[Physics] The Big Bang Theory

[Arend Lammertink]

Gentlemen,

This is a discussion which often leads to heated debates. The extreme views
on this debate are summarized pretty nicely at this page, and connects
right to "atheism" vs "religion":

http://www.the-atheist.com/summarising-religion-and-atheism/

"Atheism: The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing
and then nothing magically exploded for no reason creating everything and
then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what
so ever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs."

"Religion: The belief that there has always been an invisible man and the
invisible man magically created the world and two people and these two
people turned into billions of people and the invisible man threatened all
the people with an eternity of torture unless they showered him with praise
and built many things in his honor and the invisible man wrote a book
through a ghost writer but the people change the book regularly so it means
what they want it to mean. All this happened because the man was bored one
day. Sounds reasonable."

I did some googling and found some interesting perspectives.

This article gives an in-depth perspective on the arguments back and forth.
Too long to read, unless you're really interested:

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2010/08/09/why-the-big-bang-wont-work-won/

Just some quotes for your consideration. I have highlighted some parts
which support the idea that the BB is considered to have appeared out of
nothing, which has been said by Stephen Hawking, for example:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Design_(book)

The authors write: “ Because there is a law such as gravity, *the universe
can and will create itself from nothing*. Spontaneous creation is the
reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why
we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper
and set the universe going. ” — Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, *The
Grand Design*, 2010


http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141106-why-does-anything-exist-at-all

But science has had little to say about this ultimate question.

However, in recent years a few physicists and cosmologists have started to
tackle it. They point out that we now have an understanding of the history
of the universe, and of the physical laws that describe how it works. That
information, they say, should give us a clue about how and why the cosmos
exists.

Their admittedly controversial answer is that the entire universe, from the
fireball of the Big Bang to the star-studded cosmos we now inhabit, *popped
into existence from nothing at all*. It had to happen, they say,
because *"nothing"
is inherently unstable*.

This idea may sound bizarre, or just another fanciful creation story. But
the physicists argue that it follows naturally from science's two most
powerful and successful theories: quantum mechanics and general relativity.

http://www.big-bang-theory.com/

Big Bang Theory - Common Misconceptions
There are many misconceptions surrounding the Big Bang theory. For example,
we tend to imagine a giant explosion. Experts however say that there was *no
explosion*; there was (and continues to be) *an expansion*. Rather than
imagining a balloon popping and releasing its contents, imagine a balloon
expanding: an infinitesimally small balloon expanding to the size of our
current universe.

Another misconception is that we tend to image the singularity as a little
fireball appearing somewhere in space. According to the many experts
however, *space didn't exist prior to the Big Bang*. Back in the late '60s
and early '70s, when men first walked upon the moon, "three British
astrophysicists, Steven Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose turned
their attention to the *Theory of Relativity* and its implications
regarding our notions of time. In 1968 and 1970, they published papers in
which they extended Einstein's Theory of General Relativity to include
measurements of time and space. According to their calculations, time and
space had a finite beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and
energy." *The singularity didn't appear in space; rather, space began
inside of the singularity. Prior to the singularity, nothing existed, not
space, time, matter, or energy - nothing*. So where and in what did the
singularity appear if not in space? We don't know. *We don't know where it
came from, why it's here, or even where it is*. All we really know is that
we are inside of it and at one time it didn't exist and neither did we.


https://www.quora.com/The-Big-Bang-In-the-beginning-did-nothing-explode
By tracing the metric expansion backwards in time we reach a *singularity*
at a specific point in time, t=0. We have solid evidence that the
*observable* universe was in a hot, dense, plasma state at about *one
second* after time zero (when baryons like protons and neutrons, the
constituents of atoms, first appeared). Prior to that time there are
various speculations, and some evidence, but a great deal of uncertainty as
to what happened and what was happening in the wider universe.

It is important to note that the singularity itself is *not* part of the
Big Bang Theory. *Any singularity is an indication that a physical theory
breaks down and no longer applies*. At some point we may have a refinement
of General Relativity that produces a "quantum theory of gravity" which
might resolve this singularity, but *such a refinement has stubbornly
resisted scientists for half a century*.

It is also important to note that *we do not know the overall size and
shape (or topology) of the universe *of which the observable universe is
probably only a small part. Our whole universe may be an insignificant
expanding bubble in a much larger entity that is not expanding overall, or
the entire larger entity could be expanding in the same way, or any of a
host of possibilities. *Including the possibility that (some version of)
'nothing' preceded the Big Bang*.




Arend Lammertink, MScEE,
Goor, The Netherlands.

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On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 8:33 PM, Thomas Goodey <thomas at flyingkettle.com>
wrote:

> On 20 Oct 2016 at 18:22, The Self-Called Master Inventor
> wrote:
>
> > The Big Bang (BB) Theory violates all the major laws of
> > physics.
>
> The "laws" of physics are not supposed to have applied at
> the initial singularity, while the parameters of the
> universe were smaller than the Planck length.
>
> > The BB appears out of nothing
>
> Who said that?
>
> >           -  Violation of conservation of energy
>
> You don't understand the conventional BB concept.
>
> > This point of super hot energy begins to expand
> >           -  Why is it hot?
>
> It has no choice.
>
> > The BB is super massive and expanding
> >           -  Violation of General Relativity, it should form
> >           a black hole.
>
> You don't understand the conventional BB concept.
>
> > The BB goes through a period of faster-then-light super
> > expansion
> >           -  Violation of Special Relativity, nothing can
> >           travel faster than light
>
> You don't understand the conventional BB concept.
>
> > The expand ball...
>
> It's not a ball. It's a universe.
>
> > ... of energy starts to condense into hydrogen
> > gas
> >           - Violation of atomic physics.  It should condense
> >           into the higher elements,
> >              particularly iron which has the lowest energy
> >              state, just like in a super nova.
>
> No, it shouldn't. You don't understand the conventional BB
> concept.
>
> Thomas Goodey
> ******************
>
> But remember, please, the rules by
> which we live.
> We are not built to comprehend a
> lie.
> We can neither love, nor pity, nor
> forgive.
> If you make a slip in handling us you
> die.
>
> Rudyard Kipling, 'Secret of the
> Machines'
>
>
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