Time Before Time [speculative cosmology]

Seed Magazine ^ | August 28, 2006 | Sean Carroll

[AFreeBird]

Naturally, this leads one to wonder why the Big Bang began in such an unusual state

They answered that question. God racked the balls and then broke. I love that analogy! The universe is God's 4(+) dimmensional billard table.

I just hope we're not sitting on the 8 ball.

[PatrickHenry]

SciencePing

An elite subset of the Evolution list. See the list's explanation at my freeper homepage. Then FReepmail to be added or dropped.

[Drammach]

Time is just a means to measure something's existence. In other words, it's arbitrary.

I'll have to disagree..
There is a beginning and an end..
You are born and you will die..

The article mentioned entropy..
Possibly "time" would effectively end or stop if the universe reaches absolute zero throughout..
If there is no longer any energy transfer, no electron spin, no particle movement, only then could one suppose there is no longer any "time"..

But as long as there is heat, and activity, ( even on the quantum level? ) then one could use the progression of that sequential activity to measure time.. ( define time? )

Time may be "relative" to the physical state, but not arbitrary.. ( "physical" or atomic time, maybe a "quantum" time, or "probability" time, or "string" time.. )

Of course, this is just my opinion, demented rambling though it may be..
I don't expect anyone to simply accept it as scientific fact..

[snarks_when_bored]

The universe is God's 4(+) dimmensional billard table.

I just hope we're not sitting on the 8 ball.

The Magic 8-Ball weighs in on your theory:

[Drammach]

Should we understand you to mean that you deny that photons experience no lapse of time?

Not sure.. When I said time is percieved in a relativistic sense, I was referring to human perception..
As to photons, I am unsure whether they "perceive" anything at all..
A photon is however, a light energy particle..
It is energy being transferred by a source to a "target" although not in the sense of an intended destination, but in the sense that anything that finds itself in the path of that energy will become the recipient..
I can imagine the photon experiences it's ejection from the source, and the impact on the target, but does not actually percieve a passage of time until impact occurs. I would best describe the interim passage as a state of flux..??
That's probably a weak explanation but it's the best I can do..

Of course, that depends on whether a photon's energy state remains constant or if it degrades with distance..
If entropy applies to photons then it would "experience" time as it grows older and weaker, eventually dying.. Maybe "flashing" out of existence, like a tiny, photonic supernova..

The constancy of the speed of light in a vacuum is a cornerstone of special relativity, an experimentally well-tested theory that we've found no cause to emend just yet.

It was once explained to me that two objects, both travelling at the speed of light and travelling on a direct path toward each other are still approaching each other at the speed of light, not twice the speed of light..

Special Relativity is indeed special if 1 + 1 does not equal 2..

I think that it will be found that special relativity does not always apply.. That there are states, dimensions, circumstances, applications, where the speed of light will not apply, or those "limits" can be adjusted.. Or simply bypassed completely....
It's not something I can adequately explain, but I have always felt that there were problems with Special relativity..

[Drammach]

I just hope we're not sitting on the 8 ball.

Not too bad a situation, really..
If we're the 8 ball, half the universe has to be eliminated before we are..

I just wonder if God has stripes or solids...

[trebb]

Sounds almost logical until one realizes that, while they may have a theory for old universes spitting out new universes, they ignore the real question: Where/when/how did the original one start?

[Drammach]

Where/when/how did the original one start?

If "membrane" theory is correct, we may never know..
Our universe may be the product of yet another universe, about which we know nothing..

[Red Badger]

So, "OUR" universe is like unto a raindrop in a puddle of water during a shower. Each splash drop is another "Big Bang" of it's own universe. Multiple universes are then separated by the space (puddle) and unobservable from each other's perspective?...................Naval contemplation.........

[Red Badger]

Time
Artist(Band):Pink Floyd


Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run, you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans like these that come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
When I come home cold and tired
It’s good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spell.

[martin gibson]

time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.

[snarks_when_bored]

If you're a photon emitted from the face of a clock and have somehow managed to carry away from that face the clock reading at the instant of your emission, that reading can never change because subsequent photon emissions reading later times can't catch up with you. As far as you're concerned, the time of your emission is always the time that it is!

It's a little hard to grasp, but appears to be so.

It was once explained to me that two objects, both travelling at the speed of light and travelling on a direct path toward each other are still approaching each other at the speed of light, not twice the speed of light..

Special Relativity is indeed special if 1 + 1 does not equal 2..

That velocities are not additive is one of the fundamental insights of special relativity. Of course, low velocities (very small fractions of the speed of light in a vacuum) are approximately additive; the divergence from additivity only begins to show itself at appreciable fractions of the speed of light. Proofs of this are simple and require only elementary algebra. Many websites go through the details.

[Elsie]

It must be time to post THIS!

NIV 1 Corinthians 2:7
  No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.

 

NIV 2 Timothy 1:8-10
 8.  So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God,
 9.  who has saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,
 10.  but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

 

NIV Titus 1:1-4
 1.  Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness--
 2.  a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,
 3.  and at his appointed season he brought his word to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior,
 4.  To Titus, my true son in our common faith:   Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

 

 

Just how did these ignurt goat-herders have such a concept as 'before time' anyway???

 

 

 

 

NIV 1 Peter 1:17-21
 17.  Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.
 18.  For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers,
 19.  but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
 20.  He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.
 21.  Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

 

 

[snarks_when_bored]

Sounds almost logical until one realizes that, while they may have a theory for old universes spitting out new universes, they ignore the real question: Where/when/how did the original one start?

There is no original one. The ground state of reality would be the quantum vacuum, which here and there, every now and then, coughs up a miniscule hair ball of dark energy (negative pressure), which hair ball then inflates into a cosmos.

That's all there is and there ain't no mo'...

[metmom]

Seems like they knew a lot of things they had know way of knowing or finding out.

[cobaltblu]

I believe gravity will eventually smash all the galaxies with their own energy and mass. Not in the past, but in the future. Time rolls on.

Wait a minute here... What if two black holes collide? Would their consumed matter be expelled; or would they create a massive black hole?

[snarks_when_bored]

I believe gravity will eventually smash all the galaxies with their own energy and mass. Not in the past, but in the future. Time rolls on.

Maybe so, maybe not. It could be that the universe is open and that all matter will ultimately be subjected to a 'big rip' as dark energy acceleration attains fantastically high values.

Wait a minute here... What if two black holes collide? Would their consumed matter be expelled; or would they create a massive black hole?

The coalescence of two black holes creates a more massive black hole, it's thought. Such an event should also be so violent as to produce gravitational ripples in spacetime, detectable in principle by us.

[Oberon]

The very beginning of time found our universe in an extremely unnatural and highly organized low-entropy state.

This set off my illogic alarm. What does he mean, "unnatural"? Isn't it nature itself that we're discussing? How many counterexamples can he offer? If he wants to say that the state of space in the distant past is different from the state of space now, that's fine, but calling it "unnatural" is a non-sequitur.

This idea has previously inspired cosmologists like Thomas Gold to suggest that the universe will someday recollapse and that the arrow of time would reverse. However, we now know...

Always beware when you see this construction. The "It was previously believed...However, we now know..." device is almost always the preface to a theorist asserting more than he can prove. What it actually means is "We have a better model than we used to have." Who is to say we won't have a still better model tomorrow? In that case, what we "now know" will become what we "previously believed."

I wish this guy would be more precise.

[Son Of The Godfather]

I've avoided Time ever since they put Hillary on the cover.

[phantomworker]

Bump to read later.