Time before Time

[pgrmdave]

Before our universe began, could anything have existed? Was an outside force necessary to form the energy that became our universe?

[maddog]

Before our universe began, could anything have existed? Was an outside force necessary to form the energy that became our universe?

 

I have read of some speculation on this subject. There have been articles in both Sci Am

and Physics Today in the last year on it. I think the article (forget which) was called

"Was the Big Bang really a Wimper?" Look it up. Basically considering that the actual

singularity not so point-like. Thus matter could actually pass through (both in and out).

This kind of goes back to the notion of an oscillating universe (expand and crunch).

Anyway the authors later deduced that another way to look at this universe as an

embedded bubble inside of Wheeler's notion of a multiverse.

 

At this is what some of the Physicists and Cosmologists are thinking about it all. :hihi:

 

Maddog

[Bo]

Well we are of course stuck with an immense problem: If we trace everything back, we get a singularity (the 'strart' of the big bang), but we don't have a good theory to discribe this singularity (or even somewhat before it realy becomes -mathematicly speaking- a singular point) (see http://www.hypography.com/scienceforums/showpost.php?p=16208&postcount=9 ).

[CHADS]

Maybe our universe borrowed the energy from a universe that had just experienced a big crunch and just popped into the space that would eventually become the universe we know ... maybe we will give them it back later...

[lindagarrette]

Before our universe began, could anything have existed? Was an outside force necessary to form the energy that became our universe?

M-theory claims the universe began with a colliossion of "branes." although there is no evidence to support it. The usual answer is that nothing, not time, not space, nothing existed before the universe emerged.

[CHADS]

The only thing we can be sure of before creation is the fact that there was certainly potential... :hihi:

[pgrmdave]

The usual answer is that nothing, not time, not space, nothing existed before the universe emerged.

 

How could the universe spring into existance without any catalyst? Or is this simply an unanswerable question?

[infamous]

M-theory claims the universe began with a colliossion of "branes." although there is no evidence to support it. The usual answer is that nothing, not time, not space, nothing existed before the universe emerged.

Why would we even consider M-theory, if as you say, there is no evidence to support it. I believe that the second part of your thought is however correct. No space, no time, nothing existed before this event.

[lindagarrette]

Why would we even consider M-theory, if as you say, there is no evidence to support it. I believe that the second part of your thought is however correct. No space, no time, nothing existed before this event.

Oops, I meant to say "observationa" evidence, or evidence in nature. Theoretical physics goes mostly by mathematical evidence and the best theory that solves the most related equations in the simplest way. Inspite of String Theory (in its current form called M-theory) solving a lot of problems(ie. Entrophy of Blackholes) it still has many problems of its own. String Theory from it's start has always been based upon another theory called SuperSymetry. As you already are familiar, In this theory all matter particles have their counter-part in force carriers. The idea being that Fermions can transform into Bosons and back. The problem is that nature,as we know it, has no observational evidence for the Supersymetry partiners.

Another problem to some people is the added extra dimensions. These again have no direct observational evidence in nature. Again, this is theoretical physics. And its one of the reasons there is so much interest in the variations on the theories proposed so far.

[CHADS]

I Think many theories try and find a balance so the scientist can try and find a way to easily understand and interperet ..... anti particles for example whether fact or fiction are a convienient way to preserve a balance and have zero in thier somewhere as a good reference but why should everything be balanced .. maybe theory is inexoribly pushed down the road of convienience .. because chaos is frustrating.......... Im not to hot on m theory and p branes etc but why should we need so many dimensions .. is there any observation for so many dimensions?... please reply... :)

[infamous]

I Think many theories try and find a balance so the scientist can try and find a way to easily understand and interperet ..... anti particles for example whether fact or fiction are a convienient way to preserve a balance and have zero in thier somewhere as a good reference but why should everything be balanced .. maybe theory is inexoribly pushed down the road of convienience .. because chaos is frustrating.......... Im not to hot on m theory and p branes etc but why should we need so many dimensions .. is there any observation for so many dimensions?... please reply... :)

I agree CHADS; With the advent of string theory and truly even long before this, I personally feel that we may have taken the course of convenience. I believe it may be traced all the way back to 1880, with the Michelson and Morley experiment. That's a whole different thread, and I'm in the middle of preparing to open up this can of worms in a future thread. But for now, I totaly agree that sometimes convenience appears to play much to great a role in present theory.

[lindagarrette]

I Think many theories try and find a balance so the scientist can try and find a way to easily understand and interperet ..... anti particles for example whether fact or fiction are a convienient way to preserve a balance and have zero in thier somewhere as a good reference but why should everything be balanced .. maybe theory is inexoribly pushed down the road of convienience .. because chaos is frustrating.......... Im not to hot on m theory and p branes etc but why should we need so many dimensions .. is there any observation for so many dimensions?... please reply... :)

The need for dimensions arises during calculations of the force activities under high energy conditions. They are mathematical constructs. Scientists usually try to find the simplest solution to everything and also try to explain it in lay terms since the average person has very little training in either math or physics.

[maddog]

I Think many theories try and find a balance so the scientist can try and find a way to easily understand and interperet ..... anti particles for example whether fact or fiction are a convienient way to preserve a balance and have zero in thier somewhere as a good reference but why should everything be balanced .. maybe theory is inexoribly pushed down the road of convienience .. because chaos is frustrating.......... Im not to hot on m theory and p branes etc but why should we need so many dimensions .. is there any observation for so many dimensions?... please reply... :hihi:

The need for dimensions arises during calculations of the force activities under high energy conditions. They are mathematical constructs. Scientists usually try to find the simplest solution to everything and also try to explain it in lay terms since the average person has very little training in either math or physics.

 

The need for dimensions come from properties of group theory properties within String

Theory. Yes, String Theory has since the 80s borrowed from Supersymmetry, this is why

it is often called Superstring Theory and brings up 11 dimensions to support Supergravity

(which is supersymmetric GR). This the venue where Ed Witten from Princeton is the

protaganist. Yes, all physicists are looking for as Kaku says an equation that says it all in

about a half inch [aka E=mc^2]. M-Theory has been created since mid-90s to account

for 5 different self-consistent string theories that all predict different behavoir. Through

M-Theory these were found to be isomorphic to each other. However, it is the last one

I am interested in the E8xE8 string theory that the most promise in working with

Supergravity (or replacing it). It is easy to disbelieve a theory when there is no evidence

to support it. Time will tell. I am wondering how Entanglement will play a role in this...

Hmmmm.... Just thinking... :)

[lindagarrette]

Yo Mad! Your quote came out wrong. I didn't say what was in the box! That would never be my thoughts! I saie what was in the paragraph below. Just clearing up any misunderstanding. Linda

[Tormod]

I fixed the quote tags, maddog.

 

Please be careful with long quotes...it's a good idea to trim them down. Check our FAQ more more info about this.

[Little Bang]

I am by no means an expert at anything, with that in mind I will present my idea about how the Big Bang happened. Is there a possibility for a particle to pop into existence without its anti-particle twin? For the sake of this discussion, I will assume that the possibility does exist.

Time is inversely proportional to the gravitational field strength in which it is measured. Very near the center of a Black hole, the gravitational field strength approaches infinity and time approaches zero. If we could travel out to the edge of the universe, I think we would find that gravity would approach zero and time would approach infinity. We know that matter creates space and that virtual particles pop into existence all the time as particle anti-particle pairs. If we go back to a point just before the Big Bang where there is no space and a particle did pop into existence along with the space, that it creates and of course, there would be virtual particles popping in and out of existence all the time. Every so often, another particle without its anti-particle twin would pop into that space again. At this point time is running very close to infinitely fast. This process would continue repeating itself making the universe appear to have exploded into existence. Very early in this process it would look like the universe was expanding faster than the speed of light. Another interesting thing about this idea is that it would mean new matter is being added to the universe all the time and we should be able to find baby galaxies forming somewhere between the older galaxies.

[maddog]

Is there a possibility for a particle to pop into existence without its anti-particle twin? For the sake of this discussion, I will assume that the possibility does exist.

 

This was the example Hawking used to consider Hawking Radiation. In this example an

annihilation pair of particles can appear neart the event horizon of a black hole. Not

prevented from doing so. One could fall in the other not. To an outside observer, this

second particle would look as though it just appeared from notwhere without a partner.

 

If we go back to a point just before the Big Bang where there is no space and a particle did pop into existence along with the space, that it creates and of course, there would be virtual particles popping in and out of existence all the time. Every so often, another particle without its anti-particle twin would pop into that space again. At this point time is running very close to infinitely fast. This process would continue repeating itself making the universe appear to have exploded into existence.

 

You cannot go to "before the beginning" and utilize the same physics as after! There is no

reason that whatever was here before the bang has to adhere to the current laws of

physics as we know them.

 

Very early in this process it would look like the universe was expanding faster than the speed of light. Another interesting thing about this idea is that it would mean new matter is being added to the universe all the time and we should be able to find baby galaxies forming somewhere between the older galaxies.

 

You did get this idea close. This is Alan Guth's idea of the Inflationary universe; current

conventional wisdom prevailing at explaining the descrepency between Redshift, MBR and

what we think we know the time near the big bang. It is thought in the period of inflation

before particles and galaxies started to form the universe appeared to expand at a rate

that would be faster than light (Hyperinflation). :)

 

Lindagarratte-- Sorry I didn't mean to imply you had made any error. Ooops... :hihi:

 

Maddog