Time before the big bang.

[learnin to learn]

*I am not sure where to post this so feel free to move it*

I am reading a book that talks about the big bang. It says that after the big bang; time, matter energy etc were created. Was there no such thing as time before the big bang? I always thought that time has always existed. Even before the big bang.

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by learnin to learn

*I am not sure where to post this so feel free to move it* ... Was there no such thing as time before the big bang?

This would, quite possibly, be suited to philosophy...

I always thought that time has always existed

Could be... maybe not though... Are you open to other possibilities?

[Tormod]

This is one of the fundamental issues in cosmology. It really becomes a matter of definition, and also which school of thought you belong to.

Main stream cosmology has a zero time, or t=0, which defines the start of the history of our universe. There is no "before" because time is a function of our universe and this anything that happened "prior" to this was "outside" time. This is fairly impossible to prove in that it requires us to sample something that existed outside the universe.

However, there are alternatives.

If one assumes that our universe is not the only one, and that the big bang was "local" (ie, our universe is only a bubble in a larger multiverse), then there could very well be a t=-1 because our universe would then be born out of something. However this would also be virtually impossible to prove, for the same reasons.

String theory assumes that there are no singularities. Since classical cosmology requires a singularity at t=0, string theory does away with that and says that the big bang was NOT the start of time. It would be possible to look beyond t=0 and find out what happened before.

Yet another idea, which I first read in Richard J. Gott's "Time Travel in Einstein's Universe", is that the universe was born out of an infinite time loop - ie, the universe created itself and the idea of a t=0 is meaningless.

It is not entirely correct to say that everything was *created* in the big bang (not intending to start yet another ID debate here). What is generally assumed in big bang cosmology is that (somehow) giant amounts of energy were concentrated in an infinitely small point (ie, a singularity) which started to grow (expand). It grew exponentially for a while (inflation) so that a huge spacetime field was produced. This meant that energy became dispersed over a vast area, and when energy disperses, it cools. Thus matter condensed out of the original energy.

The main problem with big bang cosmology (which, for example, one of our members - ColdCreation - has argued) is that it can only be tested through inference and thus is not a very good scientific theory. I would say otherwise, that it is a remarkably GOOD scientific theory which is backed up by a lot of evidence, but as with a lot of things in cosmology it's not smart to be too cocksure.

[learnin to learn]

So their is no true answer, the issue just depends on someones opinion, and beliefs?

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

... Are you open to other possibilities?

I sure am!

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by learnin to learn

So their is no true answer, the issue just depends on someones opinion, and beliefs?

In science, there are no true answers.

[learnin to learn]

that is true!

[coldcreation]

Originally Posted by learnin to learn

that is true!

What about space before the big bang?
Why separate time from space?
Spacetime before the big bang.
The concept of time alone is meaningless.
Where there is time there is geometry.
There is always geometry.
The clock is always ticking.
Conclusion: time t was never equal to zero. There was no outset of spacetime.

[Harry Costas]

Hello All

The evidence supporting the Big Bang is fragile and cannot be supported.

The idea that our total known universe came from a single point, is so much in fantasy land its not a joke. I cannot understand with the scientists we have are still using it as the standard model.

This post contains preposts and to save new readers the time I posted it again.

There is no way in hell, that I would even consider the BBT, even though it is regarded in cosmology as the standard model.

Through history man has adopted varies models as standard and in time proven to be wrong.

You look at all the evidence supporting the BBT. Its fantasy stuff and information used to support the model.

Don't take my word for it.

The many modern cosmologists are not giving much weight to the model.

But! thats my opinion.

In a few more years we shall see where this model (BBT) ends up.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homep...p5/explode.htm
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/bang.htm
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/cosmo.htm
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homep...cosmo.htm#cos1

http://www.metaresearch.org/mrb/DidT...ABeginning.htm
http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/top10BBproblems.asp

Quote:

A short list of the leading problems faced by the big bang in its struggle for viability as a theory:

1. Static universe models fit the data better than expanding universe models.

2. The microwave "background" makes more sense as the limiting temperature of space heated by starlight than as the remnant of a fireball.

3. Element abundance predictions using the big bang require too many adjustable parameters to make them work.

4. The universe has too much large scale structure (interspersed "walls" and voids) to form in a time as short as 10-20 billion years.

5. The average luminosity of quasars must decrease with time in just the right way so that their mean apparent brightness is the same at all redshifts, which is exceedingly unlikely.

6. The ages of globular clusters appear older than the universe.

7. The local streaming motions of galaxies are too high for a finite universe that is supposed to be everywhere uniform.

8. Invisible dark matter of an unknown but non-baryonic nature must be the dominant ingredient of the entire universe.

9. The most distant galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field show insufficient evidence of evolution, with some of them apparently having higher redshifts (z = 6-7) than the faintest quasars.

10. If the open universe we see today is extrapolated back near the beginning, the ratio of the actual density of matter in the universe to the critical density must differ from unity by just a part in 1059. Any larger deviation would result in a universe already collapsed on itself or already dissipated.

http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/Di...ABeginning.asp
http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/Qu...rVersusFar.asp

http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/UNIVERSE/Universe.html

Look at the list of people who do not agree with the BBT
http://www.cosmologystatement.org/

Quote:

The big bang today relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities, things that we have never observed-- inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent examples. Without them, there would be a fatal contradiction between the observations made by astronomers and the predictions of the big bang theory. In no other field of physics would this continual recourse to new hypothetical objects be accepted as a way of bridging the gap between theory and observation. It would, at the least, raise serious questions about the validity of the underlying theory.

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http://www.rense.com/general53/bbng.htm

Quote:

Our ideas about the history of the universe are dominated by big bang theory. But its dominance rests more on funding decisions than on the scientific method, according to Eric J Lerner, mathematician Michael Ibison of Earthtech.org, and dozens of other scientists from around the world.

An Open Letter to the Scientific Community

Cosmology Statement.org (Published in New Scientist, May 22-28 issue, 2004, p. 20)

The big bang today relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities, things that we have never observed-- inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent examples. Without them, there would be a fatal contradiction between the observations made by astronomers and the predictions of the big bang theory.

http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/BIGBANG/Bigbang.html

Quote:

We are all so accustomed to reading that the universe "began" once a time with the Big Bang that most people no longer think it necessary to question or scrutinize it. A detailed analysis of the Big Bang theory, however, leads to consequences and implications that are inconsistent, or are contradicted by astrophysical observations, including important ones.
At the same time, one of the pillars of the model, the all important cosmic redshift- the shifting of spectral lines toward the red end of the spectrum, in proportion to the distance of the source from us- can be explained without invoking the Doppler velocity interpretation(1) so dear to Big Bang theorists. The redshift is explained instead by taking the intergalactic medium into account, and correcting our understanding of how light interacts with such a medium on its way to the observer. Two different theoretical approaches, semi classical electrodynamics and quantum electrodynamics, have shown that all interactions or collisions of electrodynamics waves (photons) with atoms are inelastic; that is, the photons lose a very small part of their energy as a result of the interaction. Hence, the greater the depth of the intergalactic medium through which a galaxy's light must pass, the more toward the low-energy end of the spectrum - that is, toward the red - is the light frequency shifted.
These considerations eliminate the limit on the size of the universe imposed by the Big Bang theory. Indeed one can say that the universe far greater than imagined.

http://www.bigbangneverhappened.org/

Quote:

This website provides an update on the evidence and the debate over the Big Bang, including the latest technical review and a reply to a widely- circulated criticism as well as a technical reading list, a report on a recent workshop and links to other relevant sites, including one that described my own work on fusion power, which is closely linked to my work in cosmology.

Tom Van Flandern - bio sketch, resume, bibliography
http://metaresearch.org/home/about%2...anflandern.asp


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[Harry Costas]

Hello All

I would refer to a link ,but rather than doing that I will copy the link, for those who are lazy to look at links.

Read this link
http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/Di...ABeginning.asp

The following is a list of people who do not agree with the Big Bang, and its not limited to these.

http://www.cosmologystatement.org/
Quote:

incredibly long and needless quote removed by Tormod

[Shoushou]

Well, I think that the bing bang represents a start for the universe we'r living in right now, but for what happened before this, we cannot give an exact true explanation, as our knowledge is too limited to travel back through time to know how was it before the big bang....

there might be other universes, as well as it could be right now...

But the only real thing that I can believe in is that such things are depending (to a gr8 extent) on faith, that who created this whole universe is the only one who knows the answer for those questions...so trying to give any predictions or random answers for those questions, is something which makes me feel like we are trying to satisfy our curiousity..no more..the thing which'll never lead us to a real explanation..

That's why I liked Tormod's words when he said:" in SCIENCE, there is no true answers"