The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has a smart and engaging radio show, Quirks & Quarks. Yesterday’s show focused on a big question: What happened at, and before, the Big Bang? Mavens queried included Robert Brandenberger, Paul Steinhardt, Justin Khoury, and of course me (otherwise it’s somewhat less likely that I’d be blogging about it, I guess). The blurb:
The Big Bang theory of the origin of our universe is widely accepted by the physics community. The idea that our universe started out as some infinitesimally small point, which expanded out to what we see today, makes a lot of sense. Except for one small thing. That initial point, called a singularity by physicists, is a physical impossibility. According to the models we have today, the temperature of the universe at that first moment would have had to be infinite, which mathematically makes no sense. Also, the singularity doesn’t do a good job of explaining where all the matter and energy we see today in the universe came from. So, physicists are increasingly starting to look at other branches of physics to see what they can do to replace the singularity with a more reasonable proposition, one which can actually be explained by existing science.
Listen here. As we’ve talked about on this very blog, the time is right to push our understanding of the universe back before the Big Bang and ask what was really happening. Current ideas are understandably vague, but the only way to improve them is to keep exploring.
One slight clarification, to those who listen: in the interview, I give an entropy-based argument against bouncing cosmologies. That’s appropriate for the ekpyrotic universe, but not necessarily for the most recent versions of the cyclic universe. In these models, the universe never really crunches; it keeps expanding, but at some point flares back to life — particles are created without space ever contracting. Some sort of thermodynamic sleight-of-hand is still being pulled — the entropy of the whole universe rises monotonically for all of eternity, which seems a bit fishy — but the argument is somewhat different.
Comments
65 responses to “Quirks and Quarks: Before the Big Bang”
A thought on other dimensions, universes, intersecting branes, etc. Has the physics profession considered the law of unintended consequences here? Can they propose these dimensions as anything more then the copyrighted product of their own imagination and not loose control over the idea? Why wouldn’t life inhabit these dimensions and interact with our own ? What a brilliant way to explain aliens and ghosts! We die, we just go to another dimension! UFOs? I guess they just fell out of that other brane we ran into last week.
Don’t knock the supernatural without looking through that door you are opening. No telling what’s on the other side.
Sean,
While a is obviously not an observable, I was thinking (mistakenly) that the Hubble parameters is, or at least directly related to observables. I am guessing that I am going wrong because I am trying to extrapolate intuition based on FRW cosmology, where light rays follow geodesics. But, as you point out, the description in the Jordan frame would be more complicated, probably leading to all directly measurable quantities being the same. Thanks for helping me out.
Dear John,
“I really do see a big problem with the concept of time where ” events and times are all mapped out together, neither happening in the past, present or future, and sharing equal temporal status.” It models time as a static dimension, when time is dynamic process.”
I get the feeling that you possibly didn’t understand what I said. Perhaps it got lost in the translation.
Dear Carln,
“I think that a reality where time reverses on regular basis actually is an eternal existence. It has always “been there”.”
If you think about time in the regular way, making a distinction between past and future, yes, the universe is eternal. However, if one considers what is actually happening in respect to time in the model, it is finite (though without boundaries). A good way to think about it is to think of a clock, with the whole evolution of the universe from big bang to big crunch taking just 12 hours. Although the hands of the clock will continue to rotate indefinitely, it is the very same 12 hour interval that plays over, not a later one. There are no past or future cycles of the universe. It is one and the same.
“I believe there is no contradiction here. What is needed is an explanation for how something exists rather than nothing.”
You didn’t say why. In relation to why something exists rather than nothing, that is an entirely different question and the only one to do with the physical universe that I feel science is unable to offer an answer for.
Best wishes
Peter
Peter,
If it is close to the following description you gave Carl, I think I have a reasonable grasp of your understanding of time.
The point I’ve been making is that time as process isn’t between a cyclical vs. linear description of time. Consider; If two atoms hit each other, it creates an event. While the atoms proceed from one event to the next, the events go from being in the future to the past. So there are effectively two directions of time. The existing reality goes from past to future events, but the information created goes from being in the future to being in the past. That is why reality, as we perceive it, goes from being present to past. To quote Newton, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” So while we, from our subjective perspective, perceive time as directional, these two effects cancel each other out, so while time has direction, two actually, it doesn’t have dimension. It is not that the cycles of the clock repeat, but that from the perspective of the hands, the face is going counterclockwise. Since the hands represent the physical reality of the present, the units of time, the hours, days, years, what we percieve as the dimensionality of time, is going from being in the future to being in the past. Since current theory is that time is a fundamental dimension, then it is assumed physical reality proceeds along it, from past events to future ones. It is this intuitive understanding that is mistaken, just as we perceive the sun going east to west, when the reality is that the earth rotates west to east.
Peter, but don’t you see the problem? Observations show that the universe is not going to time-reverse. It is just going to keep expanding (at an increasing rate). And since there can be nothing eternal, this shows there is a beginning. And the beginning can only be “from” nothing (since eternal existence is illogical).
Anything that is not explaining “Why something rather than nothing” is not explaining anything at all, in my view. Any other explanation involves existence (at some level) to explain existence. This is of course circular logic and must be rejected.
Logic forces us to reject anything but “nothing” for explaining existence. It is only “nothing” that does not need to be explained.
So this all fits together. Why something rather than nothing? Because “it” comes from nothing. And “it” also gets a “finite” beginning as well, as it must.
Regards,
Carl
Carl,
If you have something from nothing, then you need its opposite to occur as well. So it’s actually something from its opposite. Otherwise something from nothing would need explanation for what it took to occur.
Dear Carl,
Yes, if the universe continues to expand indefinitely, my theory is wrong. However, I feel that there are some compelling reasons to believe that the universe will eventually collapse. Some of these are discussed in my paper, but I feel that the most compelling (and, as yet, generally least recognised) one is that an ever expanding cosmos offers no answer at all to its origin…a question which is not possibe to answer if the universe is thought to have had a beginning at some finite time in the past.
Again, the question of existence over non-existence is a different question. I think you are confusing it with the question of the universe’s origin, to which the model says that there was (and can be) no beginning (but yet that the universe is finite).
Moreover, that the universe (and conditions in it) can have no “causal” explanation.
Best wishes
Peter
Peter, the origin of the cosmos is that it was created literally from nothing in the Big Bang. Contrary to conventional wisdom creation from nothing is a logical concept.
“When” nothing exists there is not anything that can stop that from happening.
John, “when” nothing exists there exists no requirement why also “the opposite” should occur as well. You could argue that also an “anti-universe” also should be created, but logically there is no reason to insist on this. So we can use Occams
razor on it if we wish.
Regards,
Carl
Carl, Peter,
The idea that originally led me off the beaten track was the observation that Omega=1. That the rate of expansion and the force of gravity are balanced. While this point has been open to question, observations from, I believe it was COBE, proved it to be fairly close, if not equal. If this is so, then the universe is ultimately flat, with regions of intergalactic expansion balanced by the gravitational vortexes of galaxies. It first occured to me that the space, as we measured it, that was being pulled into galaxies, was re-emerging as vacuum fluctuation across the open spaces inbetween. In discussing this on forums back in the ’90’s, a physicist pointed out that the logical medium for this transmission was simply light itself. He used a far more complex description, but the point was simple. He also said that when he mentioned it to an older mentor, he was advised that if he wanted a job in the field, he’d do better to find ways to support accepted theory then question it, so he dropped it.
The fact is that politics is as important to science as anything else. I’m into this because as a child I was fifth of 6 kids and I found out early on that the ones in charge got to decide what’s right and what’s wrong, so the only way I could win anything was to understand the facts better then anyone else. It has done me few favors in life because so much of what is accepted, from politics to religion, to economics and yes, even science, is biased towards the power structure and most change occurs when it gets so out of touch with reality that it collapses. As Stephen Jay Gould described it, Punctuated Equilibrium. Catastrophism to the classicists. Revolution to the politicians. Nova to cosmologists. Chaos to everyone else. But as Complexity Theory points out, a little chaos is necessary. Now the fact is that science has quite a few brownie points under its belt, so that the larger society will continue to tolerate its junk code for a long time to come, therefore the current situation isn’t going to change anytime soon. Remember it was well over a millenium between Ptolomy proposing epi-cycles and Copernicius and Galilao refuting them. So that’s why I don’t put much personal capital, beyond the obsession factor, into this discusssion. Here is another idea on another subject that I do get a fair amount of positive feedback on, not because it’s any better than what I keep pointing out here, but because the power structure is so much closer to collapse.
http://www.exterminatingangel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=203&Itemid=118
There are ways to introduce paradigmatic changes? The last line is a important one. 🙂
More on name
John Merryman: Can they propose these dimensions as anything more then the copyrighted product of their own imagination and not loose control over the idea?
Tried to respond.
Plato,
The usual method is to have the old one collapse of its own inherent weaknesses and built the new one from the bottom up, out of the lessons learned. That’s why the Bush administration has given me such a warm fuzzy feeling. It’s so nice to see the old world order collapse when you want to start a new one. Just think, if Gore or Kerry had won, the Republicans would still be in control of the house and senate. Change is bottom up, even if it’s just the foundation crumbling.
Here is part of an essay posted on a yahoogroups that was in my maibox this morning;
Thing is, the History of Science shows that science itself is overburdened with the social aspect, an intrigue I refer to as ‘sand box.’ One thing that keeps people in the sand box is the simple function of eating. If you don’t want to play in the sand box of those writing the checks, you don’t get to eat. Got to keep one’s self and one’s family fed, you see. As a result of this, those who will ‘buy in’ when it comes to ‘articles of faith’ are the ones who are earliest to employ, since they don’t ask embarrassing questions. As a result, you get opacities based on what one might otherwise call cloudy thinking, thinking that can usually be tracked back to one leader and a covey of followers or other hangers on.
I think that in any of this we need to be a bit less arrogant than is usually the case in science. I know that may seem a bit odd. But look at the evidence we have. How many times have you heard someone say that in a particular case that the outcome is governed by some equation? I’d guess that you’ve heard it quite a few times. Equations never govern. It’s that simple, the things that we write down or the words we define to suit ourselves govern nothing. What our various equations do, however, is at most predict how things should come out.
Hi all,
I just wanted to ask those people that claim that there was not time before the bing bang: how can you use the phrase ‘there was no time’ which is in simple past for a period with no time? What you do in order to say that there was no time, is to incorporate time and say ‘there was no time’. This is a contradiction. And considering that mathematics are a byproduct of the natural language (also a bit more consistent), there cannot be any mathematical model in which time has a beggining and be consistent in parallel.
“Truth is crooked, time is a circle”
Nietzche , Thus spoke Zarathustra
I am not here as a scientist, or as someone who is well-versed (in the least) in the terms and theories that are mentioned here. I’m just a guy who, for most of his life, has been terrified by the thought of a God-less universe and all of the implications that attend it. Of course, every logical fiber of my being has forced me to conclude that there isn’t a God, there is no particular point to my existence (or to anyone’s) and that we will all suffer the same dark, lonely and horrifying fate when we die: eternal nothingness. The idea of this causes me occasional panic attacks — and leads me, from time to time, to seek out answers in forums like this.
I am writing this response because Peter Lynds’ theory, if valid, utterly destroys the one final micropscopic shard of hope that I’ve clung to in my darkest hours all of these years — namely, the idea that there had to be something before the Big Bang to cause it to happen; that even though science could condense all of the universe into one tiny speck, it still couldn’t explain how that speck got there.
But here’s the thing: I don’t see how his theory resolves this. It seems to me (and again, what the hell do I know?) that he is simply saying that the Big Bang itself can be explained as a consequence of the Big Crunch; that the crunch caused the bang, and that an eternal crunch/bang cycle is playing out with no start or end. To me, this just seems like a vastly more complicated version of the existing Big Bang theory; instead of one Big Bang, he says there have been an infinite number. But doesn’t the same contradiction still exist — how the “materials” (for lack of a better term, since I don’t really know any) that make up the “speck” that explodes during the Big Bang to create the universe ever got there in the first place? How was nothing created from something?
One previous poster tried to resolve this up above, and said that making something from nothing is logical. His reasoning seemed suspect to me, but I’m basing this on an entry level Logic class I took in college (plus my own B.S. detector), not any meaningful knowledge of physics.
Anyway, I’m not sure why I’m even writing this. It’s an old thread and I doubt it will be seen. And my instincts tell me that Peter is probably right, simply because my instincts have always told me that there must be some scientific explanation for the whole nothing-from-something contradiction that I’ve clung to. Every other reason for believing in some supernatural order that I’ve toyed with has been discredited; this has been all I’ve had left for years. But I still don’t get Peter’s theory — and I admit, I don’t really want to, either.
It really is terrible. None of us asked to be born. And we’re all forced to die. Every bit of enjoyment along the way is just cruel — something to make you cry when you realize how alone you will be forever and ever and ever and ever.
Dear Layman,
I think that you don’t properly grasp Lynd’s model.
You and I are obliged to live our lives again and again in identical fashion. Without a mere change. So enjoy it! and don’t panic…
Cheers
Giannis