What was there before the BIG BANG?

Parsifal said:
Not a hippy view at all - in fact one of the major theories in Philosophy. It's called Idealism and it states that everything we perceive depends the mind for its existence and so we can never be totally sure that reality exists independently of the mind, or at least that reality in its "pure form" might not be what the mind makes it out to be.

As for the Big Bang, I have no knowledge about it I'm afraid.
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Its called Solipsism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism


It is the philosophy that only an indivuduals mind is sure to exist. It is one of the Sceptical Hypothesis'
 
Angleboy said:
Your subjective view and mine are not the same, we are both however observing something. That something does certainly exist. The internal view we create ourselves in order interact and thus operate within the universe, and actual reality are not the same thing. Don't confuse them.
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Does it? :p
 
It's a very interesting question, and one that im sure quite a few people wonder about. I sure don't have an answer for it, but maybe i can provide a little insight :)

The concept of time is osmething which to be honest we - as humans - have in a way created. It's just our way of differentiating between different events that occur in our universe. "Time" itself is in fact just the motion of particles, it's a direct result of things happening be it an electron orbiting a nucleus or someone overclocking an i7 ;) This is analogous to the concept whereby if everything stopped moving one may say that its as if time had stopped.

Due to the fact time is (very basically expressed as) motion of particles, it is linked to the space through which the particles travel through. Hence many physicists refer to the space-time continuum etc etc.

Consequently time (nor space) did not exist before the big bang, these are phenomenon (dimensions) that have been created by it.

Now, moving on to the actual question at hand, seen as there was no time or space before the big bang, we - as humans - cannot simply comprehend or understand what may have occured before the big bang.

It would be like someone living in a 2D world trying to think of the 3rd dimension. They just simply wouldn;t be able to do it as theyd have no concept of what it may be like. Just like us trying to image other dimensions (which, believe it or not, they're out there, i think its 11 or something now but im not sure).

So, the answer to your question is that theres no point trying to answer it :o
It' be silly of us to try and postulate something that we simply havn't a clue about, doesn't stop physicists and people like us guessing though :D
 
I haven't read the rest of the thread, but in answer to the OP: you might as well be asking what there is north of the North Pole.

My personal favourite idea about the moments after the Big Bang, is that while space was tightly compressed, so was time. So an event that would take nanoseconds in the universe today, would appear to have taken millennia shortly after the Big Bang, had there been anyone to observe. So with that in mind, you could wind the clock back to a few milliseconds after the Big Bang. And then you could wind it back the same amount, and you'd be a few picoseconds after the Big Bang. No matter how far back you go in your time machine, the actual singularity event cannot be reached.

So from a certain frame of reference, the Big Bang happened infinitely long ago, in the same way that from a certain reference frame, the speed of light is infinite (since you can never keep up with it no matter how fast you travel).
 
Well before the Big Bang Theory I believe Chuck Lorre produced Two and a Half Men, Dharma & Greg and lets not forget Roseanne!
 
i hate things like this, freak me out a bit. If the Universe is expanding, what is it expanding into, it can't go on forever, can it? there must be a limit, and what is at the edge of that??
bearing in mind the universe, just our solar system alone is so huge how can something as big as the universe keep expanding, black holes are all well and good but some say the universe will get sucked into a black hole and be no more, but what's outside that and how big can that get?

arrrrrgggghghghgh:confused::confused::confused:
 
I like the theory that says something along these lines (memory is sketchy and I don't know the name of the theory):

The entire known universe is attached to a higher dimensional superstring, vibrating in free space, in this space, there are many of such superstrings.

When two or more of these superstrings collide, an enormous amount of energy is released in both universes at their point of contact. In our universe, we perceive this as the big bang.


But like all string theory, its just a theory.
 
I fancy boys said:
It's a very interesting question, and one that im sure quite a few people wonder about. I sure don't have an answer for it, but maybe i can provide a little insight :)

The concept of time is osmething which to be honest we - as humans - have in a way created. It's just our way of differentiating between different events that occur in our universe. "Time" itself is in fact just the motion of particles, it's a direct result of things happening be it an electron orbiting a nucleus or someone overclocking an i7 ;) This is analogous to the concept whereby if everything stopped moving one may say that its as if time had stopped.

Due to the fact time is (very basically expressed as) motion of particles, it is linked to the space through which the particles travel through. Hence many physicists refer to the space-time continuum etc etc.

Consequently time (nor space) did not exist before the big bang, these are phenomenon (dimensions) that have been created by it.

Now, moving on to the actual question at hand, seen as there was no time or space before the big bang, we - as humans - cannot simply comprehend or understand what may have occured before the big bang.

It would be like someone living in a 2D world trying to think of the 3rd dimension. They just simply wouldn;t be able to do it as theyd have no concept of what it may be like. Just like us trying to image other dimensions (which, believe it or not, they're out there, i think its 11 or something now but im not sure).

So, the answer to your question is that theres no point trying to answer it :o
It' be silly of us to try and postulate something that we simply havn't a clue about, doesn't stop physicists and people like us guessing though :D
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yes but time is only invented by us,it may have a different purpose used by other civilizations,if the universe was a perfect entity we would simply not be here,we are here because it has flaws,another theory is the big bang is just a chain of events that keep repeating over and over and over again,so there could be mulitple big bangs that have happened before hand and have more to come,the universe is actually speeding up not slowing down as some people tend to think so eventually when you look up at the sky in so many years you will not be able to see anything but darkness..:)
 
The "Big Bang" May Not Have Been the Beginning


Radiation ripples show that the "Big Bang" that science has referred to as the beginning of the universe, may not have been the real beginning. The "Big Bang" may only have been a step in a range of many and more are maybe yet to come.

Scientists have found rings of radiation in the cosmos that may be older than the "Big Bang".

"What would normally be regarded as a probable entire history of our universe, starting with its Big Bang... is taken to be but one aeon in a (perhaps unending) succession of such aeons (sic)," the scientists said.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/r...er/story-e6frfrnr-1225963294939#ixzz17FKQLU6m
 
Locky said:
If the universe is expanding, what's it expanding into?
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It's not expanding *into* anything, its simply getting bigger :) like stretching a piece of rubber at all four corners.

A lot of people have been saying that the universe will contract etc etc, but i think (someone correct me if im wrong) that the mass density is such at the moment that the univserse wont eventually contract.

If it did, it would have some very interesting effects. The contraction would be in violation of the second law of thermodynamics (increasing entropy). In fact the second law would change to the opposite, the entropy of the universe would have to keep decreasing - which would have some *VERY* weird consequences.

If you dropped a mug it wouldn't break. We wouldn't be able to respire and continue to live. I think Mr Hawking actually postulated time would in effect run backwards until the point of the singularity was reached again.

So it seems like an implausible result to me tbh.
 
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There is a theory, in simple terms, which goes like this...

The universe has always been in a constant yo-yo state between energy and matter. Before the big bang, the universe was pure energy. Something then happens which causes a big bang. The big bang splits the energy up into matter and anti-matter. Usually this is a 50/50 ratio so the matter and anti-matter collide into each other and turn back into energy. It then all starts again.

However, the last big bang produced slightly more matter than anti-matter. Since there wasn't a 50/50 split, it screwed up the conversion back to energy and allowed the universe to expand using the extra matter... and here we are!
 
Locky said:
If the universe is expanding, what's it expanding into?
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Have a read of this thread.....it has a bunch of posts by my Brother who is currently studying for a Phd in Physics.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18122976

gaidin109 said:
There are three possibilties about the shape of the universe.

The Universe may be 'Open' or have a negative curvature as these Universes are infinite in their spacial extent, they have no boundary.

The Universe may have a positive curvature as in a sphere, this is called a Closed Universe, it unlike the Open Universe it is finite, but has no boundary much like living inside a ballon. No matter where you begin, you will always return to your original point.

There is also the Flat Universe which has no curvature and is flat like a sheet of paper, but this type like the Open Universe is also infinite spacially so has no boundary.

Expansion of the Universe happens from within the Universe, as there is no space outside, the expansion isnt pushing against anything. The Space itself is expanding. The most common example is to take a room, the walls of the room are not pushing against something as their is no such thing as 'outside' the room, but the space inside the room that is expanding.

The law of Entropy says that the amount of disorder (expansion) in the universe is always increasing and can never decrease, if this law breaks, then many other laws, such as conservation of energy and the direction of time also break.
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From what he has told me, the Universe isn't expanding by objects 'moving' away from each other, only the dimensions between the objects is getting larger, frankly it blows my mind, and unlike my brother I don't have the math.

There is nothing whatsoever that we have measured or can measure that will show us anything about this larger space. Everything that we measure is within the universe, and so we see neither edge nor boundary nor centre of expansion. Thus the universe is not expanding into anything that we can see or measure.
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