question from ignorance

hey, someone hep me, hep me here... i don't see how something that seems so intuitively true can be so far off base... assuming a singularity and assuming a big bang, did all space/matter, etc explode in all directions according to laws of thermodynamics? if so, i just don't understand why there isn't an epicenter where the singularity originally was... would someone explain to me why there isn't? thanks

ok, thanks tb and joz... let me see if i understand what the two of you are sayingthe "singularity" actually didn't contain matter, space, time, etc *inside* it (there is no "inside"), instead it *is* all of that...i understand the analogy... i guess the problem is what i wrote above... what's the prevailing wisdom, is it that the singularity contained all the above or is it that the above "things" came into being only by virtue of the bb? thx

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Originally posted by John:
At a singularity, some of the values in our equations reach zero. When that happens, anything goes. Causality doesn't work. This is what we were talking about when you first started posting here.

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Now, all of the "things" you mention are in a space (for lack of a better word) of size zero. It is a bit of a netherworld really. "Things" occupying no space makes no sense. Space occupying no space makes even less sense, but there you have it.

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To answer the question, everything you know came to be at the BB. What existed prior to that, if anything, is beyond current human knowledge.

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ok, i'm getting there thx... am i correct or not in assuming that this "size zero" is known to be so? iow i guess i'm asking how we know the "size" of the singularity... it appears (again, just intuitively i have no real knowledge of this nor any agenda except to understand) that the singularity either contained or was made up of all that now exists.. if this is so, and i'm not saying it is, then whatever exists now (in its present form with its present shape, size, etc etc) existed before bb

inching closer i think... thx for the time, i was right to think this is far more complex than i could imagine [B]

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Originally posted by forgiven:

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iow i guess i'm asking how we know the "size" of the singularity...

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Its observation and extrapolation. The universe is expanding very quickly in all directions. Throw that in reverse and you end up with everything in one place.

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ok, i guess this is the part that still has me confused... what you wrote there makes sense to me... if the universe for some reason stopped expanding and started contracting, it just seems that it would eventually reach "wherever" the singularity was... or " everything in one place" as you said... that means (to my mind) everything left one place at the same speed and will return in the same way, for (if no other reasons) the gravitational reasons you gave.. but this just continues to elude me... if it "returns" from the point it originated, i just can't see how that point (i use the word because i have no other) can't be considered the epicenter... is it simply the word 'epicenter' that makes this wrong? it seems to me even using 'starting point' or some term such as 'originating hyperspace vector' the concept remains

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if this is so, and i'm not saying it is, then whatever exists now (in its present form with its present shape, size, etc etc) existed before bb

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At best, all you'd have is infinite energy, certainly not everything "in its present form with its present shape, size, etc etc."

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right, i worded it sloppily... i'll buy space (and all material things) being energy at some non-point in non-time.. anyway, the thing that continues to block my thoughts is how the concept of contraction to an original state of affairs can even be entertained without some sort of acknowledgement that the location of this original state of affairs can be the center of the universe

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Originally posted by John:
There is no 'where the singularity was.' Everything, in a sense, is that singularity.

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ok, this sentence helps... i had pictured all that is, the entire universe as we know it today, having been either part of the singularity (as you say above) or *inside* the singularity... and that was the problem, i think.. instead of a baloon, i was picturing a soap bubble, except all energy, matter, space, time, etc, were inside it.. then when the bubble pops, it "escapes" outwardno, i guess a better way to describe what i was thinking is, i had pictured all that is exactly *as* it is, except compacted to an infintesimal magnitude... for example, the milky way... i had pictured it as *inside* the singularity, no change from the way it is now except vastly smaller and more compact... and at big bang not only did things begin expanding away from one another, they also .. hmmm.. grew(?) i guess to their present (optimum) shape/size/volume etc... i realize now the reason is, i'm still thinking of it in terms of God's thoughtsnot sure if that made sense rknot

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Originally posted by graedek:
(sidenote: so am i to be correct in assuming the steady state theory was disproven by hubble observations?)

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(sideanswer: yes, and boy were there some devasted people when it happened... methinks there's more devastation in the works)

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Was curious if you, john, or others know more about the current state of quantum cosmology studies.... (or what thinking currently prevails in physics in relation to the creation problem as stated above)
(i was hoping to not be too outdated in my thinking, but this book was a little easier for me to follow than some others out there...)

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here's a *relatively* easy read on it

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Originally posted by John:

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Originally posted by forgiven:
no, i guess a better way to describe what i was thinking is, i had pictured all that is exactly *as* it is, except compacted to an infintesimal magnitude...

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Nope. As you approach the singularity everything gets squashed. Going backwards as if watching a massive star collapse, first you'd get a big ball of normal matter, just very dense. The molecular bonds would break, then, as density increases you'd have atomic bounds crack. The atom itself will collapse. The little electrons(-) are pressed into the protons(+) leaving only neutrons-- a neutron star, one gigantic atomic nucleas. If mass is great enough these neutrons too will break and the star collapses in on itself. You've got a massive gravitational field pulling in and no longer anything pushing out. Everything we know is gone, even space and time. Very very cool

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ahhhh.. kind of like a scroll rolling up on itself?