Questioning the Big Bang

MSNBC.com ^ | 4/25/02 | By Alan Boyle

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

How did the universe begin, and how will it end? Among cosmologists, the mainstream belief is that the universe began with a bang billions of years ago, and will fizzle out billions of years from now. But two theorists have just fired their latest volley at that belief, saying there could be a timeless cycle of expansion and contraction. It’s an idea as old as Hinduism, updated for the 21st century.

THE “CYCLIC MODEL,” developed by Princeton University’s Paul Steinhardt and Cambridge University’s Neil Turok, made its highest-profile appearance yet Thursday on Science Express, the Web site for the journal Science. But past incarnations of the idea have been hotly debated within the cosmological community for the past year — and Steinhardt acknowledges that he has an uphill battle on his hands.
       “It will take people a while to get used to it,” he told MSNBC.com. “This introduces a number of concepts that are quite unfamiliar, even to a cosmologist.”
       
TINKERING WITH THE COSMOS
       Years ago, Steinhardt played a prominent role in formulating what is now the most widely accepted scientific picture of the universe’s beginnings, known as inflationary Big Bang theory: that a vanishingly small quantum fluctuation gave rise in an instant to an inflated region of space-time, kicking off an expansion that is now picking up speed.
       The model has weathered repeated experimental tests, including studies of patterns in the microwave “afterglow” of the Big Bang.
       “All the competing models were knocked off,” Steinhardt said. “So we had a situation where it looked as if we had converged on a single idea. But I was always disturbed by the idea that there were no competitors around.”

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[BikerNYC]

So that you can exist and ask the questions.

That's the "why." I want the "how."

[BikerNYC]

If you understand the HOW that well, you're a better man than I (but that's only because I'm a rabbit).

[jwalsh07]

"The oracle said I was the wisest of all the greeks. It is because I alone, of all the Greeks, know that I know nothing."

Philosophical Big Bang Theory?

[BikerNYC]

And for that, Socrates was the wisest of all the Greeks (as opposed to Aristotle, who had something definitive to say about everything).

[AndrewC]

That's the "why." I want the "how."

That's not the question you asked.

But why are things the way they are so that I can't?

If you want the how, I suppose the question is --"How am I prevented from creating a perpetual motion machine?" To that I say, conservation of mass/energy and second law of thermo.

[BikerNYC]

You're right, I should watch how I use Why and How.

I suppose what I meant to ask is: How did it come to be that the Law of Conservation of Mass/Energy exists, or, for that matter, any law of physics?

[PatrickHenry]

Your patience and willingness to respond, in the face of occasionally inexcusable rudeness, is altogether admirable. And much appreciated.

[apochromat]

It is possible to express a variable as a function of time even though the variable is normally considered as being independent of time in any useful sense. The weight of an axe as it is being ground would not be a function of time as much as it would be a function of applied forces, for example, but it would still be measurable as a function of time. Or maybe the universe is completely deterministic.

[AndrewC]

How did it come to be that the Law of Conservation of Mass/Energy exists, or, for that matter, any law of physics?

Some other people are interested in that and similar questions. They are called ANTHROPIC COINCIDENCES

I have for a long time been fascinated with the odd realization of how special are the circumstances that permit the developement of intelligent life anywhere in the universe.

Below are a list of some of those coincidences, and links to fuller explanations, usually by noted cosmologists and/or physicists, such as Martin Rees, John Gribbin, Steve Hawking, Alan Lightman, George Greenstein, John Barrow, and Frank Tipler.

There is a further link on that page to -- For a possible explanation advocated by one of the world's better cosmologists, G.F.R. Ellis, see my BEFORE THE BEGINNING--AN APPRECIATION page.

[gcruse]

How is that logically necessary?

It probably isn't.   I think I was
thinking that nothing could happen
before the BB because time was
created then.  I don't know if
that means it could have no cause,
either.  More coffee may clear it up.
Waiter!

[Outraged At FLA]

If you read the article and others about it, you will find that they do not say there wasn't a big bang, they are saying that there is a big bang every few trillions of years once the universe becomes so vast it basically flattens out. Here is another article:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/new_universe_020425.html

It actually makes sense, but does have holes in it, yet, the big bang theory still has some cracks..

[Scully]

Thank you for the ping!

[Scully]

Who has time to sit under a tree for 40 days eating nothing and not sleeping the whole time just to clear the mind so they can figure some of these things out?

Ironic that the very technology that allows us to gather information about our Universe also complicates life to such a degree that such ruminations are impossible.

[RightWhale]

Whatever happened to Mother Nature? Does Mother Nature abhor flatness?

Oops, the universe is becoming too flat, better hit it with the stick again.
-MN

[RightWhale]

such ruminations are impossible

Instead of insight, what we get these days seems to be of the order of Carl Sagan's chemical imaginings and books such as "Earth in the Balance."

[AlGone2001]

The big bang did happen......

God spoke....and BANG...it happened.