What existed before the Big Bang?

At the start of the universe, during the inflation period, did matter not travel faster than the speed of light?

Before was only sleeping brahma. We are inside cosmic mind. For example if we close our eyes and imagine something that lives in our mind so the same we are inside cosmic mind of so coled brahma, god, supreme conscience.

Gail: Immediately after the big bang *space* was expanding much, much faster than the speed of light. Even then the rules of special relativity applied: Information could not travel faster than light, and hence no object could travel through space faster than light. The result is that objects that were in close proximity just after the Big Bang got separated, in some cases for bilions of years, before they came back in contact with each other. This scenario explains why the cosmic microwave background is so uniform. Different parts of the universe which now seem disconnected were in fact connected before that period of faster-than-light inflation.

I have been wondering if we eventuelly will go back to this nothingness and then have the big bang start all over again. What do you think??
Thank you, Marie-Louise

The greatest mystery of all (at least for me) is not the what and how, but the why for all this grand universe we live in. Maybe we will never find the reason, but still it is a privilage for me to live in an era of such great discoveries and understanding of the nature around us (esp in cosmology). What lies beyond the big bang will maybe bring us closer in understanding why the cosmos was created. Thank you.

I find the whole concept of space and time absolutely phenomonal. Of course not every little detail, or indeed, many large details can be fully explained yet, however I do feel in time this will be so. Religion to me seems such a primitive tool to explain things such as our origins and the birth of the universe. I consider myself an athiest, however one little question continues to niggle my intellectual mind. Nothing? Even with all iv read on the subject, my mind is simply unable to comprehend nothing? Before the big bang, before quantum physics. Its unbelievable void that cannot be filled. God, as a religious person would tell you. Any ideas?

I don’t know anything much about science, but I figured out what came before the Big Bang ages ago.
Maybe it’s because I don’t know science that I was able to get my head around it.. The inescapable conclusion is that the Universe DID come from nothingness, but everyone seems to be dancing around that paradox as if it’s an annoyance, instead of embracing it as the source of the solution. There IS one thing that can create itself, but it’s almost anti-science.

I’d spell it out, but nobody really seems to care.. If you’re really that interested it took me a couple of hours to think it through, so intellectually-minded people can certainly crack it in a lot less time than me.

in the beginning God? – maybe?

I’ve always wondered… If the assumption that the universe will expand and collapse over and over is true (which is still debated – some say it may just expand forever. I personally think that it will collapse again) and this ‘bang and crunch’ scenario happens an infinite number of times, then wouldn’t you and I actually occur again? Maybe not for a trillion cycles but eventually, given an infinite number of attempts? If this is true then not only would you occur again, but you would occur and eventually be every consciousness – you, me, a dog, a blade of grass – the bug you just squashed, etc. Not only that but you would have every possible experience – good and bad. You would be a king, a slave. You would experience the greatest pleasures and your worst fears. You get the idea. I’m an atheist but this scenario is both profoundly comforting (people are always looking for a way to believe in immortality) and terrifying as well. If nothing else it’s fun to think about.

There has always been universes. Don’t think of time as a line but as a sphere. Time can go anywhere but will eventually come back to a starting point. The universe will expand for another 6 billion years then grvity will take over and contract the universe into a big crunch. When all this universal mass reaches and infintesimal spot the energy will be released in the form of another big bang and another universe

chance beauclair, yes that is a theory, but as far as we know, the universe is expanding and accelerating. It seems to have no intention of going back together in a “big crunch”, even though that would be the logical assumption.

Define time.

The most obvious “problem” with the big bang is certainly its origins. Even in the world of the very small (quantum theory) there is a problem with matter being created from absolutely nothing. That tiny ball of high density matter that created the big bang had to, in essence, create itself if we assume there was nothing else out there. And one cannot simply go in circles with the argument that universes have always existed and that time is spherical. The fact is, all matter needs to come from somewhere. That being the case is leads me to the most puzzling conclusion of all. The big bang cannot exist in terms of definitions set up by observable nature. It is thusly an event that must be classified as outside of observable science… also known as “supernatural.” A word I shudder to utter.

Well i’m not sure but there ws nothing and then somthing. Maybe think of the universe as somthing inside somthing inside somthing ect. so in thery maybe the nothingness was somthing in the terms of somthing else but the making it be nothing but somthing at the same time. And the somthing that has the somthing we live in had a nothing but at its will changed it to a greater somthing. So Is there a somthing inside our somthing! Sciencline you gave me new stuff to think about. Thanks…

I have thought about this for 30 years. I detest the religious explanations as they tend to short circuit scietific thought and tend to be mutually exclusive. One could argue that there had to be a beginning, a first action, for without it there could not be a second action. But this logic fails us as a falacy. I prefer expansion and contraction theory but feel it is as superficial as Newton’s laws to explain the totality. The identification of more dark matter would help this theory immensely. String theory with its “missing dimensions” seems to be untenable. The best possible evidence will be indirect and presumptive. The search for more data, more concrete data, that which we can see or otherwise measure by some method holds the most promise at least in our lifetimes and I would think that this will strengthen expansion/contraction theory or at least as a stepping stone to a more universal explanation of how. I think the vast majority of us have some hope that the How will eventually lead to the Why.

I concur with Tyler’s observation regarding matter coming from some source. However, the intriguing thing to me is what entity held up the pre-bang dime size material? And what were the dimensions of this void? But, in the final analysis, you must acccept the fact that something does not come from nothing. Although, science will attempt to quantum leap you through an array of theories – it can not in any manner, shape or form explain the origin of the dime size material. Believe me, I’m no religious zealot, only an inquisitive mind searching for answers to the age old question. I have reached a plateau of thinking regarding this “matter” (a little pun) of the universe’s origin. But, after several years of pondering over this question, I have made one keen observation – I have wasted a lot of time.

R/ELTC

Albert, you asked for a definition of “time”. Well, here it is:

Time is the one thing that prevents everything from happening all at once.

Most of cosmology seems to be built on very fragile foundations! Logically, there cannot have been a “fluctuation” in nothing – nothing being no space, no time, no matter, no energy.
Yet many, or even the majority, of cosmologists tell us that is exactly what happened. I have never heard an explanation for this impossibility, other than just “counterintuitive”.
Similarly, all that is in the universe cannot have been concentrated at a point of infinite density. What on earth is infinite density?
The same “explanation”, counterintuitive, is always given for those other impossibilties – the constant speed of light, whatever one´s relative speed, and the effect of relative movement on time measurement.

Robert

If we came from nothing then there must of been an infinite amount of time when there was nothing otherwise there was a period of time before the big bang when there was matter which would mean we came from such matter instead of coming from nothing. Since the scientific argument posed abbove is we in fact came from nothing, I again state what logically follows from that argument is that there was an infinite amount of time before the big bang when there was nothing.

The scientifc argument presented above is also that I am a finite being. However, the finite can not live within the infinite because a finite amount of anything within the infinite is zero. (i.e. any specific finite measurment within a infinite field must be zero because in an infinite spectrum there is no relative meausurement. For example if you are travelling to a planet that is an infinite amount of miles away whether you went o miles, 100 miles, or a hundred trillion miles you are no closer or farther to the planet than when you started which means you have effectively travelled no closer to your target or you have effectively travelled 0 miles towards your infinite target.

Accordingly, I either never existed or I have always existed. I exist therefore I must have existed forever and will exist forever. I am in your thoughts and you are in mine because we are all part of the same infinite being. However I ultimately control this being because I decided I will.

The Patty Spoke

Re Canice´s post, current theory says that Big Bang was also the beginning of time. There was no time, space, matter, energy, popsicles – nothing before Big B.. If there was time before, then one would have to assume it stretched back infinitely far. The main difficulty for me with infinite time, is how can anything ever happen at any given point in time? I would have to be sitting here at my computer an infinite number of times going backwards. Yet, how can there be a beginning of time? What happened five minutes before it began? Is it like the universe is supposed to be – closed but with no boundary? And what does that mean??

Perhaps once we collectively realize that phrases like “nothing” and “infinite” do not and can not describe physical reality, we will make another quantum leap in our knowledge of the universe. Disregarding mathematics for a moment, we cannot use these mental crutches to insert into incomplete theories as some sort of finality. The round-and-round discussions of “Well, then what is the universe expanding into?” and “What was there before the Big Bang?” (which end with “infinity” and “nothing”, respectively) are, at this phase, pointless at best, and crippling to discovery at worst.

Our universe is not expanding into another universe, which is also expanding into another universe, and so on. And there was not “nothing” prior to the Big Bang. There are not an infinite number of universes expanding and contracting in an infinite loop. Using these to cap off a theory is the equivalent of Lincoln ending the Gettysburg Address with “now let’s go out there and kick some ass!”, or capping the Washington Monument with a Tupperware bowl.

How to prove it? Well, that’s a tough one. But it will happen, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Many scientists seem to believe that we are close now to understanding everything, including how there came to be a universe. (Stephen Hawking is one such.) Yet, it seems to me that on the fundamental question of why there is a universe and whether it came or has always existed there is nothing more than wild guesses. I think the truth is that scientists haven´t a clue on this.

I sent an email recently to an physicist-cosmologist asking if he really understood how all of the universe could have been concentrated at a point of infinite density and what is infinite density. I also asked him if he understood how it could be that clocks vary according to their relative speeds and how one always measures the speed of light the same irrespective of one´s relative speed. That is, understand how apparently impossible things can be. He sent back a long email, in which he said that no-one understands these things and that we just have to accept that they are so.

Hi Allison. Nice article…. send me an email at three boys brewery .
Ralph

due to the death of my brother, I wondered where the universe came from so i read all the books about astrophysics and quantum theory i could stomach. after a couple of years i learned alot but i realized that although we do understand a lot, we dont really know anything

I am reminded of Abbott’s FlatLand when I think about the Big Bang and associated ideas. Perhaps we perceive the universe as having a starting point because we observe thru the lens of a 4 dimensional being. Perhaps there is no change, no big bang but only our perception. I am reminded of an old movie reel. Its all there, but we can’t grasp it, we can only grasp it as it seemingly plays out on the screen.

I think we are getting hung up on the word “nothing”. Nothing simple means no….thing. Language makes a difficult concept even harder to grasp because there are no words for it or experiential validation even if there were words for it. So how do you name something that is not a something? Our four dimensional nature collapses reality into things. “That” which manifests as what we call the universe is pure potential. We are “that” experiencing and observing “that” though the prism of our four dimensional existence.

I agree with Bernie – a lot has been worked out about the Universe, which may or may not be true, but about the fundamental question of why there is a Universe at all I haven´t read anything very convincing. I don´t think scientists have a clue on this and it may be that they never will. Some aspects of physics and cosmology seem almost like magic. Since I was about 11 years old, I did not believe in a Creator and basically I still don´t -but the more I read on quantum mechanics, relativity, Big Bang etc. and all the other bits of “magic”, the more I wonder. It seems impossible to me that there was a beginning to the Universe, but it seems equally impossible that it has always existed.

“Some physicists believe our universe was created by colliding with another, but Kaku says it also may have sprung from nothing: a completely empty eleven dimensional universe with no spin, no charge and no energy.”

I want to point out that the use of the word ‘nothing’ above is not warranted, because whatever you mean it is not nothing.

Language is the only thing we have to represent things, if we then start with nothing why then do we continue to talk of it as something.

“…Kaku says it also may have sprung from nothing…”

How can Kaku use the words: “sprung, from,” when there is nothing for it to have sprung from.

Just because people are scientists does not entitle them to speak in absurd sentences.

What he should say if he does not want to appear to speak in absurdity, should be the following:

“…it must have sprung from nothing we know at present or can ever know, but it is something…”

instead of: “…it also may have sprung from nothing…”

Gerry

Gerry You are right there is no phraselogy in the english language that I am aware of that can express the concept of something coming from nothing. Even the phrase i just used “Something coming from Nothing” implies something is coming from some type of matter why else would I use the the term “from”. Interesting.

The Patty Spoke

The English language has no difficulty in expressing the idea of something coming from nothing – what is difficult to understand is how it could happen, but it is the case that many cosmologists believe that is exactly what did happen. There was nothing – at all, no space, no matter, no energy – then there was something. Weird? Of course, but then what about clocks keeping different time if they move. Why? no-one knows. Or how you will always measure the speed of a photon the same, whatever your relative speed. Or how an elementary particle acts differently if you look at it. Or that an atom is over 99% empty space. And so on – so much that seems like “magic”.

paper i just wrote for my philosophy 101 class.. i didnt proof read it yet.. but i thought you guys might appreciate it
Agnosticism
Agnosticism is the belief neither in atheism, nor in theism, however, before defining agnosticism one must first grasp both of these countering beliefs. Atheism is the choice not to believe in any God, while theism is the believe in a higher, divine being, or beings. Agnosticism is stuck between these two sets of beliefs, and is defined as neither an abandonment of belief in all higher being, nor an acceptance in higher beings.
To prove to you that agnosticism is the only true belief that should be adopted by all who care to think on the question of God, I will first show you how theism and atheism are flawed. Any logically thinking person simply cannot adopt the belief of theism. Based on the fact that we cannot prove the existence of the universe, why should one say that a higher being created it, a being that we cannot comprehend with any of our bodily senses. These theists are equally as foolish as the atheist. If one believed that a higher being created all, could one not argue that they themselves are that higher being they have no proof to deny it, who is to say that I did not create all of existence, for I exist now, who is to say that I have not forever existed even before birth. Nobody can prove me wrong just as nobody can prove me right. The same goes for many other seemingly crazy notions such as we do not exist or I am the only being to exist and everyone around me exists because I will them to exist, this thought may seem crazy to some but can it be proven wrong, or proven right; just as the existence of god, it cannot. This is why agnosticism is the only belief that makes sense. Any intelligent person does not believe in something with out any proof so why would any intelligent person believe anything when it comes to our creation. The answer is our own quest for the truth, but we must accept that no matter how hard we search for the truth we will never find it.
Atheism also cannot be adopted by any logical person because how can one know that he did not come from a higher being. How can an atheist explain the universe with one hundred percent certainty, the answer is he cannot, and nobody will ever be able to, the creation of all things will forever be lost in history. Theories that atheists use simple do not make sense, how can everything come from nothing, like in the big bang theory. My own theory that I am god and I will everything around me to be, makes more sense than the big bang theory, however I am not foolish enough to throw everything aside and follow that theory.
Agnosticism therefore is the believe in both theism and atheism but not the acceptance of both, one may believe that there might be a God who created everything, or that there might not be a God and the universe itself was created by explainable meaning that we simple cannot yet explain. Agnosticism therefore it the only logical set of beliefs, why put all you belief in something that cannot be proven right or wrong. Instead accept that it will never be proven and look at both sides as a possible explanation for your life.

you guys are both wrong

I think it makes sense to be an agnostic, but for different reasons from those Sean cites. You do not need absolute proof to believe or disbelieve something – not even in a court of law, where the standard is “beyond reasonable doubt”. I strongly believe that, where I live, the temperature tomorrow is unlikely to reach 100 degrees – I am not undecided on this. Neither am I undecided on the prospect of someone running a three-minute mile in the next decade or a Martian winning Wimbledon next year. I do, however, favour agnosticism because I think the arguments are much more finely balanced on this and I will probably continue to think this way until someone comes up with a believable explanation of how the Universe could appear from absolutely nothing. The only “explanation” I´ve heard is that there was a fluctuation in the nothing. I kid you all not – it was a physicist who suggested that.

I am infinitely annoyed. I just spent 1 hour creating a post and that stupid number sum thing said I entered the wrong number but I didn’t. Well the error erased everything I wrote. So I am too annoyed to recreate my post now. Anyways it was a stream of consciesnous so it can’t be recreated. Just friendly advice to other posters save your post in word before you hit submit comment so you don’t lose your work! I will write again in a month or two when I am less annoyed!

The Patty Spoke

Canice:

I know the feeling! I had my 654 page sequel to War and Peace, laid out for the publisher and ready to go. I got asked to add 3 and 6 and the battery in my calculator ran out. I lost the whole thing, so I know how you must feel. Still, you´ll have to do what I did.

“Once upon a time…………………”

Canice:

You bring up an interesting point. It may actually be the inability for current language(s) to describe a seemingly paradoxical event such as ‘something arising from nothing’ which is limiting our understanding of the origin of the universe.

At times throughout history, the advancement of mathematics was hindered by inability of the ponderers to understand concepts such as ‘zero’, ‘infinity’, and ‘limits’. It took a great number of whisperings and euphemisms for these concepts to be accepted by the societies that the minds which conceived them were living in.

I have been thinking of all of this a lot likely. Sumanth you helped me crystallize some thoughts. I think God and our existence can be explained with Math. The way I look at it is the infinite (or God) can not live within the finite. Mathematically the infinite can not exist within a finite range. For example, if your finite range is say 1 to 1 million, a subset of that range can not be infinity. On the other hand the finite not only can but must wholly exist within the infinite. For example, all finite ranges are subsets of the infinite. For example the number set -100 to 1000 wholly exists within the infinite number set. As we know the infinite number set “starts” at 0 (or the base point of the x or y axis) and goes on forevever for both negative and positive numbers. Accordingly, any finite number set will wholly exist within the infinite number set. We are a finite life force that must be a subset of an infinite life force which is God.

The above paragraph must now be rationalized in the context of my August 30th post where I rationalized the finite is essentially is nothing relative to the infinite.

The way I rationalize this is that our finite life force on earth is created by our own personal infinite life force. Our infinite life force creates the illusion that we are finite beings while we are on earth so our finite life force can experience certain aspects of existence that only a finite being can experience such as intense emotions. Intense emotions can not be truly experienced by an infinite being because any emotion by definition is a finite force. For example, you can only experience true happiness if you understand what hardship or loss is. You can only understand something as loss in a finite world. In an infinite world how can something die? Death by definition is a finite term.

Our infinite beings create the illusion of finitivity so when we die the intense emotions we experienced as finite beings can be subsumed (or experienced) by our infinite self when we die so our infinite life force can in a sense experience true emotion.
When you truly realize like I do that I am in fact a finite being that is a subset of an infinite being I choose to control my infinite existence by denying the illusion of my finitivity and accepting I am an infinite being. By doing this I will my finite life force (i.e. my consciousness to life for ever). So when my finite body ends, my finite conscientious while a Human will always be a controlling force in my infinite existence.

Accordingly, since I chose to have my present finite life to extend into an infinite life I will try to live this life as a good person who tries to be happy and who tries to make others happy. I invite others to join me. If your goal like me is to have a continual happy existence, please try to make others and yourself happy by doing good acts for others. If you choose this path try to find me in this finite life because these are the type of people I want to be around. If you can’t find me in this life, don’t worry about it. It is more important you find me in our infinite life because in my infinite life I only want to be around positive people who have the prime concern of making others beings happy. Don’t worry I will be easy to find. Even in an infinite world not many infinite beings will have the name of Canice.

Peace.

The Patty Spoke

By the way if you do find me in your infinite existence you also found my definition of heaven. To me heaven is the infinite beings you associate with in your infinite existence. In my infinite existence I choose to be around positive people who want to help ALL other beings.

If you are a negative person that primarily hurts other beings for your own gain I think you will know what you will find. One thing you won’t find is me.

The Patty Spoke.

Matter cannot just pop into existence. Science simply cannot explain where the matter comprising the ‘big bang’ came from. It is essentially the same conundrum; either trying to explain a time when nothing existed, not matter, space or time, or accepting that matter, time and/or space always existed, as equally impossible as that is to comprehend. We cannot comprehend this. It has to be supernatural.

Scientists are also unable to explain such apparent logical absurdities as clocks keeping different time if they are moving or everyone measuring the speed of light the same irrespective of their relative speed or particles altering their behaviour if we look at them. What scientist actually understands what matter bending space to cause gravity means? How do you bend space? The Universe is also supposed to be finite but without boundaries, generally explained by saying it is like the surface of the Earth. In other words, we shouldn´t ask what is on the other side of the boundary. Why not?
At Big Bang, everything was at a point at infinite density. What is infinite density? Quite dense, very dense, incredibly dense – yes, yes – but infinitely dense? What does that mean? And so on…….

But I don´t know that invoking a supernatural creator is going to help much. Many of the same questions will arise with some extra ones thrown in as well.

maybe god put that infinitely small little thing dur and then made it explode

It’s all so easy because Albert got it wrong.

Gravity is not the curvature of space, it’s the push of space.

Dark matter: Space flows towards mass where it’s probability of conversion into energy is improved; a lot of space yields a tiny amount of energy.

Dark energy: When mass is distant, a tiny amount of energy (e. g. starlight) has a higher probability of conversion into space; a tiny amount of energy yields a lot of space.

This unifies the so called gravity with the other three forces. What are we going to do the rest of the afternoon?

G = E = M

Whether Jack´s right or Albert is (or maybe neither), depends on whether Jack´s very own new theory is correct. The books all say that mass “tells” space how to curve and space “tells” mass how to move, but I will be quite glad if Jack´s overturned this now because it all seemed quite improbable to me. How about spending the rest of the afternoon figuring out what came before BB? I don´t believe that the universe appeared all on its own from absolutely nothing.
Maybe a crate of beer will help the process along.

What existed before the BB is exactly the same as what existed after the BB, althugh a bit changed in form. Apparently, the BB erupted from a naked singularity, with the exact mass of our universe including all its space, energy, and matter. There is no way to measure the duration of the singularity, since it existed before time began. Imagine a time line where a singularity existed, time ended when the singularity became naked, then the singularity expanded (BB); time began almost immediately thereafter. Gravity is why this all happened. As all space, matter and energy unify into a singularity, there will come a point when there is no longer any space/gravity to contain the singularity. The singularity is naked and time ends. Since there is nothing holding the naked singularity together, there is a spontaneous expansion (outside of the laws of known physics). The expansion begins when there is no space, thus no gravity, and no speed of light limit, but only the unleashed singularity with all forces unified. Since the very early expansion began outside of space and time, it serves no purpose to consdider the rate of expansion because it increases without limit.

John:

I like your theory.

What causes the “push” of space? It seems to be another force to explain – or is it analogous to pressure? The more space you have within a particular volume, the more pressure it´s under and hence the more it pushes. What draws it to mass, which is presumably what causes gravity – or is this another instance of push? Can it also account for the unvariability of the speed of light and the clocks and action at a distance and particles that change their behaviour because we look at them? If not, it doesn´t matter, because no-one else can account for these things either.

Robert, thanks for the kudos!

The push of space is its attemp to keep space flat. The flatness of space must be nearly constant or bits of the universe would go wandering off. When mass is near, space may be spontaneously converted into its energy equivilent, causing (for lack of a better expression) a “low pressure area” (possibly considered a curvature of space). Space’s attempt to flatten this out with a flow into the low pressure area causes the push that is gravity.

Conversly, when mass in not near, energy may be spontaneously converted into a volume of its equivilent space.

All is neither black nor white. For example, in a galaxy there will be S ==> E and E ==> S conversions. I view this as a quantum uncertainty function where the probability (not certainty) of one or the other occuring depends on the nearness of mass.

I don’t believe there is another force involved in the push of space. The force remains gravity or so called anti-gravity (i.e. dark energy). While it may be possible to temporairly compress space (high pressure area), it would probably not be sustainable. The same is true for a low pressure area.

What would be interesting is the E=MC**2 for E ==> S conversion. It could be approximated from calculations of all the known mass in the universe. Since these calculation seem to come up short, a good percentage of the missing mass may just be the total mass equivilent of all the empty space. Since we know the energy to mass ratio, we could deduce the energy to space ratio. It must be tiny. My SWAG would be E=S/C**2. Energy is equal to a volume of space divided by C**2. Quite symetrical!

If all the above is true, then

1. it unifies gravity with the other three forces,
2. explains the observed increase of spacial expansion,
3. predicts the expansion can not go on forever,
4. predicts FTL travel is possible,
5. predicts that the more massive a space craft, the faster it can travel
6. explains what came before the big bang.

i believe that the big bang was never the beginning the truth is the something has created the universe for some purpose something can not come from nothing and i believe the are many more 2 the universe that we will ever figure out i believe something or some1 created the universe for there own useful tool like a watch or a hammer the key of the universe is water we are mainly water our world is mainly water and i believe the universe is mainly made of water so we should look more into h2o the key is that well this what i think we all have our theories but i know we will never find out the truth the universe is 2 weired 2 figure out and thats the truth .

Zendo:

I hate to argue with you – but the Universe is not mainly made of water. I agree, though, that if mankind – ok, peoplekind – lives another billion years they probably still will not find out definitely how the universe came to exist. All possibilities seem equally bizarre and unlikely.

the point im getting at Robert is they say the universe started from molecules of bubbles but u cant really make bubbles without water my friend so the universe is made of water in my eyes but as i say every 1 has their own thoughts

Zendo: You can have bubbles of lots of things that are not water. Sorry to go on about it, but I´m not sure if you´re saying the universe is mainly made of water seriously or as a joke. If you take the very very beginning, I don´t think there were any molecules yet. Come to think of it, I´m not sure about the bubbles either.

Cosmological observations provide an incredibly rich set of clues to the pre-big bang universe. Do you see any flaws in: The pre-big bank universe at BigCrash.org?

… In the beginning (in the pre-big bang universe) there was only the vast vacuum of space and time. But this vacuum was not sterile, it was seething with vacuum energy. This vacuum energy field permeates and defines the universe, an astronomically large sphere of energy. And just as matter generates gravity by warping space and time, so does energy and this is the force that defines the size and shape of the universe, and also the force that bestows mass on matter…

…When a virtual matter/anti-matter pair becomes a matter matter pair, the virtual particles are no longer able to mutually annihilate and they become real, stealing energy from the vacuum energy of space. This is the mechanism of slow matter creation in the first phase of the pre-big bang universe. Over perhaps a billion billion years, clouds of matter form over the entire universe, and eventually coalesce into cosmological bodies and eventually the first pre-big bang black hole, which starts the second phase of the pre-big bang universe, fast accretion of matter from vacuum energy by black holes…

I haven´t read anything by any well-known relevant cosmologists talking about an incredibly rich set of clues for what might have come before BB.. I think there are virtually no clues at all -just speculation. Also, most scientists believe that BB was the beginning not only of matter but also of space and time and there was no pre-BB. So, there wasn´t a vast vacuum of space and time. There was nothing at all – no space, no time, no mass and no energy. This is why there is a difficulty with the quantum fluctuation theory. What fluctuated, where and when? (A further difficulty is how a quantum fluctuation could have given rise to a universe.) Recently there has been more speculation about the possibility that there was something pre-BB after all, but I don´t see what difference it makes. It just means that we would like to know where what there was before came from.

Assuming the quotes you give come from the website you refer to, then that website clearly puts forward non-mainstream theories. Absolutely fine, but I doubt that I´m competent to say whether there are any holes in their argument. But I´ll read it!

Is it possible to measure the absence of all mass or energy??? (serious question)

If there is such a thing that makes us more than just a sophisticated collection of senses, would it need to have zero mass and energy?

If you can eventually produce a robot that senses exactly what I do, and makes decisions based of those senses (and memory of them), is there a difference between that and me? If not, upload me to one of those, I want to live forever! I don’t want to be nothing.

This subject just makes my head spin.
There was absolutey nothing and then some dime just appeared then exploded.
I can understand absolute nothingness.But that’s all there ever should have been.How can nothing fluctuate and make something.

Immaculate Conception would be a phrase generally associated with “something” coming from “nothing”. Of course, it has its religious connotations. However, it does bear quite an analogous resemblance. What if, per say, time was older than we’ve given it credit? Maybe time is neither matter nor energy relative? Time could still remain in sync, but essentially at an offbeat (like music) from moments prior to the existence of the other subject, right? Maybe it was introverted or convoluted through the transformation of the BB.
It’s quite interesting that we haven’t convinced ourselves of previous construction of our universe. Without imagining that there might have been prior universes, we can’t imagine how primitive or how superior it may have been to the current (so to speak) existing one. Do we have to believe that this is the first time? Does it all have to be pinned down to “nothingness”? I do understand that there is no applicable, tangible evidence of this thought; however it does seem that we’re limiting ourselves to a dead end we don’t even know exists. Point being, there could a whole other history explaining our existence. Could we not propose that a more primitive universe existed prior to ours which could thus explain contradictions we face in the current existence? Maybe string theories and such do reference this, but it definitely does not seem to be a mainstream option in regards to whether or not the chicken came before the egg. I could be way off base, and if so, my apologies. I really know very little about the topic.

ok let me get this straight, bubbles, vaccums, infinity, expansion,……………………………………………………………………………on and on, but what was before all of that?

I will tell you, we are particles in a shroom. :)

what came before the big bang is a never ending energy..called god. We are in a time space bubble.

I realize there’s a religious side to this, I’m just looking at the science side of it…
I don’t know much about this but what I read or see on the science channels and it’s always been interesting to me. But am I the only person that has a question to a question to a question? We talk about the big bang and the possibility of a universe before that. My question is what was before that? And before that? You see? …and if there WAS nothingness, what is nothingness? Darkness? Just dark space?

Think about. Here on earth we know a beginning and an end to most everything.. we know a kitchen table has an end. We know that stairs will begin and end. we know that if you run around the earth enough times, eventually you’ll run into yourself…so if there IS a beginning of time, what was before that? Again, nothing? and if nothing, then, again, what is nothing? If nothing is sitting on the table, we can still see the table. Now imagine there’s no table and no floor and no ground and no earth or planets and no stars..so just darkness?…that’s the nothing?

The other side of the coin…Does the universe go on forever and there’s no end? If so, how can that be? No end? Again, there’s an end to most everything we know in one way or another. What, it just keeps going on and on and on? Ok, then what? What’s beyond that?…or IS there an end and if so what is there a wall of some kind marking the end, how can that be? As I said we know a beginning and an end to mostly everything here on earth.
So with my crazy vivid imagination that my Mom always said I had as a kid, sometimes I boggle my mind…..nothing…think about it…that means there was nothing at one time where I am sitting right now…wow.

Science and true religion are the same thing, but from different angles !

Water can have a thousand names, but it is still the same thing, WATER!
I mean this. Science = different names.
Religion = water.
One cannot du without the other. That`s to say if you want to ask for a drink of water !
The truth then, must be in the experiece of drinking that water which is neither science or religion.

What surrounded the single infinite point, in which “The Big Bang” was created?

Well you see it is our limited mind that makes us
think that the big bang is the start of everthing
or nothing. There are maybe millions of different
big bangs that are completly not like each other at all. For example…if you have blue colored sun glasses then everything will be blue..get it?
All the minds on this planet are pretty the same which meens that we only see a very little part of everything out there !
One cannot put 2 litres of water in a 1 litre mug!
You kan try…but you will get wet feet !

Don`t you see…the big bang is anything it is just a little thing which happens all the time but in different ways. And here it comes. Human minds cannot percieve this..Wake up..and enjoy life…because its wonderful !

Look at it in a nother way…everyone are just thinking about big gang but that was just a little, little part of/is our life..I cannot in logical ways..yes I can..there are so many other things happening in…Keep going !

Do you believe in the uncoprehensible notion of nothing, nothing at all, no matter, no light, no energy, no colors,etc. nothing at all. Is there such an existance?

YES…but it/that has to be experienced and your brain, mind, will probable/does, stop this. This is just the way things work ! (Just because you can`t say water in a foreign language does not mean that water dosn´t exist)! Believe me, there is much more going on than one could ever imagine!

Has time exsisted forever, if so then there shouldn’t be anything that is ageless. I don’t agree that there are some things that don’t have age. If it was created then it has a start of age. My mind wanders, therefore i ask these questions. They have to have answers, even if science hasn’t figured it out. The answer would be we don’t know. I enjoy asking my questions because i never get a straight up answer, its alway don’t think that way just except what is. If Einstein would have stopped asking his questions we would’t have any of his great discoveries.

If the smartest, best observing, isolated primative person came into contact with an operating T.V., there would be amazement and curosity, but that person would never in their lifetime, even after tearing it all apart and observing it for years, understand(without help from a T.V. tech) the workings of the T.V.. The T.V. would exist, but what makes it work would be lost on this soul. Until we have a tech for the workings of the universe we are not unlike the primative person?

And how long du we have to wait for a “tech answer”? It does not help us now….the answer is allready here and now ! It/there is much more than anyone could ever imagine in/out there ! It is truly wonderful !!!

Wake up all you people….don`t you get it ???

Where are you…..?

I have accepted, as best I can, the concept of “nothing can come from nothing”. That there was NEVER “nothing” as a concept is, as summed up by my 9 year old daughter, freaky! A scientific solution to this problem is impossible. In fact, given that there must have always been “something”, any exercise designed to discover the beginning is doomed to failure.
Matter has an infinite past and an infinite future! What happens when they meet?

NOTHING, NOTHING ! BUT NOTHING IS SOMETHING…
IT/IS EVERYTHING AND MUCH, MUCH MORE !!!

I KNOW I EQUIST SO I MUST HAVE COME FROM SOMEWHERE THAT HAS NO BEGINNING BECAUSE THE TERM BEGINNING IS A FINITE TERM AND LIFE CAN NOT ORGINATE FROM A FINITE SPHERE BECAUSE IT LEAVES AN INFINITE AMOUNT OF TIME PRIOR TO THE BEGININING OF LIFE WHEN THERE IS NO LIFE AND LIFE SIMPLY CAN NOT ORIGINATE FROM AN INFINITE TIME SPAN OF NO LIFE. OTHERWISE BY DEFINITION THE TIME SPAN OF NO LIFE WOULD NOT NOT BE INFINITE.

MY INFINITE SPIRIT MUST HAVE BLANKED THE MEMORY OF FINITE SPIRIT OF MY INFINITE EXISTENCE.

BUT JOKES ON YOU INFINITE SPIRT BECAUSE I FIGURED OUT THE EXISTENCE OF MY INFINITE SPIRIT ANYWAYS.

NOW WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS KNOWLEDGE?

Time is just a figment of the imagination.
One does not use knowledge, whatever that is ?
One can experience knowledge of nothing which
is something ! Get it now ?

Ok…….Don`t do nothing…take away ME !
Try it ! Wake up

could the big bang be the expansion of matter into a unknown area when a super enormous black hole or black holes has finished absorbing all the matter in a given universe

sorry i meant the expulsion of matter from the black holes into an uknown area as nobody knows what happens to matter swallowed by a black hole nor has anybody answered my other question what happens when said black holes have eaten the known universe if the matter in the known universe is finite given that e=mcsquared is true

I do try to say…take off your everthing
you have got….then who knows you maybe
will wake upp…black holes…come on guys
there is much MUCH,,,MUCH More than that !

Has anyone on this site pondered the question, that at this very moment, another big bang could be taking place perhaps a 1000 billion light years away, or even closer, and given time to expand enough, may collide with our universe.

It’d be wonderful if people would abbandon their obsurdities and hopeless gap theories.
If you honestly want some hint of tangibility in your lifetime I honestly recomend looking into the possibility of a creator existing. If your too prideful to recognize this scientific possibility and too blind to even recognize it as apart of science then I also encourage you to leave those dogmacies behind.

if people honestly believe a creator exist, why do they not think it possable for a family of them to exist. And at sometime they might like to experiment, and try more thane one big bang, in various places in this wide expance of space.

Trevor:

That question displays an obvious misunderstanding of what an omnipotent and omnipresent deity really is. If it existed within a family of Gods then its omnipotence and other demanding qualities would be factored out. For someting to be able to hold the infinitely expanding “naked singularity” within its grasp, then it must its self encompass eternity. There can only be one eternity, wile multiple infinities could exist.
It would be kinda cool though I do admit. haha

Hartley:

I was just pointing out, that if someone thinks it is possable for A creater to exist, why is it not possable for more than one creator to exist. The fact is if you believe that something exist, then it must be possable for more than one to exist.
Back to number 81. If someone does not believe in a creator, it does not make that person anymore dogmatic,blind, prideful,or any other disparaging remarks you care to make, than a person that insists that a creator does exist.

Trevor:

I gotcha bud. I explained theologically why more than one creator is self contradicting in my prior comment.
I agree that that simple fact dosn’t make one more dogmatic or blind but completely eliminating such a possiblility that fills in just as many gaps as other modern scientific theory does make one dogmatic in some ways. Im not saying you have to be “dogmatic, bias, or predjudice” to not believe in a creator, but the possibility must be taken seriously. No one has to, but its their loss. Thats why I take atheistic philosphy very seriously as well.

Hartley:

I like your reply, written by someone sitting on the opposite side of the fence to me, but is prepared to listen to alternatives, but not easily presuaded. Although you might think from number 82 that I believe in a creator, as I was kinda arguing there case. I too will listen to other peoples believes, and try to expand on it to see where it goes, but as yet have not been persuaded. Perhaps you could comment more.

if you were god and knew everything,then wouldnt you then know nothing?somethings are so deep that they are meaningless.if you know everthing whats the point,what would you do?
maybe creation is god experiancing all things,from all angles,in all possibilties.
maybe creation is simply god living.
the bible talks of the living god,the bible speaks
about alot of things we now know because of science,in the story behind all the bible stories.
science and religion support eachother better than you know,they need eachother to fully expain all realities of existance.

and just so you know,there is alot of people that think the bible says no to evolution,or man rising from the ape,or how old the earth is..ect.ect.
not so,i used to be a athiest,and only believed in science,until i studied religion,look to the meaning behind bible stories and you will be shocked at how the bible supports science beliefs.
the first man was adam…atom?
let there be light..the big bang? it goes on and on.i believe in science and relgion,its the only way to see the whole picture(as well as our minds can see them for our part)
i beleive in a cosmic christ.jesus before time began….yes!!!

Trevor:

Well, I sorta got a taste of your perspective in 82 and realized that your probibly not a per say “believer.” Im guessing that your agnostic. Well here is one of the big theories that have brought me to an intellectual obligation to my faith in God. Most scientists believe that an always existing expanse of energy (I like to translate it as an “eternal river” of energy)is what mapps out the pre-existance of our universe dependent on time, matter, and space. What has dumbfounded me is that the hierarchy of intellectualism and philosophy today has granted this belief with more credential and less obsurdity than an omnipotent creater with concious intention. Honestly trevor, in your mind, what is more obsurd; an unconcious, eternal river of energy birthing and munipulating an open infinite expanse, forming (unconciously) concious and organized life. Not to mention love, altruistic intention and many of the great mysteries of human emotion. Or….. A concious and all powerful God, that defines eternity (no different than that river of energy), crafting an existance based on love and giving it complete free will, while easily defining the reason for our love, altruistic intention, and morality while giving us even a book to fall back on? I simply can’t wager my mind in beleiving that any human being dosn’t have “obsurd” beliefs. Everyones gaps are seemingly equal. I just think creationism supplies the “least obsurd” viewpoint.
Sorry for the essay by the way, haha.

Hartley:
Sorry about the delay.
The problem I have is that scientist to me have got it wrong.
Firstly, why do they think our whole universe was condensed into something the size of a dime, why a dime and not a football, or a grain of sand. There appears to be no logic as to why they said a dime.
Secondly, I cant agree with your reasoning either. If you believe in a creator, where did it come from. you must be assuming that all the materials in the universe has always been present, and your creator organised everything to make things work. like a motor mechanic puts a lot of metal parts together, and a bit of oil to lubricate the parts to keep them working in harmony together. Im sorry I just cannot go along with it.
My theory for what it is worth, is that there was nothing at all, (and as we cant create nothing at all, we dont know what would happen), I feel that a big bang did happen spontaneously (many times), and through chance this is what we have. I am sure similiar things have happened elsewhere, mabee not in human or animal form, bur some sort of life.
Sorry to go on but like you it is very difficult to put beleives in only a few words.
I appologise for my ranting as well, ha ha ha,

It is so easy and all you guys are just freaking
out….IT IS SO EASY….just go for it….don`t
you all get???? Come on…take away…everything
and it will just happen !!!! Yes it will.

Science and Religion must be studied side by side, both our brain hemispheres must be involved in the quest of our ultimate origin. Our post-modern posts on Nothingness are somewhat similar to the religious definitions of centuries ago. We may know a bit more about several things, but Nothingness still shields her real identity from us. In the Kabalistic tradition, you have the Ain Soph; in Buddhism there is a “void”; Yoga teaches that the ultimate perception of “reality” or “consciousness” means stopping the fluctuation of the mind; Hinduism positions Brahma at the very beginning, and they all converge to the same concept.

Can we deal with the infinite and eternal nothingness?

As in religion I believe you must take all of the postulations and look for the underlying truth in all. I imagine the BB and then I imagine the total expansion of this universe and just when you believe it will expand for all eternity it contracts and at that no time on oneatment (one at ment) it agains expands an all possiblities again come into being (tat twan asi). We cannot possibly understand it with our intellectual mind we can only understand it at the place where we are “IT” ALL AT ONCE. AUM MANI PADME HUM

Look and stop looking….and the best thing in this life is so easy…Knowledge…!
Forget everything and then you will find everything…just be united with your self and you will get the truth. Come on guy`s…!

Boy, am I confused! I assure you once you any inquisitive minds that last some time around these theories will grow tired of them just as my little mind grows tired of religions. Maybe it’s better to be less intelligent. My problem with these theories is, why do some of the experts feel so certain when they know there were others before them who are now proven to have been wrong? Well, I guess knowledge is also a religion.

Oh dear…we are not getting anywhere, knowledge is just a word, religion is just a word, ect,ect!
One more time ! Take away theories ect, ect, and understand that the anwser is already here,present
now ! Hope you get guy`s. Just give it a try .
Look I mean you can not for example…you a having a nice cup of coffee and someone asks you how it tastes…you don`t awnser “well I have
some theories about that” ! Get an anwser like
and you would wonder if that guy was ok !
Soooooo..what was before the so called BB ? You don`t anwser…well I have got some theories !!!
Now do you get it ??? It is so easy, so go for
it ! Have a nice time and just enjoy that coffee!

Hope you get it guy`s ? I mean the answer to
your answers ?

Hello out there !! It would be nice to have some feed back… please! Thank you all !

why has this turned into a philisophic debate instead of a debate about physical realities ie what was there before the bb e=mc squared means tha matter & energy cannot be lost only change form does that mean that the known universe existed as a huge ball of matter that then exploded or did nothing exist and all the matter and energy in the universe is falling into our existence from somewhere else possibly some form of parallel universe or higher level of existence and please dont say god is a higher level of existence please can the agnostics out here have an answer

There could only be one and only one answer to this these riddles. We, me, you, him, her, I, do not exist materially. The universe for example, exists because you believe it does. Our mind, our though, perception, feelings, they create the known universe.

The questions of whether the universe ends, or what came before the big bang, cannot be answer because the universe does not materially exist. It is apart of our consciousness and unconsciousness.

Hinduism states this belief and has been satiating them for centuries. They are the only way around these profound questions, which have no scientific answer, for it is created by thought and imagination and our consciousness. If they don’t exist for us, they will not exist at all. Think about it.

So guys….What is consciousness….You are all getting close to the thing……but….what is that thing ?????? Thing by the way, is just a word!
Don`t think about anything…stop thinking and
start experiencing reality…if you know what
that is ??? Then you will enjoy your coffee !

something cannot be created from nothing, in our known universal physics, meaning that the existence (or not) of whatever came before was made up of entirely different physics.

don’t know much about space stuff but
there seems to be a problem with time, and
remember there are no paradoxes view from
the right perspective .Wich bring me to my point,
If all of space,time mater/energy exists on a thin
film of an ever expanding sphere then eventually
all mater will accumulate on Both polar
ends and become so hot and dense you get TWO
BIG BANGs for the price of one ,now that’s value
added . fun to think about.

That nothing is something…but it is there, otherwise nothing would exist. One does not need to understand, one has to experience IT. For example you do not understand drinking coffee, one has to experience it by drinking that coffee. Our brains seem to tuned into this exsitence we have now and of course there are many different kinds of exsitences/physics. But the real/pure/essence/reality of everthing is something you have to experience ! Remember the coffee ? Do you get it now guys ?

I love coffee .
TIME+INFINITY= NO BIG BANG, SORRY
SPACE+INFINITY=INFINITE TIME, SEE A PATTERN?
You got to use the right lens to resolve the
image /theory same is true for space/time/matter…

again TIME is the variable due to gravity so it cant be used
to quantified space . the big bang appears like a
3 dimensional event but its not .its the only
way we know how to visualize in FLAT LAND.
what if all dimension collapsed in to one
and the then exploded in to 11 or more and
all matter got stuck /retained /filtered in
this 3 d universe that we see with our 3 d brains
could explain allot of strange phenomena in
physics . I have to take some aspirin and lie down
now.

Everything IS but we only see a very small part
of IT. To experience only a tiny part of IT will
give one a very little understanding of the WHOLE.
Like taking a taste sample of a good wine, one
will just take a little mouth full and spit it
out and you will know how all the other thousands
of wine bottles will taste, beause of that exper-
ience. You do not have to drink all those bottles
of wine to experience the taste, anyway if you
did that then you be very drunk and that would be
stupid ! Hope you get the point.
Anyway that is the idea.

WE NEED A MIND THAN CAN IMANGE THINGS
LIKE (TACKING A RIDE ON A BEAM OF LIGHT)
OR ( WATCHING A CAFETERIA PLATE SPINNING AND
AND REALIZE THE ATOMS HAVE SPIN )

WE NEED ONE MIND TO TAKE A LEAP OVER THE CONVENTIONS OF SCIENCE AND CHANGE OUR UNDERSTANDING
AND OUR LIFE’S POSSIBLY .WEAR THE IMPOSSIBLE
IS ACTUALITY POSABLE . IN THEORY OF COURSE.

ONE THOUGHT CAN CHANGE THE WORLD!!
TO USE OWEN FRAISE
OK ” Do you get it now guys ? “

Ok. Back to nothing. The largest problem we have in our nature as humans is our need for explanation. We do not know what we do not know. That is very simple. The only thing we are able to do is say what is, but only in the minute capacity within which we have to see what is. We have not the right nor the omnipotence necessary to say what isn’t or what cannot be. Why must we create rules that specify the actions of ‘nothing’ if ‘nothing’ does not exist? How can we assume that something cannot come from ‘nothing’ if ‘nothing’ does not
exist? In its wonderful childhood, every science takes its first few breaths as philosophy. It only becomes a science when something is proven. We ulitmately fail and will perpetually continue to fail to see that when compared to the infinite possibilities of which we can only grasp 1.0*10^-inf. percentage of, that our most advanced and ‘proven’ sciences are merely philosophies and assumptions based on the limited knowledge we have aquired; we are a blip in ‘time’, our very universe is a blip in ‘time’ and the theory that ‘time’ even exists in some quantifiable manner is as ludicrous a concept as any known to this writer. All of that being said, do not stop thinking, theorizing and dreaming. Though it is futile it is our only hope to see outside of our infinitesimally small portion of existence.

The Big Bang happened, hopefully that is unquestionable.
So there can only be two theories:

1) God is supernatural and was the only thing before the Big Bang and he/she made existence. This is called Creation Theory. This idea has been adopted in the form of different religious beliefs for thousands of years to explain aspect of life which have been difficult to understand.

2) Existence is infinite. This is called Recreation Theory. This idea is being adopted to explain existence through our increasing understanding of the laws of nature.

So which is right?

Creation Theory has two insurmountable difficulties:

A) If God made the universe he/she cannot exist in it. This is because, if one makes a thing, by definition, one cannot be that thing. Take the example of the Universe, if you fashion energy and matter into Suns, Galaxies and planets you must be outside it and cannot exist within that thing. If the Universe is what one considers existence to be, God must be outside existence. This would mean that God would have no interaction with existence.

B) If Creation Theory is the method of creating existence, then God must have been created and who/what created he/she?

These difficulties mean that God is outside existence if he/she made it and that there must be another explanation for who/what made he/she.

Recreation Theory has eight definite advantages:

A) It is based on the laws of nature. Everything that exists in the Universe recreates, energy, matter, people, plants, rocks and even machines, because people can reproduce them.

B) It follows the laws of physics E=MC2 nothing can be created or destroyed, it just changes form.

C) It explains where energy and matter come from, simply that they were always there before the Big Bang and that our Universe is part of a larger system. The chicken is the egg.

D) If you think about yourself, how did you come into existence, sperm and egg, parts of other life your parents, which grew into another life. Trace this back through history and nothing ever died, all the way back to the Amoeba and beyond; it was just too small to see.

E) Life itself is a function of the Universe, it is inherent within every cell, atom, element and even energy.

F) The Big Bang was where our Universe came into being, but therefore that is not where existence started, as our Universe had parents.

G) If you think the Universe is big, just consider for a moment billions of Universes, the Multiverse; at that scale there is no reason to try and comprehend where they came from, because it is so far from your existence.

H) Finally and most intriguing is that the Universe is not just expanding from the Big Bang at a uniform speed, it is actually accelerating. This presents the exciting notion that the Universe is not a “closed” system, it is an “Open Universe” still taking in light and matter from the Multiverse, as we would eat and drink and that Black Holes are our Universe’s “tail pipe”.

This is what came before the Big Bang; the Universe made man in it’s own image, what comes next, is up to you!

It interests me that people will subscribe to the Big Bang Theory in all it’s fanciful, scientific, theoretical glory; yet dismiss the idea of a supreme, omnipotent being without a moment’s thought.

It interests me that people will subscribe to the Big Bang Theory in all it’s fanciful, scientific, theoretical glory; yet dismiss the idea of a supreme, omnipotent being without a moment’s thought.

Now it is such a bizarrely improbably coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful [the Babel fish] could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: “I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”
“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED”
“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
– Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (book one of the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series), p 50

“Einstein’s believed that, “as he progressed towards E=MC2, he would come closer to God”. Unfortunately towards the end of his life this caused him great disappointment, as he felt that this had not been realized. But philosophically his disappointment was unfounded, as he had in fact, explained existence.

Mathematics exists to measure the material world, so I have always been surprised that mathematicians and physicists expect to find answers to questions, where measurement is no longer possible. How can you expect to measure what came before the Big Bang, where matter as we know it no longer exist. All the fanciful mathematical extrapolations to form wilder and wilder guesses really has to stop. E=MC2 is the explanation of the existence. The Unified Theory had been found by Einstein, but unfortunately he had not discovered it”.

This maybe the answer to existence, but to understand what came before the Big Bang only has one possible explaination and that is to understand where the mass of the universe originated.

As mass accelerates towards the speed of light it becomes energy. This explains the relationship between energy and matter in the known Universe; however, to satisfy the law of conservation of energy, (that energy is a constant)there must also be an equal and opposite force – so; A=//=E=mc^2 where A = anti-energy/matter and =//= is subspace. It is called Equilibrium Theory and this explains Infinity and therefore where life itself originated. (This equation and intellectual property is copyright)

Everything are created by God.
Don’t believe it?
Here’s the explanation:
If the Universe will expand and collapse over and over again, what started it? God.

If the Universe will expand forever, who started it? God.

Out anything you can think of, or something in something inside of something…There must be a beginning. And that beginning can only be one. God created us all.

It doesn’t matter if we deny or accept, this is the fact which scientists doesn’t want to accept.
We can explore, but we’ll still be exploring the creation of God.

We simply cannot deny it. Denying it means denying ourselves. What created our conciousness?
Why are we able to think, reason and see things?
Where does our conciousness came from?

We’re created by God, yet some or many of us doesn’t believe in God. It’s time we wake up. Science is something that God gave to us as a present. We can’t deny this fact.

What we are trying to do is to use this science, to explore creation of God, to try to see what’s before big bang. It’s just a waste of time.
By the way, time are also created.

What was there before the Big Bang and the creation of “our” Universe? Our Universe is but an infant at under 20 billion years old. The “Omniverse”, the infinite space which holds our Universe has existed for longer than our wildest imaginations. During a virtually infinite amount of time, trillions upon trillions of Universes have come into existence, grown old, and eventually died. The reason our Universe is not entirely symmetrical is likely because it is expanding into the remnants of old and dead universe(s). Dark Matter may simply be material left over from old and dead universe(s), which is why our technology is unable to analyse and define it. Dark matter exerts gravitational force (the constant force in all dimensions and throughout the Omniverse), but our instruments are not designed to analyse the matter of other universe(s). Our Universe will eventually die and join the remnants of other Universes. New Universes are continually being created within the Omniverse. If we can one day see far enough, beyond the borders of our own Universe, perhaps we will be able to see light from another Universe.

To me, I see things different,very different! How can a Rolex watch be created from a big bang? Think about it, our solar system is as, or more complex than a Rolex watch right! My thinking on all this is tha someone, something, or something else created our solar system. I am sure the universe did not create itself, nothing comes from nothing! Remember, Einstein told us so!

For those of you who are pure physicists and mathemeticians, I suggest you study the workings of DNA and RNA. Those who lack this biochemical knowledge are sorely at a disadvantage in considering cosmological/physical questions. You will immediately understand that these codes could not have come about by chance. DNA and RNA are proof of creation. Studying biochemistry as a Zoo major is what flipped me from agnostic to creationist. What is impossible to grasp is the nature of the creator. Where did HE come from, and how? And when? The Creator is as impossible to understand as the concept of the Big Bang, or what came before the Big Bang. They are equally untenable concepts. However, knowledge of the workings of DNA and RNA prove creation, so I choose to believe in it. Our thoughts on these matters are nothing more than a choice of belief. I choose belief in Creation because I understand how RNA and DNA work. I choose Christianity because I read the New Testament, and bought it. Not being the Creator is extraordinarily vexing to me, because there is no way to understand the ‘Why” previously referenced. If God and the humans are all that matters, why have the inconceivably vast Universe? Very perplexing.

Seems to me that the more we discover the less we know! Scientists and theologians can theorize all they want, in the end NO ONE KNOWS and whoever thinks they do is living in there own world. I have studied many theories, wondered countless possibilities’believe me i have a very broad imagination’ and the whole subject is mind blowing! We are not ready for the answers and none of us have the ability to understand them.
The greatest knowledge we posses is that which we can understand. I have no doubt that there is energy of a higher level out there and patience, acceptance and above all faith will help us see the light.

If you were not born, the universe would not exist to you, this is true nothingness, any being with awareness can not ever imagine “nothingness” because the very act of consciously thinking about something and being aware of it actually creates it, even if it’s only in your mind.

Our minds are part of the universe, hence anything created by our mind also becomes part of the universe.

Existence is awareness, nothing exists unless something is aware of it. The universe was not created and we have no logical reason to suggest it was created. Energy can not be created or destroyed, hence it has existed eternally.

Time is an illusion created by our limited perception, time is nothing more than relative motion between different objects, the only reason we even have “days” is because the earth and sun happen to rotate/orbit at a particular speed relative to each other. If there was only 1 object in existence there would be no time because time requires relative motion between at least 2 seperate objects.

Imagine time standing still, all motion would freeze, the universe would literally stand still, the same MUST work in reverse, if all motion stopped it would mean time would stop.

Time is nothing more than the relative motion of objects, thinking about relativity this way actually makes far more sense, the speed of light will always be the same regardless of your movement speed because motion is always relative.

Time did not begin, nor will it end, in fact it doesn’t exist at all. Time is nothing more than relative motion of mass/energy within space.

In reality the only thing that truly exists is infinite energy with infinite potential. Relative motion and differentiation of this energy creates everything.

The only things you can ever say there are only one of are infinity and zero, there is only one infinity, there is only one zero, hence zero, infinty and one are all the same.

There is only oneness, it is both nothing (zero) and infinite (everything).

We have no proof that consciousness can be created from matter, however we do have proof that matter can be created by consciousness, we do it in dreams all the time.

Scientists do not actually know what “energy” is. What if energy is nothing more than thought? Energy can create matter, so can dreams/thought, are they one and the same?

Some things to think about my friends.

What if God is nothing more than energy/thought? Energy is eternal and infinite, are these not the properties given to God?

Although I am not a religious person in the true sense of the word, thinking of things this way does raise some deep questions.

The only thing that actually exists is energy (even space is energy), energy is everything, the question is what causes this energy to differentiate into relatively different objects and what sets this energy into relative motion?

If everything in the universe is energy, does this not mean that consciousness is energy and energy is consciousness? Consciousness is after all part of the universe and as such must be made of energy like everything else.

The one question that can never be answered, not even by God, is why is there existence at all? God does not even know why he exists. Is this the purpose of the universe? Is God trying to come to terms with his own existence?

We are all God, were we not created in his image? Do we not ask the some question he asks himself? Why do I exist?

If anyone would like to chat with me about anything feel free to contact me via email/msn at kelei_kurtzen@hotmail.com

There never was a big bang.Because you can’t have a bang without space and it could not be big because everything was condensed into the size of a dime.So therefore it can best be described as a small chime not a big bang.

I died – but my mind lived on and floated UP thru the bars and building I was in.I was a cloud of some sort,and I was enlightened(happy?) Was this a spirit or energy? They shocked me and brought me back-but I tried to fight it.I was upset that I had to go back to my body.Now I am much older and have grandchildren,and glad I went back.What happened to me? Many questions will not be answered in life, but maybe in death.

I find it interesting that some people need to know WHY we exist. Why should there be a reason why we exist at all – we just do – enjoy the journey, it’s the only certainty you have.

we should seek what are all these things?, what is behind these all? what was the first cause even before big bang? we are living in viberatory universe. Is there any thing beyond viberatory universe? …is there anything which is vibreration less or beyond time and space?..we should seek because upto now there are no answers for these.
If nothing happens without a cause! then what’s the first cause? we should seek.

We must and should need to know WHY we exist beause otherwise we can never be able to find out our true IDENTITY. WHO WE ARE and WHY WE ARE HERE? There should be a cause. Enjoying the journey is a must but death will take away everything until we IDENTIFIED with our true IDENTITY then and only then the journey will be eternal and ever present (NO BIRTH and NO DEATH).

I think we are in a cosmic mind. The best example of this is our brain. We see dreams at night. Those dreams that we see seem as if they are real when we see them. But those dreams do not require any real space and time boundaries. Our brain can have an infinite realm of thoughts in virtual space that our brain creates. In the same way the universe that we observe is an infinite space of a cosmic being’s brain. The space and time that we perceive is all relative to our observation but is free from the cosmic power that creates it.

I think before big bang there may be any super power exist which may able to create any big bang . but i really don’t believe big bang ,because life cannot create by the big bang. if big bang is true ,there may be any alien present in this world or not .if you know please send me information.

A question. What do everyone mean by there was nothing before time , space and matter was formed. Kindly describe this ‘Nothing’ Was there no space, no matter, no time? There was no universe/s? Then, where did the atoms come from to explode to form the universe? God made it? How can we describe this Nothing? Lets see… No darkness, no light, no matter, no time , no space,not even a singularity. The hand of God is in this.

There is no God. Why? If God existed, he would be incredibly powerful and all-knowing. So in a sense, bothering with us would be so incredibly a waste of his time. It’s like us playing and watching ants. Pointless. You really think there is a God who gives us a rule book (The Bible) and then sits back and waits for us who do good to come and join him later in life? He needs this? This incredibly powerful being wants our faith? Is he bored? It’s all pointless to a powerful being like this, so I am convinced that God does not exist. I believe there are perfectly natural explanations for everything. The question is, will we advance our knowledge far enough to find these answers?

everything in this universe has to have existence and an end. what was there when there was nothing.. its very simple only an illusion can be nothing and if you ask me what is truth i say it is what establishes forever.. a truth has to be a truth forever. a stone lying next to you is an illusion because by your senses you know it won’t exist forever and so are you..counting form minus infinity to infinity is endless but it cannot be physical(as counting stones) to be possible..so defines the time barrier and dimensions of this endless world.. i know by my senses a physical thing as you say this world is has to have an end and has to be endless at the same time.. only an illusion like counting number -3-2-1 0 +1 +2 +3 can prove it..

Do we understand……the brain is for this life…..so use if you can !
Then we get old/die ect. Do all you guys really think that it is so simple
that you can perceive the wonderful. It is so very easy because it is you!
So just forget everything and be there, but the brain will stop that. So
one has to go for it….not words, not ideas, just knowing. You can only
know how the coffee tastes by drinking, not by puting a load of words on how
it tastes ect. as you all seem to be doing on existence. GET IT !

Once upon a time, 14 billion years ago, a cosmic explosion released an immense amount of heat and pressure. All the particles and energy in our universe, once confined to a space about the size of a dime, raced away from one another at tremendous speeds. As the hot particles cooled and continued to expand into space, matter formed and the stars and galaxies of our universe were born. And so, the story of our universe began… or did it?

Maybe something came before the Big Bang. Physicists have tried for decades to write the mathematical prelude to our universe’s fiery birth, but Einstein’s theory of general relativity stopped them short. An immense amount of matter and energy were built up in an infinitesimally small point at the moment of our universe’s birth, and the laws of general relativity that govern large bodies and systems in the universe are no longer appropriate on such a small scale. Instead, quantum theory, which deals with the quirky properties of the very small subatomic particles in the universe, takes over. Traveling to the beginning of it all, at least our all, requires some way of reconciling general relativity with quantum theory.

“The unification of these two is the only thing that allows us to look before the Big Bang,” says Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist at City University of New York. So far, the leading theory of unification, according to Kaku, is string theory—the idea that tiny strings vibrating in unseen dimensions of space make up all matter, light, energy, everything. If our universe is described in eleven dimensions filled with these subatomic strings, physicists believe the fundamental physical forces can be unified and they can get closer to describing the instant of our universe’s birth and maybe even what came before it.

Armed with string theory, Kaku and others speculate that before our Big Bang, there were simply more universes. “Our universe could have either popped into existence or collided with another universe,” he says. Imagine a bubble bath where each bubble represents a universe. In this multiversal tub that existed before our Big Bang—and still exists today—universe bubbles are colliding, popping, budding new bubbles, expanding and contracting. If this scenario really exists, “Big Bangs happen all the time,” says Kaku.

Some physicists believe our universe was created by colliding with another, but Kaku says it also may have sprung from nothing: a completely empty eleven dimensional universe with no spin, no charge and no energy. This seemingly tranquil nothingness universe was actually unstable and some physicists believe that a fluctuation in the vacuum caused our universe to pinch off from its empty existence without time and space to a universe that was large enough to expand. Like a bubble in a bath, our universe had to grow instantaneously in order to survive and escape the collapsing fate of small bubbles.

This “quantum leap” involved four of the dimensions of the empty universe, which now frame the universe we live in. Expanding suddenly, this event sparked the Big Bang and caused the further expansion which created matter and continues to push the galaxies apart today. Meanwhile, the seven remaining dimensions shrunk to an almost inconceivable size, much smaller than an atom.

String theory is so far a purely mathematical journey back to these primordial moments, and some physicists are considering different explanations. The higher dimensions of our universe, if they exist, cannot be directly explored because today’s instruments are not powerful enough to measure their small size. But there are experiments—both Earth-bound and space-based—that may provide evidence to support string theory.

Next year, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be turned on outside Geneva. Physicists hope that it will begin to create supersymmetric particles (a.k.a. “sparticles”) that Kaku says are a vibration of strings. If and when another new apparatus called the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna goes up into space, physicists will use its three laser-connected satellites to look for vibrations of space and time, known as gravitational waves, left over from the Big Bang. Kaku is confident these experiments and others will provide physical evidence for higher dimensions and string theory.

But results from these new experiments are many years away, and until then, physicists will continue to speculate about what might have existed before the Big Bang. Many hope that these experiments will finally shed some light on the mystery. While we’re all waiting, perhaps the best we can do is slip into a bubble bath and contemplate the unknown.
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1.

At the start of the universe, during the inflation period, did matter not travel faster than the speed of light?
gail, December 10, 2006 at 8:03 pm
2.

Before was only sleeping brahma. We are inside cosmic mind. For example if we close our eyes and imagine something that lives in our mind so the same we are inside cosmic mind of so coled brahma, god, supreme conscience.
Tompa, December 12, 2006 at 5:23 am
3.

Gail: Immediately after the big bang *space* was expanding much, much faster than the speed of light. Even then the rules of special relativity applied: Information could not travel faster than light, and hence no object could travel through space faster than light. The result is that objects that were in close proximity just after the Big Bang got separated, in some cases for bilions of years, before they came back in contact with each other. This scenario explains why the cosmic microwave background is so uniform. Different parts of the universe which now seem disconnected were in fact connected before that period of faster-than-light inflation.
Corey, December 12, 2006 at 4:54 pm
4.

I have been wondering if we eventuelly will go back to this nothingness and then have the big bang start all over again. What do you think??
Thank you, Marie-Louise
Hendrickx Marie-Louise, January 7, 2007 at 9:34 pm
5.

The greatest mystery of all (at least for me) is not the what and how, but the why for all this grand universe we live in. Maybe we will never find the reason, but still it is a privilage for me to live in an era of such great discoveries and understanding of the nature around us (esp in cosmology). What lies beyond the big bang will maybe bring us closer in understanding why the cosmos was created. Thank you.
Frankie, January 28, 2007 at 1:21 pm
6.

I find the whole concept of space and time absolutely phenomonal. Of course not every little detail, or indeed, many large details can be fully explained yet, however I do feel in time this will be so. Religion to me seems such a primitive tool to explain things such as our origins and the birth of the universe. I consider myself an athiest, however one little question continues to niggle my intellectual mind. Nothing? Even with all iv read on the subject, my mind is simply unable to comprehend nothing? Before the big bang, before quantum physics. Its unbelievable void that cannot be filled. God, as a religious person would tell you. Any ideas?
Joe, February 9, 2007 at 6:01 pm
7.

I don’t know anything much about science, but I figured out what came before the Big Bang ages ago.
Maybe it’s because I don’t know science that I was able to get my head around it.. The inescapable conclusion is that the Universe DID come from nothingness, but everyone seems to be dancing around that paradox as if it’s an annoyance, instead of embracing it as the source of the solution. There IS one thing that can create itself, but it’s almost anti-science.

I’d spell it out, but nobody really seems to care.. If you’re really that interested it took me a couple of hours to think it through, so intellectually-minded people can certainly crack it in a lot less time than me.
Lord_Darkclaw, March 5, 2007 at 7:17 pm
8.

in the beginning God? – maybe?
Steve Mann, March 11, 2007 at 11:22 am
9.

I’ve always wondered… If the assumption that the universe will expand and collapse over and over is true (which is still debated – some say it may just expand forever. I personally think that it will collapse again) and this ‘bang and crunch’ scenario happens an infinite number of times, then wouldn’t you and I actually occur again? Maybe not for a trillion cycles but eventually, given an infinite number of attempts? If this is true then not only would you occur again, but you would occur and eventually be every consciousness – you, me, a dog, a blade of grass – the bug you just squashed, etc. Not only that but you would have every possible experience – good and bad. You would be a king, a slave. You would experience the greatest pleasures and your worst fears. You get the idea. I’m an atheist but this scenario is both profoundly comforting (people are always looking for a way to believe in immortality) and terrifying as well. If nothing else it’s fun to think about.
Sean, March 28, 2007 at 9:59 am
10.

There has always been universes. Don’t think of time as a line but as a sphere. Time can go anywhere but will eventually come back to a starting point. The universe will expand for another 6 billion years then grvity will take over and contract the universe into a big crunch. When all this universal mass reaches and infintesimal spot the energy will be released in the form of another big bang and another universe
chance beauclair, April 25, 2007 at 5:56 pm
11.

chance beauclair, yes that is a theory, but as far as we know, the universe is expanding and accelerating. It seems to have no intention of going back together in a “big crunch”, even though that would be the logical assumption.
Krista, April 30, 2007 at 3:37 am
12.

Define time.
albert, May 4, 2007 at 7:54 pm
13.

The most obvious “problem” with the big bang is certainly its origins. Even in the world of the very small (quantum theory) there is a problem with matter being created from absolutely nothing. That tiny ball of high density matter that created the big bang had to, in essence, create itself if we assume there was nothing else out there. And one cannot simply go in circles with the argument that universes have always existed and that time is spherical. The fact is, all matter needs to come from somewhere. That being the case is leads me to the most puzzling conclusion of all. The big bang cannot exist in terms of definitions set up by observable nature. It is thusly an event that must be classified as outside of observable science… also known as “supernatural.” A word I shudder to utter.
Tyler, May 13, 2007 at 6:32 pm
14.

Well i’m not sure but there ws nothing and then somthing. Maybe think of the universe as somthing inside somthing inside somthing ect. so in thery maybe the nothingness was somthing in the terms of somthing else but the making it be nothing but somthing at the same time. And the somthing that has the somthing we live in had a nothing but at its will changed it to a greater somthing. So Is there a somthing inside our somthing! Sciencline you gave me new stuff to think about. Thanks…
Amanda, June 21, 2007 at 12:17 am
15.

I have thought about this for 30 years. I detest the religious explanations as they tend to short circuit scietific thought and tend to be mutually exclusive. One could argue that there had to be a beginning, a first action, for without it there could not be a second action. But this logic fails us as a falacy. I prefer expansion and contraction theory but feel it is as superficial as Newton’s laws to explain the totality. The identification of more dark matter would help this theory immensely. String theory with its “missing dimensions” seems to be untenable. The best possible evidence will be indirect and presumptive. The search for more data, more concrete data, that which we can see or otherwise measure by some method holds the most promise at least in our lifetimes and I would think that this will strengthen expansion/contraction theory or at least as a stepping stone to a more universal explanation of how. I think the vast majority of us have some hope that the How will eventually lead to the Why.
Joe C., June 24, 2007 at 5:06 pm
16.

I concur with Tyler’s observation regarding matter coming from some source. However, the intriguing thing to me is what entity held up the pre-bang dime size material? And what were the dimensions of this void? But, in the final analysis, you must acccept the fact that something does not come from nothing. Although, science will attempt to quantum leap you through an array of theories – it can not in any manner, shape or form explain the origin of the dime size material. Believe me, I’m no religious zealot, only an inquisitive mind searching for answers to the age old question. I have reached a plateau of thinking regarding this “matter” (a little pun) of the universe’s origin. But, after several years of pondering over this question, I have made one keen observation – I have wasted a lot of time.

R/ELTC
Emsley, July 27, 2007 at 1:24 pm
17.

Albert, you asked for a definition of “time”. Well, here it is:

Time is the one thing that prevents everything from happening all at once.
Leslie S., August 6, 2007 at 7:27 am
18.

Most of cosmology seems to be built on very fragile foundations! Logically, there cannot have been a “fluctuation” in nothing – nothing being no space, no time, no matter, no energy.
Yet many, or even the majority, of cosmologists tell us that is exactly what happened. I have never heard an explanation for this impossibility, other than just “counterintuitive”.
Similarly, all that is in the universe cannot have been concentrated at a point of infinite density. What on earth is infinite density?
The same “explanation”, counterintuitive, is always given for those other impossibilties – the constant speed of light, whatever one´s relative speed, and the effect of relative movement on time measurement.

Robert
robert hutchins, August 29, 2007 at 2:01 pm
19.

If we came from nothing then there must of been an infinite amount of time when there was nothing otherwise there was a period of time before the big bang when there was matter which would mean we came from such matter instead of coming from nothing. Since the scientific argument posed abbove is we in fact came from nothing, I again state what logically follows from that argument is that there was an infinite amount of time before the big bang when there was nothing.

The scientifc argument presented above is also that I am a finite being. However, the finite can not live within the infinite because a finite amount of anything within the infinite is zero. (i.e. any specific finite measurment within a infinite field must be zero because in an infinite spectrum there is no relative meausurement. For example if you are travelling to a planet that is an infinite amount of miles away whether you went o miles, 100 miles, or a hundred trillion miles you are no closer or farther to the planet than when you started which means you have effectively travelled no closer to your target or you have effectively travelled 0 miles towards your infinite target.

Accordingly, I either never existed or I have always existed. I exist therefore I must have existed forever and will exist forever. I am in your thoughts and you are in mine because we are all part of the same infinite being. However I ultimately control this being because I decided I will.

The Patty Spoke
Canice, August 30, 2007 at 12:37 pm
20.

Re Canice´s post, current theory says that Big Bang was also the beginning of time. There was no time, space, matter, energy, popsicles – nothing before Big B.. If there was time before, then one would have to assume it stretched back infinitely far. The main difficulty for me with infinite time, is how can anything ever happen at any given point in time? I would have to be sitting here at my computer an infinite number of times going backwards. Yet, how can there be a beginning of time? What happened five minutes before it began? Is it like the universe is supposed to be – closed but with no boundary? And what does that mean??
robert, August 30, 2007 at 2:19 pm
21.

Perhaps once we collectively realize that phrases like “nothing” and “infinite” do not and can not describe physical reality, we will make another quantum leap in our knowledge of the universe. Disregarding mathematics for a moment, we cannot use these mental crutches to insert into incomplete theories as some sort of finality. The round-and-round discussions of “Well, then what is the universe expanding into?” and “What was there before the Big Bang?” (which end with “infinity” and “nothing”, respectively) are, at this phase, pointless at best, and crippling to discovery at worst.

Our universe is not expanding into another universe, which is also expanding into another universe, and so on. And there was not “nothing” prior to the Big Bang. There are not an infinite number of universes expanding and contracting in an infinite loop. Using these to cap off a theory is the equivalent of Lincoln ending the Gettysburg Address with “now let’s go out there and kick some ass!”, or capping the Washington Monument with a Tupperware bowl.

How to prove it? Well, that’s a tough one. But it will happen, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Christopher, September 4, 2007 at 11:23 pm
22.

Many scientists seem to believe that we are close now to understanding everything, including how there came to be a universe. (Stephen Hawking is one such.) Yet, it seems to me that on the fundamental question of why there is a universe and whether it came or has always existed there is nothing more than wild guesses. I think the truth is that scientists haven´t a clue on this.

I sent an email recently to an physicist-cosmologist asking if he really understood how all of the universe could have been concentrated at a point of infinite density and what is infinite density. I also asked him if he understood how it could be that clocks vary according to their relative speeds and how one always measures the speed of light the same irrespective of one´s relative speed. That is, understand how apparently impossible things can be. He sent back a long email, in which he said that no-one understands these things and that we just have to accept that they are so.
robert, September 5, 2007 at 1:01 pm
23.

Hi Allison. Nice article…. send me an email at three boys brewery .
Ralph
Ralph Bungard, September 7, 2007 at 5:53 am
24.

due to the death of my brother, I wondered where the universe came from so i read all the books about astrophysics and quantum theory i could stomach. after a couple of years i learned alot but i realized that although we do understand a lot, we dont really know anything
bernie, September 9, 2007 at 2:48 pm
25.

I am reminded of Abbott’s FlatLand when I think about the Big Bang and associated ideas. Perhaps we perceive the universe as having a starting point because we observe thru the lens of a 4 dimensional being. Perhaps there is no change, no big bang but only our perception. I am reminded of an old movie reel. Its all there, but we can’t grasp it, we can only grasp it as it seemingly plays out on the screen.
mike richards, September 13, 2007 at 1:07 pm
26.

I think we are getting hung up on the word “nothing”. Nothing simple means no….thing. Language makes a difficult concept even harder to grasp because there are no words for it or experiential validation even if there were words for it. So how do you name something that is not a something? Our four dimensional nature collapses reality into things. “That” which manifests as what we call the universe is pure potential. We are “that” experiencing and observing “that” though the prism of our four dimensional existence.
mike richards, September 13, 2007 at 10:53 pm
27.

I agree with Bernie – a lot has been worked out about the Universe, which may or may not be true, but about the fundamental question of why there is a Universe at all I haven´t read anything very convincing. I don´t think scientists have a clue on this and it may be that they never will. Some aspects of physics and cosmology seem almost like magic. Since I was about 11 years old, I did not believe in a Creator and basically I still don´t -but the more I read on quantum mechanics, relativity, Big Bang etc. and all the other bits of “magic”, the more I wonder. It seems impossible to me that there was a beginning to the Universe, but it seems equally impossible that it has always existed.
Robert, September 14, 2007 at 12:02 pm
28.

“Some physicists believe our universe was created by colliding with another, but Kaku says it also may have sprung from nothing: a completely empty eleven dimensional universe with no spin, no charge and no energy.”

I want to point out that the use of the word ‘nothing’ above is not warranted, because whatever you mean it is not nothing.

Language is the only thing we have to represent things, if we then start with nothing why then do we continue to talk of it as something.

“…Kaku says it also may have sprung from nothing…”

How can Kaku use the words: “sprung, from,” when there is nothing for it to have sprung from.

Just because people are scientists does not entitle them to speak in absurd sentences.

What he should say if he does not want to appear to speak in absurdity, should be the following:

“…it must have sprung from nothing we know at present or can ever know, but it is something…”

instead of: “…it also may have sprung from nothing…”

Gerry
Gerry, September 26, 2007 at 7:43 pm
29.

Gerry You are right there is no phraselogy in the english language that I am aware of that can express the concept of something coming from nothing. Even the phrase i just used “Something coming from Nothing” implies something is coming from some type of matter why else would I use the the term “from”. Interesting.

The Patty Spoke
Canice, October 3, 2007 at 12:13 am
30.

The English language has no difficulty in expressing the idea of something coming from nothing – what is difficult to understand is how it could happen, but it is the case that many cosmologists believe that is exactly what did happen. There was nothing – at all, no space, no matter, no energy – then there was something. Weird? Of course, but then what about clocks keeping different time if they move. Why? no-one knows. Or how you will always measure the speed of a photon the same, whatever your relative speed. Or how an elementary particle acts differently if you look at it. Or that an atom is over 99% empty space. And so on – so much that seems like “magic”.
robert, October 15, 2007 at 1:50 pm
31.

paper i just wrote for my philosophy 101 class.. i didnt proof read it yet.. but i thought you guys might appreciate it
Agnosticism
Agnosticism is the belief neither in atheism, nor in theism, however, before defining agnosticism one must first grasp both of these countering beliefs. Atheism is the choice not to believe in any God, while theism is the believe in a higher, divine being, or beings. Agnosticism is stuck between these two sets of beliefs, and is defined as neither an abandonment of belief in all higher being, nor an acceptance in higher beings.
To prove to you that agnosticism is the only true belief that should be adopted by all who care to think on the question of God, I will first show you how theism and atheism are flawed. Any logically thinking person simply cannot adopt the belief of theism. Based on the fact that we cannot prove the existence of the universe, why should one say that a higher being created it, a being that we cannot comprehend with any of our bodily senses. These theists are equally as foolish as the atheist. If one believed that a higher being created all, could one not argue that they themselves are that higher being they have no proof to deny it, who is to say that I did not create all of existence, for I exist now, who is to say that I have not forever existed even before birth. Nobody can prove me wrong just as nobody can prove me right. The same goes for many other seemingly crazy notions such as we do not exist or I am the only being to exist and everyone around me exists because I will them to exist, this thought may seem crazy to some but can it be proven wrong, or proven right; just as the existence of god, it cannot. This is why agnosticism is the only belief that makes sense. Any intelligent person does not believe in something with out any proof so why would any intelligent person believe anything when it comes to our creation. The answer is our own quest for the truth, but we must accept that no matter how hard we search for the truth we will never find it.
Atheism also cannot be adopted by any logical person because how can one know that he did not come from a higher being. How can an atheist explain the universe with one hundred percent certainty, the answer is he cannot, and nobody will ever be able to, the creation of all things will forever be lost in history. Theories that atheists use simple do not make sense, how can everything come from nothing, like in the big bang theory. My own theory that I am god and I will everything around me to be, makes more sense than the big bang theory, however I am not foolish enough to throw everything aside and follow that theory.
Agnosticism therefore is the believe in both theism and atheism but not the acceptance of both, one may believe that there might be a God who created everything, or that there might not be a God and the universe itself was created by explainable meaning that we simple cannot yet explain. Agnosticism therefore it the only logical set of beliefs, why put all you belief in something that cannot be proven right or wrong. Instead accept that it will never be proven and look at both sides as a possible explanation for your life.

you guys are both wrong
Sean, November 5, 2007 at 11:55 am
32.

I think it makes sense to be an agnostic, but for different reasons from those Sean cites. You do not need absolute proof to believe or disbelieve something – not even in a court of law, where the standard is “beyond reasonable doubt”. I strongly believe that, where I live, the temperature tomorrow is unlikely to reach 100 degrees – I am not undecided on this. Neither am I undecided on the prospect of someone running a three-minute mile in the next decade or a Martian winning Wimbledon next year. I do, however, favour agnosticism because I think the arguments are much more finely balanced on this and I will probably continue to think this way until someone comes up with a believable explanation of how the Universe could appear from absolutely nothing. The only “explanation” I´ve heard is that there was a fluctuation in the nothing. I kid you all not – it was a physicist who suggested that.
robert, November 5, 2007 at 12:28 pm
33.

I am infinitely annoyed. I just spent 1 hour creating a post and that stupid number sum thing said I entered the wrong number but I didn’t. Well the error erased everything I wrote. So I am too annoyed to recreate my post now. Anyways it was a stream of consciesnous so it can’t be recreated. Just friendly advice to other posters save your post in word before you hit submit comment so you don’t lose your work! I will write again in a month or two when I am less annoyed!

The Patty Spoke
Canice, November 21, 2007 at 12:34 am
34.

Canice:

I know the feeling! I had my 654 page sequel to War and Peace, laid out for the publisher and ready to go. I got asked to add 3 and 6 and the battery in my calculator ran out. I lost the whole thing, so I know how you must feel. Still, you´ll have to do what I did.

“Once upon a time…………………”
Robert, November 23, 2007 at 6:02 am
35.

Canice:

You bring up an interesting point. It may actually be the inability for current language(s) to describe a seemingly paradoxical event such as ‘something arising from nothing’ which is limiting our understanding of the origin of the universe.

At times throughout history, the advancement of mathematics was hindered by inability of the ponderers to understand concepts such as ‘zero’, ‘infinity’, and ‘limits’. It took a great number of whisperings and euphemisms for these concepts to be accepted by the societies that the minds which conceived them were living in.
Sumanth P, December 2, 2007 at 5:01 am
36.

I have been thinking of all of this a lot likely. Sumanth you helped me crystallize some thoughts. I think God and our existence can be explained with Math. The way I look at it is the infinite (or God) can not live within the finite. Mathematically the infinite can not exist within a finite range. For example, if your finite range is say 1 to 1 million, a subset of that range can not be infinity. On the other hand the finite not only can but must wholly exist within the infinite. For example, all finite ranges are subsets of the infinite. For example the number set -100 to 1000 wholly exists within the infinite number set. As we know the infinite number set “starts” at 0 (or the base point of the x or y axis) and goes on forevever for both negative and positive numbers. Accordingly, any finite number set will wholly exist within the infinite number set. We are a finite life force that must be a subset of an infinite life force which is God.

The above paragraph must now be rationalized in the context of my August 30th post where I rationalized the finite is essentially is nothing relative to the infinite.

The way I rationalize this is that our finite life force on earth is created by our own personal infinite life force. Our infinite life force creates the illusion that we are finite beings while we are on earth so our finite life force can experience certain aspects of existence that only a finite being can experience such as intense emotions. Intense emotions can not be truly experienced by an infinite being because any emotion by definition is a finite force. For example, you can only experience true happiness if you understand what hardship or loss is. You can only understand something as loss in a finite world. In an infinite world how can something die? Death by definition is a finite term.

Our infinite beings create the illusion of finitivity so when we die the intense emotions we experienced as finite beings can be subsumed (or experienced) by our infinite self when we die so our infinite life force can in a sense experience true emotion.
When you truly realize like I do that I am in fact a finite being that is a subset of an infinite being I choose to control my infinite existence by denying the illusion of my finitivity and accepting I am an infinite being. By doing this I will my finite life force (i.e. my consciousness to life for ever). So when my finite body ends, my finite conscientious while a Human will always be a controlling force in my infinite existence.

Accordingly, since I chose to have my present finite life to extend into an infinite life I will try to live this life as a good person who tries to be happy and who tries to make others happy. I invite others to join me. If your goal like me is to have a continual happy existence, please try to make others and yourself happy by doing good acts for others. If you choose this path try to find me in this finite life because these are the type of people I want to be around. If you can’t find me in this life, don’t worry about it. It is more important you find me in our infinite life because in my infinite life I only want to be around positive people who have the prime concern of making others beings happy. Don’t worry I will be easy to find. Even in an infinite world not many infinite beings will have the name of Canice.

Peace.

The Patty Spoke
Canice, December 19, 2007 at 12:13 am
37.

By the way if you do find me in your infinite existence you also found my definition of heaven. To me heaven is the infinite beings you associate with in your infinite existence. In my infinite existence I choose to be around positive people who want to help ALL other beings.

If you are a negative person that primarily hurts other beings for your own gain I think you will know what you will find. One thing you won’t find is me.

The Patty Spoke.
canice, December 19, 2007 at 12:26 am
38.

Matter cannot just pop into existence. Science simply cannot explain where the matter comprising the ‘big bang’ came from. It is essentially the same conundrum; either trying to explain a time when nothing existed, not matter, space or time, or accepting that matter, time and/or space always existed, as equally impossible as that is to comprehend. We cannot comprehend this. It has to be supernatural.
tom, December 29, 2007 at 11:23 pm
39.

Scientists are also unable to explain such apparent logical absurdities as clocks keeping different time if they are moving or everyone measuring the speed of light the same irrespective of their relative speed or particles altering their behaviour if we look at them. What scientist actually understands what matter bending space to cause gravity means? How do you bend space? The Universe is also supposed to be finite but without boundaries, generally explained by saying it is like the surface of the Earth. In other words, we shouldn´t ask what is on the other side of the boundary. Why not?
At Big Bang, everything was at a point at infinite density. What is infinite density? Quite dense, very dense, incredibly dense – yes, yes – but infinitely dense? What does that mean? And so on…….

But I don´t know that invoking a supernatural creator is going to help much. Many of the same questions will arise with some extra ones thrown in as well.
robert, January 9, 2008 at 10:07 am
40.

maybe god put that infinitely small little thing dur and then made it explode
shnaynay, January 16, 2008 at 6:57 pm
41.

It’s all so easy because Albert got it wrong.

Gravity is not the curvature of space, it’s the push of space.

Dark matter: Space flows towards mass where it’s probability of conversion into energy is improved; a lot of space yields a tiny amount of energy.

Dark energy: When mass is distant, a tiny amount of energy (e. g. starlight) has a higher probability of conversion into space; a tiny amount of energy yields a lot of space.

This unifies the so called gravity with the other three forces. What are we going to do the rest of the afternoon?

G = E = M
John, February 15, 2008 at 6:39 pm
42.

Whether Jack´s right or Albert is (or maybe neither), depends on whether Jack´s very own new theory is correct. The books all say that mass “tells” space how to curve and space “tells” mass how to move, but I will be quite glad if Jack´s overturned this now because it all seemed quite improbable to me. How about spending the rest of the afternoon figuring out what came before BB? I don´t believe that the universe appeared all on its own from absolutely nothing.
Maybe a crate of beer will help the process along.
robert, February 19, 2008 at 4:49 pm
43.

What existed before the BB is exactly the same as what existed after the BB, althugh a bit changed in form. Apparently, the BB erupted from a naked singularity, with the exact mass of our universe including all its space, energy, and matter. There is no way to measure the duration of the singularity, since it existed before time began. Imagine a time line where a singularity existed, time ended when the singularity became naked, then the singularity expanded (BB); time began almost immediately thereafter. Gravity is why this all happened. As all space, matter and energy unify into a singularity, there will come a point when there is no longer any space/gravity to contain the singularity. The singularity is naked and time ends. Since there is nothing holding the naked singularity together, there is a spontaneous expansion (outside of the laws of known physics). The expansion begins when there is no space, thus no gravity, and no speed of light limit, but only the unleashed singularity with all forces unified. Since the very early expansion began outside of space and time, it serves no purpose to consdider the rate of expansion because it increases without limit.
John, March 7, 2008 at 4:25 pm
44.

John:

I like your theory.

What causes the “push” of space? It seems to be another force to explain – or is it analogous to pressure? The more space you have within a particular volume, the more pressure it´s under and hence the more it pushes. What draws it to mass, which is presumably what causes gravity – or is this another instance of push? Can it also account for the unvariability of the speed of light and the clocks and action at a distance and particles that change their behaviour because we look at them? If not, it doesn´t matter, because no-one else can account for these things either.
robert, March 10, 2008 at 1:56 pm
45.

Robert, thanks for the kudos!

The push of space is its attemp to keep space flat. The flatness of space must be nearly constant or bits of the universe would go wandering off. When mass is near, space may be spontaneously converted into its energy equivilent, causing (for lack of a better expression) a “low pressure area” (possibly considered a curvature of space). Space’s attempt to flatten this out with a flow into the low pressure area causes the push that is gravity.

Conversly, when mass in not near, energy may be spontaneously converted into a volume of its equivilent space.

All is neither black nor white. For example, in a galaxy there will be S ==> E and E ==> S conversions. I view this as a quantum uncertainty function where the probability (not certainty) of one or the other occuring depends on the nearness of mass.

I don’t believe there is another force involved in the push of space. The force remains gravity or so called anti-gravity (i.e. dark energy). While it may be possible to temporairly compress space (high pressure area), it would probably not be sustainable. The same is true for a low pressure area.

What would be interesting is the E=MC**2 for E ==> S conversion. It could be approximated from calculations of all the known mass in the universe. Since these calculation seem to come up short, a good percentage of the missing mass may just be the total mass equivilent of all the empty space. Since we know the energy to mass ratio, we could deduce the energy to space ratio. It must be tiny. My SWAG would be E=S/C**2. Energy is equal to a volume of space divided by C**2. Quite symetrical!

If all the above is true, then

1. it unifies gravity with the other three forces,
2. explains the observed increase of spacial expansion,
3. predicts the expansion can not go on forever,
4. predicts FTL travel is possible,
5. predicts that the more massive a space craft, the faster it can travel
6. explains what came before the big bang.
John, March 13, 2008 at 2:57 pm
46.

i believe that the big bang was never the beginning the truth is the something has created the universe for some purpose something can not come from nothing and i believe the are many more 2 the universe that we will ever figure out i believe something or some1 created the universe for there own useful tool like a watch or a hammer the key of the universe is water we are mainly water our world is mainly water and i believe the universe is mainly made of water so we should look more into h2o the key is that well this what i think we all have our theories but i know we will never find out the truth the universe is 2 weired 2 figure out and thats the truth .
zendo, March 29, 2008 at 6:52 am
47.

Zendo:

I hate to argue with you – but the Universe is not mainly made of water. I agree, though, that if mankind – ok, peoplekind – lives another billion years they probably still will not find out definitely how the universe came to exist. All possibilities seem equally bizarre and unlikely.
robert, April 2, 2008 at 1:35 pm
48.

the point im getting at Robert is they say the universe started from molecules of bubbles but u cant really make bubbles without water my friend so the universe is made of water in my eyes but as i say every 1 has their own thoughts
zendo, April 2, 2008 at 2:03 pm
49.

Zendo: You can have bubbles of lots of things that are not water. Sorry to go on about it, but I´m not sure if you´re saying the universe is mainly made of water seriously or as a joke. If you take the very very beginning, I don´t think there were any molecules yet. Come to think of it, I´m not sure about the bubbles either.
robert, April 8, 2008 at 1:39 pm
50.

Cosmological observations provide an incredibly rich set of clues to the pre-big bang universe. Do you see any flaws in: The pre-big bank universe at BigCrash.org?

… In the beginning (in the pre-big bang universe) there was only the vast vacuum of space and time. But this vacuum was not sterile, it was seething with vacuum energy. This vacuum energy field permeates and defines the universe, an astronomically large sphere of energy. And just as matter generates gravity by warping space and time, so does energy and this is the force that defines the size and shape of the universe, and also the force that bestows mass on matter…

…When a virtual matter/anti-matter pair becomes a matter matter pair, the virtual particles are no longer able to mutually annihilate and they become real, stealing energy from the vacuum energy of space. This is the mechanism of slow matter creation in the first phase of the pre-big bang universe. Over perhaps a billion billion years, clouds of matter form over the entire universe, and eventually coalesce into cosmological bodies and eventually the first pre-big bang black hole, which starts the second phase of the pre-big bang universe, fast accretion of matter from vacuum energy by black holes…
JTankers, April 11, 2008 at 7:16 am
51.

I haven´t read anything by any well-known relevant cosmologists talking about an incredibly rich set of clues for what might have come before BB.. I think there are virtually no clues at all -just speculation. Also, most scientists believe that BB was the beginning not only of matter but also of space and time and there was no pre-BB. So, there wasn´t a vast vacuum of space and time. There was nothing at all – no space, no time, no mass and no energy. This is why there is a difficulty with the quantum fluctuation theory. What fluctuated, where and when? (A further difficulty is how a quantum fluctuation could have given rise to a universe.) Recently there has been more speculation about the possibility that there was something pre-BB after all, but I don´t see what difference it makes. It just means that we would like to know where what there was before came from.

Assuming the quotes you give come from the website you refer to, then that website clearly puts forward non-mainstream theories. Absolutely fine, but I doubt that I´m competent to say whether there are any holes in their argument. But I´ll read it!
Robert, April 13, 2008 at 12:44 pm
52.

Is it possible to measure the absence of all mass or energy??? (serious question)

If there is such a thing that makes us more than just a sophisticated collection of senses, would it need to have zero mass and energy?

If you can eventually produce a robot that senses exactly what I do, and makes decisions based of those senses (and memory of them), is there a difference between that and me? If not, upload me to one of those, I want to live forever! I don’t want to be nothing.
Dan, May 23, 2008 at 9:41 am
53.

This subject just makes my head spin.
There was absolutey nothing and then some dime just appeared then exploded.
I can understand absolute nothingness.But that’s all there ever should have been.How can nothing fluctuate and make something.
paul, June 4, 2008 at 3:36 am
54.

Immaculate Conception would be a phrase generally associated with “something” coming from “nothing”. Of course, it has its religious connotations. However, it does bear quite an analogous resemblance. What if, per say, time was older than we’ve given it credit? Maybe time is neither matter nor energy relative? Time could still remain in sync, but essentially at an offbeat (like music) from moments prior to the existence of the other subject, right? Maybe it was introverted or convoluted through the transformation of the BB.
It’s quite interesting that we haven’t convinced ourselves of previous construction of our universe. Without imagining that there might have been prior universes, we can’t imagine how primitive or how superior it may have been to the current (so to speak) existing one. Do we have to believe that this is the first time? Does it all have to be pinned down to “nothingness”? I do understand that there is no applicable, tangible evidence of this thought; however it does seem that we’re limiting ourselves to a dead end we don’t even know exists. Point being, there could a whole other history explaining our existence. Could we not propose that a more primitive universe existed prior to ours which could thus explain contradictions we face in the current existence? Maybe string theories and such do reference this, but it definitely does not seem to be a mainstream option in regards to whether or not the chicken came before the egg. I could be way off base, and if so, my apologies. I really know very little about the topic.
Orville Neighborcrank, June 25, 2008 at 1:40 am
55.

ok let me get this straight, bubbles, vaccums, infinity, expansion,……………………………………………………………………………on and on, but what was before all of that?
stumped, August 10, 2008 at 9:08 am
56.

I will tell you, we are particles in a shroom. :)
stumped, August 10, 2008 at 9:09 am
57.

what came before the big bang is a never ending energy..called god. We are in a time space bubble.
tahnee, August 15, 2008 at 5:43 pm
58.

I realize there’s a religious side to this, I’m just looking at the science side of it…
I don’t know much about this but what I read or see on the science channels and it’s always been interesting to me. But am I the only person that has a question to a question to a question? We talk about the big bang and the possibility of a universe before that. My question is what was before that? And before that? You see? …and if there WAS nothingness, what is nothingness? Darkness? Just dark space?

Think about. Here on earth we know a beginning and an end to most everything.. we know a kitchen table has an end. We know that stairs will begin and end. we know that if you run around the earth enough times, eventually you’ll run into yourself…so if there IS a beginning of time, what was before that? Again, nothing? and if nothing, then, again, what is nothing? If nothing is sitting on the table, we can still see the table. Now imagine there’s no table and no floor and no ground and no earth or planets and no stars..so just darkness?…that’s the nothing?

The other side of the coin…Does the universe go on forever and there’s no end? If so, how can that be? No end? Again, there’s an end to most everything we know in one way or another. What, it just keeps going on and on and on? Ok, then what? What’s beyond that?…or IS there an end and if so what is there a wall of some kind marking the end, how can that be? As I said we know a beginning and an end to mostly everything here on earth.
So with my crazy vivid imagination that my Mom always said I had as a kid, sometimes I boggle my mind…..nothing…think about it…that means there was nothing at one time where I am sitting right now…wow.
ceb, October 22, 2008 at 12:15 am
59.

Science and true religion are the same thing, but from different angles !
Owen, November 9, 2008 at 12:07 am
60.

Water can have a thousand names, but it is still the same thing, WATER!
I mean this. Science = different names.
Religion = water.
One cannot du without the other. That`s to say if you want to ask for a drink of water !
The truth then, must be in the experiece of drinking that water which is neither science or religion.
Owen, November 9, 2008 at 12:36 am
61.

What surrounded the single infinite point, in which “The Big Bang” was created?
King6922, November 17, 2008 at 4:02 pm
62.

Well you see it is our limited mind that makes us
think that the big bang is the start of everthing
or nothing. There are maybe millions of different
big bangs that are completly not like each other at all. For example…if you have blue colored sun glasses then everything will be blue..get it?
All the minds on this planet are pretty the same which meens that we only see a very little part of everything out there !
One cannot put 2 litres of water in a 1 litre mug!
You kan try…but you will get wet feet !
Owen, November 18, 2008 at 5:49 am
63.

Don`t you see…the big bang is anything it is just a little thing which happens all the time but in different ways. And here it comes. Human minds cannot percieve this..Wake up..and enjoy life…because its wonderful !
Owen, November 18, 2008 at 3:47 pm
64.

Look at it in a nother way…everyone are just thinking about big gang but that was just a little, little part of/is our life..I cannot in logical ways..yes I can..there are so many other things happening in…Keep going !
Owen, November 18, 2008 at 5:14 pm
65.

Do you believe in the uncoprehensible notion of nothing, nothing at all, no matter, no light, no energy, no colors,etc. nothing at all. Is there such an existance?
King6922, November 21, 2008 at 1:41 pm
66.

YES…but it/that has to be experienced and your brain, mind, will probable/does, stop this. This is just the way things work ! (Just because you can`t say water in a foreign language does not mean that water dosn´t exist)! Believe me, there is much more going on than one could ever imagine!
Owen, November 22, 2008 at 7:03 am
67.

Has time exsisted forever, if so then there shouldn’t be anything that is ageless. I don’t agree that there are some things that don’t have age. If it was created then it has a start of age. My mind wanders, therefore i ask these questions. They have to have answers, even if science hasn’t figured it out. The answer would be we don’t know. I enjoy asking my questions because i never get a straight up answer, its alway don’t think that way just except what is. If Einstein would have stopped asking his questions we would’t have any of his great discoveries.
King6922, November 23, 2008 at 4:36 pm
68.

If the smartest, best observing, isolated primative person came into contact with an operating T.V., there would be amazement and curosity, but that person would never in their lifetime, even after tearing it all apart and observing it for years, understand(without help from a T.V. tech) the workings of the T.V.. The T.V. would exist, but what makes it work would be lost on this soul. Until we have a tech for the workings of the universe we are not unlike the primative person?
jap208, November 25, 2008 at 3:48 pm
69.

And how long du we have to wait for a “tech answer”? It does not help us now….the answer is allready here and now ! It/there is much more than anyone could ever imagine in/out there ! It is truly wonderful !!!
Owen, December 3, 2008 at 2:57 am
70.

Wake up all you people….don`t you get it ???
Owen, December 4, 2008 at 11:35 am
71.

Where are you…..?
Owen, December 9, 2008 at 1:16 pm
72.

I have accepted, as best I can, the concept of “nothing can come from nothing”. That there was NEVER “nothing” as a concept is, as summed up by my 9 year old daughter, freaky! A scientific solution to this problem is impossible. In fact, given that there must have always been “something”, any exercise designed to discover the beginning is doomed to failure.
Matter has an infinite past and an infinite future! What happens when they meet?
Clay, December 20, 2008 at 12:54 pm
73.

NOTHING, NOTHING ! BUT NOTHING IS SOMETHING…
IT/IS EVERYTHING AND MUCH, MUCH MORE !!!
Owen, December 21, 2008 at 10:15 am
74.

I KNOW I EQUIST SO I MUST HAVE COME FROM SOMEWHERE THAT HAS NO BEGINNING BECAUSE THE TERM BEGINNING IS A FINITE TERM AND LIFE CAN NOT ORGINATE FROM A FINITE SPHERE BECAUSE IT LEAVES AN INFINITE AMOUNT OF TIME PRIOR TO THE BEGININING OF LIFE WHEN THERE IS NO LIFE AND LIFE SIMPLY CAN NOT ORIGINATE FROM AN INFINITE TIME SPAN OF NO LIFE. OTHERWISE BY DEFINITION THE TIME SPAN OF NO LIFE WOULD NOT NOT BE INFINITE.

MY INFINITE SPIRIT MUST HAVE BLANKED THE MEMORY OF FINITE SPIRIT OF MY INFINITE EXISTENCE.

BUT JOKES ON YOU INFINITE SPIRT BECAUSE I FIGURED OUT THE EXISTENCE OF MY INFINITE SPIRIT ANYWAYS.

NOW WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS KNOWLEDGE?
CANICE, December 24, 2008 at 12:13 am
75.

Time is just a figment of the imagination.
One does not use knowledge, whatever that is ?
One can experience knowledge of nothing which
is something ! Get it now ?
Owen, December 25, 2008 at 9:09 pm
76.

Ok…….Don`t do nothing…take away ME !
Try it ! Wake up
Owen, December 26, 2008 at 12:42 pm
77.

could the big bang be the expansion of matter into a unknown area when a super enormous black hole or black holes has finished absorbing all the matter in a given universe
pirateking, January 7, 2009 at 2:03 pm
78.

sorry i meant the expulsion of matter from the black holes into an uknown area as nobody knows what happens to matter swallowed by a black hole nor has anybody answered my other question what happens when said black holes have eaten the known universe if the matter in the known universe is finite given that e=mcsquared is true
pirateking, January 7, 2009 at 2:08 pm
79.

I do try to say…take off your everthing
you have got….then who knows you maybe
will wake upp…black holes…come on guys
there is much MUCH,,,MUCH More than that !
Owen, January 8, 2009 at 11:55 am
80.

Has anyone on this site pondered the question, that at this very moment, another big bang could be taking place perhaps a 1000 billion light years away, or even closer, and given time to expand enough, may collide with our universe.
Trevor, January 13, 2009 at 4:59 pm
81.

It’d be wonderful if people would abbandon their obsurdities and hopeless gap theories.
If you honestly want some hint of tangibility in your lifetime I honestly recomend looking into the possibility of a creator existing. If your too prideful to recognize this scientific possibility and too blind to even recognize it as apart of science then I also encourage you to leave those dogmacies behind.
Hartley, January 14, 2009 at 1:43 pm
82.

if people honestly believe a creator exist, why do they not think it possable for a family of them to exist. And at sometime they might like to experiment, and try more thane one big bang, in various places in this wide expance of space.
Trevor, January 15, 2009 at 6:14 pm
83.

Trevor:

That question displays an obvious misunderstanding of what an omnipotent and omnipresent deity really is. If it existed within a family of Gods then its omnipotence and other demanding qualities would be factored out. For someting to be able to hold the infinitely expanding “naked singularity” within its grasp, then it must its self encompass eternity. There can only be one eternity, wile multiple infinities could exist.
It would be kinda cool though I do admit. haha
Hartley, January 16, 2009 at 1:23 pm
84.

Hartley:

I was just pointing out, that if someone thinks it is possable for A creater to exist, why is it not possable for more than one creator to exist. The fact is if you believe that something exist, then it must be possable for more than one to exist.
Back to number 81. If someone does not believe in a creator, it does not make that person anymore dogmatic,blind, prideful,or any other disparaging remarks you care to make, than a person that insists that a creator does exist.
Trevor, January 16, 2009 at 4:33 pm
85.

Trevor:

I gotcha bud. I explained theologically why more than one creator is self contradicting in my prior comment.
I agree that that simple fact dosn’t make one more dogmatic or blind but completely eliminating such a possiblility that fills in just as many gaps as other modern scientific theory does make one dogmatic in some ways. Im not saying you have to be “dogmatic, bias, or predjudice” to not believe in a creator, but the possibility must be taken seriously. No one has to, but its their loss. Thats why I take atheistic philosphy very seriously as well.
Hartley, January 18, 2009 at 12:29 am
86.

Hartley:

I like your reply, written by someone sitting on the opposite side of the fence to me, but is prepared to listen to alternatives, but not easily presuaded. Although you might think from number 82 that I believe in a creator, as I was kinda arguing there case. I too will listen to other peoples believes, and try to expand on it to see where it goes, but as yet have not been persuaded. Perhaps you could comment more.
Trevor, January 18, 2009 at 3:12 pm
87.

if you were god and knew everything,then wouldnt you then know nothing?somethings are so deep that they are meaningless.if you know everthing whats the point,what would you do?
maybe creation is god experiancing all things,from all angles,in all possibilties.
maybe creation is simply god living.
the bible talks of the living god,the bible speaks
about alot of things we now know because of science,in the story behind all the bible stories.
science and religion support eachother better than you know,they need eachother to fully expain all realities of existance.
christian kid, January 18, 2009 at 8:33 pm
88.

and just so you know,there is alot of people that think the bible says no to evolution,or man rising from the ape,or how old the earth is..ect.ect.
not so,i used to be a athiest,and only believed in science,until i studied religion,look to the meaning behind bible stories and you will be shocked at how the bible supports science beliefs.
the first man was adam…atom?
let there be light..the big bang? it goes on and on.i believe in science and relgion,its the only way to see the whole picture(as well as our minds can see them for our part)
i beleive in a cosmic christ.jesus before time began….yes!!!
christian kid, January 18, 2009 at 8:44 pm
89.

Trevor:

Well, I sorta got a taste of your perspective in 82 and realized that your probibly not a per say “believer.” Im guessing that your agnostic. Well here is one of the big theories that have brought me to an intellectual obligation to my faith in God. Most scientists believe that an always existing expanse of energy (I like to translate it as an “eternal river” of energy)is what mapps out the pre-existance of our universe dependent on time, matter, and space. What has dumbfounded me is that the hierarchy of intellectualism and philosophy today has granted this belief with more credential and less obsurdity than an omnipotent creater with concious intention. Honestly trevor, in your mind, what is more obsurd; an unconcious, eternal river of energy birthing and munipulating an open infinite expanse, forming (unconciously) concious and organized life. Not to mention love, altruistic intention and many of the great mysteries of human emotion. Or….. A concious and all powerful God, that defines eternity (no different than that river of energy), crafting an existance based on love and giving it complete free will, while easily defining the reason for our love, altruistic intention, and morality while giving us even a book to fall back on? I simply can’t wager my mind in beleiving that any human being dosn’t have “obsurd” beliefs. Everyones gaps are seemingly equal. I just think creationism supplies the “least obsurd” viewpoint.
Sorry for the essay by the way, haha.
Hartley, January 20, 2009 at 12:49 am
90.

Hartley:
Sorry about the delay.
The problem I have is that scientist to me have got it wrong.
Firstly, why do they think our whole universe was condensed into something the size of a dime, why a dime and not a football, or a grain of sand. There appears to be no logic as to why they said a dime.
Secondly, I cant agree with your reasoning either. If you believe in a creator, where did it come from. you must be assuming that all the materials in the universe has always been present, and your creator organised everything to make things work. like a motor mechanic puts a lot of metal parts together, and a bit of oil to lubricate the parts to keep them working in harmony together. Im sorry I just cannot go along with it.
My theory for what it is worth, is that there was nothing at all, (and as we cant create nothing at all, we dont know what would happen), I feel that a big bang did happen spontaneously (many times), and through chance this is what we have. I am sure similiar things have happened elsewhere, mabee not in human or animal form, bur some sort of life.
Sorry to go on but like you it is very difficult to put beleives in only a few words.
I appologise for my ranting as well, ha ha ha,
Trevor, January 26, 2009 at 4:50 pm
91.

It is so easy and all you guys are just freaking
out….IT IS SO EASY….just go for it….don`t
you all get???? Come on…take away…everything
and it will just happen !!!! Yes it will.
Owen, January 31, 2009 at 12:53 pm
92.

Science and Religion must be studied side by side, both our brain hemispheres must be involved in the quest of our ultimate origin. Our post-modern posts on Nothingness are somewhat similar to the religious definitions of centuries ago. We may know a bit more about several things, but Nothingness still shields her real identity from us. In the Kabalistic tradition, you have the Ain Soph; in Buddhism there is a “void”; Yoga teaches that the ultimate perception of “reality” or “consciousness” means stopping the fluctuation of the mind; Hinduism positions Brahma at the very beginning, and they all converge to the same concept.

Can we deal with the infinite and eternal nothingness?
Larissa, February 1, 2009 at 1:19 pm
93.

As in religion I believe you must take all of the postulations and look for the underlying truth in all. I imagine the BB and then I imagine the total expansion of this universe and just when you believe it will expand for all eternity it contracts and at that no time on oneat

Just for the record, something CAN in fact be created from nothing. It happens all the time and they are known as “Virtual Particles”. In physics, a virtual particle is a particle that exists for a limited time and space, introducing uncertainty in their energy and momentum due to the uncertainty principle. Because energy and momentum in quantum mechanics are time and space derivative operators, then due to Fourier transforms their spans are inversely proportional to time duration and position spans, respectively. Virtual particles exhibit some of the phenomena that real particles do, such as obedience to the conservation laws. If a single particle is detected, then the consequences of its existence are prolonged to such a degree that it cannot be virtual. Virtual particles are viewed as the quanta that describe fields of the basic force interactions, which cannot be described in terms of real particles. Examples of these are static force fields, such as a simple electric or magnetic field, or any field that exists without excitations that result in its carrying information from place to place. Virtual photons are also a major component of antenna near field phenomena and induction fields, which have only very short-range effects, that do not radiate through space with the same range-properties as do electromagnetic wave photons. For example, the energy carried from one winding of a transformer to another, in quantum terms is carried by virtual photons, not real photons.

The virtual particle forms of massless particles, such as photons, do have mass (which may be either positive or negative) and are said to be off mass shell. They are allowed to have mass (which consists of “borrowed energy”) because they exist for only a temporary time, which in turn gives them a limited “range.” This is in accordance with the uncertainty principle which allows existence of such particles of borrowed energy, so long as their energy, multiplied by the time they exist, is a fraction of Planck’s constant.

The concept of virtual particles is closely related to the idea of quantum fluctuations. Virtual particles can be thought of as coming into existence as quantities, such as the electric field, fluctuate around their expectation values as required by quantum mechanics.

Virtual particles should not be confused with antiparticles.