Probing Question: What happened before the Big Bang?

Pennsylvania State University ^ | 03 August 2006 | Barbara Kennedy

[Alter Kaker]

God spoke and BANG, the universe came into existence.

So very clever! Did you come up with that line yourself?

[Tiny]

"And God said, "Let there be light!"

Actually he said "Hey Gabriel! Watch this...ooops"

[AZLiberty]

...and for the umteenth time, how did something explode from nothing?

The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas about the Origins of the Universe explains it all, using quantum mechanics. It's a funny book, too, with lots of puns related to nothing (see what I mean).

[DarkSavant]

There was no "before" the Big Bang in the classic sense. Time is a function of matter in the universe. Take that away and you deal with the timeless qualities of Consciousness, Being, Mind... God.

[em2vn]

I don't agree. If the Big Bang was something from the inside of the singularity outward then it existed within the singularity.
If it was simply the outside of the singularity opening up and allowing the contents to rush into nothingness then the outside of the singularity existed though it was maintaining time within itself. The inner surface of the outside of the singularity existed where time was contained. Therefore, it existed no matter if time was within the singularity or outside of it.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

And God said, "Let there be light"............

[RightWhale]

Replies are a kind of Rorshach test of 'what is your mood right now' based on who were you talking to just before you responded to a post: your wife, your mistress, your neighbor, or your dog.

[Larry Lucido]

Probing Question: What happened before the Big Bang?

We found some audio tape. Here is a rough transcript:

"Whew! It took 10,000,000,000,000,000 years, but we finally got that big, bad evil parallel universe re-packed into this tiny harmless little particle. Here, help me carry it. And for God's sake, this time DON'T DROP IT!!"

[RightWhale]

I believe the posts in question are merely placing an identification sign in a thread to signify that it has been seen and marked. My dog told me to say this.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

"Then we're back to square one and God."

No we're not, that only raises even more questions than it "answers" (and it doesn't even really answer any of the original questions, it just substitutes "*poof*, it's magic" for an actual explanation). It's not an explanation, it's hand-waving.

No. I could quite accept a natural explanation for the universe that begins in an infinite past with infinite energy to explain continued existence. Without both infinities all energy dissipated an infinite time ago or it came ex nihilo. Since the universe as we see it does not have both qualities, I conclude it must have come from a source that does. Absent a more concrete name, I choose to call it God. No magic. I infer its existence outside the universe from pure facts as we know them. And I demonstrated that this theory does not advance one millimeter in explaining it.

[doc30]

I typically post during lulls or breaks at work while experiments are running or instruments are stabilizing. Right now I have a beam splitter that is giving me a headache in an inhereted interferrometer.

[woofie]

I believe she was always there awaiting the big bang

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

...would you consider "people place orders for them at their car dealership and eventually there's a car" to be an adequate response?

If there was a Supreme Being involved...damn right I would.

Aside from that, my remark was laced with a generous dose of sarcasm and not meant as serious reply to the initial question.

Which is why most folks here ignore my posts...because no matter how well equipped I may be to answer all the big questions of the universe, I am, above all...a smartass.

The answer is 42

[js1138]

I don't ignore your posts. I just don't read them.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Actually he said "Hey Gabriel! Watch this...ooops"

LOL!

Actually, I heard that Gabriel was overheard saying, "I said a Bud Light!"

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Should have noticed and addressed both of you...

"Then we're back to square one and God."

No we're not, that only raises even more questions than it "answers" (and it doesn't even really answer any of the original questions, it just substitutes "*poof*, it's magic" for an actual explanation). It's not an explanation, it's hand-waving.

No. I could quite accept a natural explanation for the universe that begins in an infinite past with infinite energy to explain continued existence. Without both infinities all energy dissipated an infinite time ago or it came ex nihilo. Since the universe as we see it does not have both qualities, I conclude it must have come from a source that does. Absent a more concrete name, I choose to call it God. No magic. I infer its existence outside the universe from pure facts as we know them. And I demonstrated that this theory does not advance one millimeter in explaining it.

[doc30]

I don't agree. If the Big Bang was something from the inside of the singularity outward then it existed within the singularity. If it was simply the outside of the singularity opening up and allowing the contents to rush into nothingness then the outside of the singularity existed though it was maintaining time within itself. The inner surface of the outside of the singularity existed where time was contained. Therefore, it existed no matter if time was within the singularity or outside of it.

Unless, at the instant of the big bang, it wasn't a singularity, but an infinitely dense universe. The initial inflation supplied the space for density to drop. There may never have been a boundary that would mark the edge of the universe. Or, if space itself came into existence at the initiation of the big bang, again, there could be no limit because there was non space in which to have a limit.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I don't ignore your posts. I just don't read them.

Thanks for that. I feel sooo much better now.

[js1138]

Since the universe as we see it does not have both qualities, I conclude it must have come from a source that does.

Actually, the sum of matter and energy in the universe is zero.

It's just a big kited check.

[Zman516]

The "Big Bang" was the result of the previous universe collapsing in on itself. i.e., it's cyclic.