My Take on The Big Bang

[Mr. Mojo]

'Ping' is an alert, and I was alerting the Freeper 'Physicist' to come over to this thread to give you his take on the matter.

[russianteen]

oh ok... lol this is only my third article so im new to all these terms... any others i should know?

[Young Werther]

Read Issac Asimov's "The Last Question."

[goodseedhomeschool (returned)]

Hi :)
When I consider the "big Bang" I have to wonder where the "condensed matter' which banged, came from. I beleive in the big bang, only it has not happened yet. Just throwing in my 2 cents worth.

[Mr. Mojo]

The lingo around here is pretty extensive, but you'll get the hang of it quickly. If you don't know, just ask. Welcome aboard.

[Mr. Mojo]

Here's a link that may interest you:

A Brief History of the Universe

[swilhelm73]

Well, my degree is in astrophysics, so I'll give you a few comments here;

For an explosion to happen, one or more forces have to act upon another group of forces.

The Big Bang was not an explosion, instead it marked the beginning of the expansion of the universe. This may be a subtle, though important distinction. To explode there must be something to explode into.

So, as the universe has expanded, things get farther from each other, and to a casual observer from any spot in the universe, on the largest scale it would appear as if there was an explosion centered on where they are observing from.

Think of the universe as a piece of raisin bread. You put it in the oven and the dough starts to expand. The distance between each raisin increases because the dough between them has expanded. In this analogy, the dough is the fabric of space and the raisins are galaxies (well actually groups of galaxies).

In all seriousness, there has been a movement to rename the Big Bang theory because it causes just this confusion.

if all matter wasn't incinerated from the start

Well, it was actually, or at least pretty darn close. The 'matter' extent pre-Big Bang we have no idea about. The stuff shortly after was extremely exotic, and can only be recreated in particle accelerators now, if at all.

As time went on most of the particles settled into matter and anti-matter hydrogen atoms which obliterated each other until only the tiniest fraction of atoms remained, with matter oh so slightly more common then anti-matter and hence virtually none of the latter still exists.

While the Big Bang theory isn't perfect, it does fit what we have observed fairly well. It is also accepted by most everyone in the field by they conservative or liberal, theist or atheist. Big Bang theory is not some politically correct concoction.

If you really are interested, I'd suggest you ask your freshman science teacher, or your local librarian, for more you can read about on your own.

[Lion in Winter]

Give the KID a break will ya!

[RadioAstronomer]

Check my link

[RadioAstronomer]

As time went on most of the particles settled into matter and anti-matter hydrogen atoms which obliterated each other until only the tiniest fraction of atoms remained, with matter oh so slightly more common then anti-matter and hence virtually none of the latter still exists.

CP violation. :-)

[mwyounce]

This is something I bookmarked a while ago... don't know if there's a newer version: The Lexicon of FreeRepublic

[swilhelm73]

Bad universe...no cookies for you! ;)

[boris]

You are wrong about everything.

However you may be forgiven because all teenagers believe they know everything.

There are so many errors and misapprehensions in your brief 'rant' that it is difficult to know where to begin. As Wolfgang Pauli used to say, "it is not even wrong," i.e., it does not even merit being called 'wrong'.

For example:

"One thing that I have thought about is if there was a big bang from one central point, if all matter wasn't incinerated from the start, it would all fly in a different direction from a single starting point. All chunks created by the explosion, however big or small, would go outward in its own way a nothing would come into contact with anything else. This would make galaxies or any clusters of spacial objects impossible to prove."

There was NO matter at the start; only radiation. So 'incinerated' is pretty apt. So, by the way, is "LET THERE BE LIGHT!" Steven Weinberg's book, The First Three Minutes describes a universe made of nothing but radiation--but with densities much greater than granite. No matter could exist. It took thousands of years (millions?) for things to cool sufficiently that atoms could form.

Another error: there was no explosion from a point. The explosion is still going on! Space began expanding.

It is clear that the Universe rapidly reached thermal equilibrium (go take a thermodynamics class) and this has caused problems because there was not time for regions distant from one another to communicate at the light-speed limit. However, a concept called 'inflation' solved that problem; it is possible for spacetime to expand faster than light! This has the effect of nicely homogenizing the early universe, leading to the smooth (but not too smooth) early universe we observe in this epoch.

Do us a favor: get thru college and Astronomy 101 before you give us your take on the nature of It All.

If you want, Radio Astronomer and/or I can give you a reading list.

--Boris

[Phyto Chems]

I believe in the "Big-Bang-Theory", God spoke "IT" into existence, BANG it happened. . end of story

Sorry to pop your 'big' ideas... LOL

[AZLiberty]

when there is absolutely nothing, some sort of explosive bubbles appear, and eventually cluster up and explode.

There is evidence for this, and other related theories. Quantum physics says that, roughly speaking, matter can be created out of "nothing", with some small probability. Every once in a while, the nothingness of space-time will simultaneously generate a particle and its corresponding antiparticle. Usually, the two particles recombine to annihilate each other, but under certain circumstances they won't. For example, if the particles happen to appear at the event horizon of a black hole, one may get sucked into the black hole while the other is ejected.

Since individual particles are formed all the time due to quantum mechanics, occasionally multiple particles will be formed at the same location. The probability is very small, but space-time has been around forever, so it has happened a lot. With very, very small probability, quantum mechanics says that a whole universe can pop right up out of space-time. Again, since space-time has been around forever, the probability that it would happen eventually is basically 1.0. Well, it did happen, and here we are.

There are some interesting problems with the Big Bang theory, even among physicists. The most striking is similar to the one you mention. You wondered why everything didn't just fly off in all directions without ever forming larger particles, much less galaxies. I think the explanation for your problem is that early on in the universe's history -- way before one-trillionth of a second -- the material of the universe was dense enough that it formed large clumps that persisted after inflation, and turned into stars, galaxies, and galactic clusters.

The other problem that physicists wonder about is why the universe is actually so homogeneous. Why is it that whatever direction you look in the universe, it's actually pretty much the same? In principle, any minor variations during the early formation of the universe should have persisted, so there should be something like cracks or discontinuities in the patterns of galaxies. But there aren't.

Joao Magueijo -- in a book called "Faster Than the Speed of Light" -- has a new, post-Einsteinian, post-inflation theory of the cosmos that explains this strange homogeneity. Basically it posits that during the first sub-trillionth of a second of the universe, the speed of light was faster than it is now. This enabled energy to be shared and equalized across the entire universe simultaneously, producing the subsequent homogeneity. There's no experimental proof for this theory (comparable, say, to Einstein's prediction that the mass of the sun would bend starlight), but it hasn't been disproved yet, either.

[pianomikey]

I was just as inquisitive when I was his age ;) give him all we have and stretch his mind.

[pianomikey]

>>Quantum physics says that, roughly speaking, matter can be created out of "nothing", with some small probability.<<

Oh Dear GOD, I may not have been the only person to read Schroedinger's Cat and Six Easy Pieces. Thank you for reminding me that I'm not out of touch ;)

[LiteKeeper]

SPOTREP - Comment in the morning

[At _War_With_Liberals]

I don't take science reported in the media too seriously.

[John Valentine]

You can't understand relatavistic physics with newtonian concepts. Your thinking on this subject is seriously naive.

We only call it a "bang" from our present perspective. In reality there was no bang. There was no explosion. There was nothing to observe and no observer. Even if there had been an observer, a God, if you like, even to him it would not have seemed a bang or an expolsion, only a coming into being.

Do some serious reading before you mouth off in class. That's my "old man's" suggestion.