a tiny fraction of its current age of 13.77 billion years. The patterns in this baby picture were used to limit what could have possibly happened earlier, and what happened in the billions of year since that early time. The (mis-named) "big bang" framework of cosmology, which posits that the young universe was hot and dense, and has been expanding and cooling ever since, is now solidly supported, according to WMAP.

WMAP observations also support an add-on to the big bang framework to account for the earliest moments of the universe. Called "inflation," the theory says that the universe underwent a dramatic early period of expansion, growing by more than a trillion trillion-fold in less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a second. Tiny fluctuations were generated during this expansion that eventually grew to form galaxies.

Now, if a godless universe could set aside all laws of physics, and expand 'by more than a trillion trillion-fold in less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a second', then how is that any different than positing a Creator, who did the same thing?

Why the belief in '13.7 billion years!', as the age of the universe, if this phenomenal expansion could do it in 'less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a second'?

What natural processes could have compressed the universe into a size of a pea, then explode it to the expanses of the universe in 'less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a second'?

It seems to me, that the faith needed to believe this happened spontaneously, without Divine Intervention, is just as great, if not greater, than believing in a Creator.

There is either an unknown, physical law defying natural process that could do this thing, or an unknown, physical law defying Creator Who did it.

Which belief is more reasonable? Why would believing in atheistic naturalism be 'Science!', but believing in a Creator is 'Religion!'? Both are leaps of faith, requiring an assumption of some physical law defying 'Cause' event.

Just a little note, since there are enough knowledgeable people addressing this better than I. I use here tensed verbs to not unnecessarily overload the cognitive capacities of skeptics of the theory.

What "was" the size of a pea "was" not necessarily the whole Universe. That "was only" the observable one (from our vantage point).

Ciao

- viole

usfan · Oct 31, 2019

viole said:
Just a little note, since there are enough knowledgeable people addressing this better than I. I use here tensed verbs to not unnecessarily overload the cognitive capacities of skeptics of the theory.

What "was" the size of a pea "was" not necessarily the whole Universe. That "was only" the observable one (from our vantage point).

Ciao

- viole

The 'pea' reference was just a rhetorical reference.. 'particle', is more precise, even if it is vague and undefined. The whole universe, compressed into a particle.. yeah, that is believable and testable!

ratiocinator · Oct 31, 2019

PureX said:
Everything that currently exists, exists as part of an ongoing event taking place. This naturally begs the question of what set the event in motion? And what, if anything, will bring it to a halt? Saying that there may not be an answer to these questions is just a pointless way of avoiding the fact that we are being confronted by the question.

You seem to be stuck in Newtonian thinking and trying to apply what happens as part of the universe to the universe as a whole. If we consider the General Relativity view of the universe, we are living in a four-dimensional manifold, and time and causality are internal to it. You can look at it as a timeless four-dimensional object that just exists (the "block universe"). Asking about what event started it is just meaningless it this view because events are points within the space-time manifold. The singularity (if it exists) is not "the start" of it, it's just the end point in the time-like past direction.

This isn't necessarily the right picture, because we need to combine it with quantum field theory, but it illustrates the point that the question (at least in the way it's often framed: "what caused the big bang?") may be meaningless.

ratiocinator · Oct 31, 2019

usfan said:
The whole universe, compressed into a particle.. yeah, that is believable and testable!

Particle isn't much better than pea - but all you seem to be offering is personal incredulity. The evidence is testable. This is how science works, you create a hypothesis, make predictions using it, and test the predictions. It works better than asking some random poster on a forum if they find it "believable"...

Terry Sampson · Oct 31, 2019

exchemist said:
Er, well, not quite. Energy is a property of something. It is meaningless to speak of energy without reference to some physical system. "Pure energy" belongs to Star Trek, not science.

Here's the stuff that preceded the stuff that folks want to correct.

In my post #5 of this thread, I wrote: "Creation, out of nothing, is an old folktale."
In his post #21, leov wrote: "Ex nihilo does not mean nothing, but nothing material, visible, what about energy?"
In my post #26, I wrote: "Excuse me? It's been about 40 years but I was a Latin major for about 2.5 year at San Francisco State University, ... and a pretty good one, I might add. ex nihilo nihil fit. Out of nothing, nothing is made. Ex nihilo means nothing, nada, zip.... unless and until folks start taking a saw and a hammer to it. Then it can mean anything you want it to mean. BTW: "energy" is "something" for reasonable folks."
In his post #29, leov wrote: "Did ancients have notion of energy ?
To which I responded, in my post #46: "Gods, spirits, winds. Aristotle used the word "ἐνέργεια" [activity, operation] in his Niomachean Ethics 1098a, but that's not what you're wanting."
In his post #29, leov also wrote: "It followed from the special theory of relativity that mass and energy are both but different manifestations of the same thing..." Einstein"
To which I responded, also in my post #46: "Gee, fancy that: E = mc^2. c is a speed, not something. m is mass, so E must refer to something like mass in motion, no?"
Polymath257 found it vitally important to point out to me, in his post #48: "No. It is an energy equivalent for a given unit of mass. Since energy has units of kg*m^2/s^2, the natural multiplier between mass and energy is a squared velocity. Another form for energy (work) is force times distance, where force is mass times an acceleration."
leov, in his #56, added to his post #21: "NT: "that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible." [As if that weighty quote from Hebrews 11:13 changes the meaning of "ex nihilo", which it doesn't.]
I responded, in my post #60: ""things that are not visible" are not "nothing""
And leov wrote, in his post #61: 'That is my point..."
I

and replied in post #63: "No, ... you're equating "ex nihilo" and "ex invisibilia". Those two "out ofs" are not equivalent."
leov responded in post #64: "I mentioned energy..."
And I replied in post #66: "Right. Energy is something; it's not nihil."
leov replied, in his post #67: "What St. Augustine meant by ex nihilo, what did he try to describe? Nihil video? You may be correct."
Then I posted my #69: "A rapid google gives me this: Extract 4: Augustine and creatio ex nihilo - Philosophical Investigations
- The Greeks held that the cosmos had always existed, that there has always been matter out of which the world has come into its present form. Aristotle (384-322 BC), the foremost natural philosopher of his day, had developed a philosophical argument for the eternity of the world (Physics, I, 9; On the Heavens, I, 3). Philosophers of other schools such as the Stoics and the Epicureans also agreed that the world or its underlying reality is eternal. All these thinkers were led to this conclusion because they observed that “nothing can come out of nothing,” and so there always has to be a “something” that other things can come from, however one understands the processes of coming into being and passing away.
- Creation out of nothing is central to the theology of one of the most important early Christian thinkers, Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (d. ca. 202). Rejecting Greek notions about the world in his treatise Against the Heresies, Irenaeus declared: “God, in the exercise of his will and pleasure, formed all things…out of what did not previously exist” (II.x.2: Irenaeus 370). The concept, adopted by other patristic theologians, perhaps finds its mature form in the writings of Augustine of Hippo (354-430), who in his Confessions declares that through his Wisdom God creates all things, not out of himself or any other thing, but literally out of nothing (XII, 7; Pine-Coffin 284).
leov responded, in his post #72: "Genesis described 'nothing' using word 'bara' which implies producing out of nothing vs 'asah', making out of something. existing." and added, in his post #73, a link to a current article: "What is Nothing?" https://phys.org/news/2014-08-what-is-nothing.html
I replied, in my post #77: "Nice. Now go ask Irenaeus and Augustine if that qualifies as nihil in their book. I bet they'll tell you: "Hell no. Nihil est nihil, nada, zip."
leov then wrote, in his #78: "Well, fwiw, I subscribe to Fabre d'Olivet's translation of Genesis 1, which is creation in principle, as a plan."
A little while later, you showed up and posted #91: "Er, well, not quite. Energy is a property of something. It is meaningless to speak of energy without reference to some physical system.
"Pure energy" belongs to Star Trek, not science."
And I say here: "Thanks. 'Bout time you showed up. Now would you please go tell leov that his energy is not nothing. It's either got some physical system around or it's fiction.

PureX · Oct 31, 2019

ratiocinator said:
You seem to be stuck in Newtonian thinking and trying to apply what happens as part of the universe to the universe as a whole. If we consider the General Relativity view of the universe, we are living in a four-dimensional manifold, and time and causality are internal to it. You can look at it as a timeless four-dimensional object that just exists (the "block universe"). Asking about what event started it is just meaningless it this view because events are points within the space-time manifold. The singularity (if it exists) is not "the start" of it, it's just the end point in the time-like past direction.

This isn't necessarily the right picture, because we need to combine it with quantum field theory, but it illustrates the point that the question (at least in the way it's often framed: "what caused the big bang?") may be meaningless.

Existence is energy expressing in a myriad of interrelated ways. Existence is something "happening". This isn't Newtonian physics. This is the difference between being and not being. Not being is nothing happening. Being is something happening. And as such, it begs the question of impetus.

exchemist · Oct 31, 2019

ratiocinator said:
You seem to be stuck in Newtonian thinking and trying to apply what happens as part of the universe to the universe as a whole. If we consider the General Relativity view of the universe, we are living in a four-dimensional manifold, and time and causality are internal to it. You can look at it as a timeless four-dimensional object that just exists (the "block universe"). Asking about what event started it is just meaningless it this view because events are points within the space-time manifold. The singularity (if it exists) is not "the start" of it, it's just the end point in the time-like past direction.

This isn't necessarily the right picture, because we need to combine it with quantum field theory, but it illustrates the point that the question (at least in the way it's often framed: "what caused the big bang?") may be meaningless.

Or in layman's terms it is like asking what happened before time started, a self-evident nonsense.

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