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What Happened Before the Big Bang?
The Bad Astronomer writes to tell us that a recent advance in Loop Quantum Gravity theory appears to allow the mathematics of cosmology to be extended to the time before the Universe underwent the Big Bang. Bad Astronomer also attempts to simplify things a bit with his own explanation of the new discovery.
I've always held that asking what came before the Big Bang is like asking what is North of the North Pole? It's a grammatically correct question but we can't expect it to mean anything.
While we don't have a working theory of quantum gravitation, we do have some strong hints that time and and space themselves were forged in the Big Bang. If you look at a Universe a Planck Length is size, the error in the time of any event observed would be longer than the time the Universe has existed for, to this point, and any error is position would be large than the current Universe at that size.
In short, time and space are useless measurements of a Universe this small.
In a very real sense, the Universe has always existed but has a finite age. I think once I came to understand what this really meant, it's very a beautiful truth about the world. I am sceptical of any theory that talks about a "before" the Big Bang - I think it misses one of the most important truths there is to know!
Simon
Something can come from nothing, our definition of nothing will have to be revised.
... perhaps?
Nothing, plus a little bit more
In my time of studying things since I was little, I undertook the study of physics when I was eleven. When I was in college getting my BS in it I came to the conclusion that at the level where I was in my studies, physics turned to philosophy, for what do things like time mean anyway?
And then after studying philosphy on my own for a few years, I arrived at the conclusion that philosophy turns to religion because if we can never know these things for sure, we still have to make a decision how we are going to live our lives, and that is religion. In my opinion, real religion is when we consciously decide what to believe on our own (although it can be from reading about religions), fake religion is when someone makes the decision for us.
Why don't more people study Eastern religion's cosmologies? I think it's because people in general like information spoon fed to them instead of researching and processing it on their own. Western psychology is now appreciating many Buddhist ideas that can help certain people with psychological problems and many quantum physicists have felt that Buddhism may have good insights to the ultimate nature of reality. In my view any theory that does not take consciousness into account is incomplete and not worth my basing a belief system around.
... as brane colisions without requiring a singularity, therefore showing time before the actual "bang"?
info:
Burt Ovrut M-Theory
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't.
How about this... the universe is collapsing on itself. As we speak. But it's also expanding. It just depends on your frame of reference.
j pg
e rejxd8.jpg
d spherexj8.jpg
:) Graphics whipped up in 3dsmax (yeah, sorry - no Blender experience!)
To explain this in the easiest way I can, I'm going to have to move from the multidimensional to the more easily understood dimensions. Save you have a sphere.
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/2081/asphereft7.
That sphere has a top, and a bottom. Assume that at the top of that sphere, water is formed. This water will want to flow down that sphere to the very bottom of that sphere. In the case of our simple world - due to gravity, and gravity wants those water droplets to flow ever-faster toward that bottom, etc... ignore this bit about gravity except for the ever-faster.. they accelerate.
Now let's say you slice this sphere into strips going from the top, to the bottom. Like fancy orange peels.
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/928/aslicedsph
Now if you uncurl all those strips, and align them all together at the top, you get a sort of radial spokes system of peels. The more strips you made, the cleaner the result, but what it comes down to is this. The top point of the sphere is still a point. But the bottom point of the sphere is now no longer a point - it is part of a large circular shape in a disc.
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/6959/anunfolde
So if we had the same water droplets going from the top of the sphere to the bottom of the sphere, in this new disc-shape projection, then from the frame of reference of the top point - the center of the disc - the drops of water would appear to be continually diverging and accelerating outward. The Big Bang.
But here's the kicker. If you uncurl the strips and align them all together at the bottom and repeat the same thing - then a bunch of scattered around water droplets would appear to be accelerating towards it, and converging. The Big Crunch.
Just a thought - probably not original, but I don't remember reading anything on the subject.. it's not one I'm too interested in
> because if we can never know these things for sure
That's the only fallacy in your logic.
Beautiful post though.
> real religion is
Actually, "real" religion is putting your beliefs into action by the lifestyle you live. If you never do anything with your beliefs, they are just that, beliefs.
--
Teacher: "Question Authority!"
Student: "Says who!?"