Before the Big Bang

Well - erm yes either the universe is finite or it is infinite - obviously. The Big Bang does not state that a singularity appears from 'nowhere' - it doesn't appear at all, it's just a point on a four dimensional universe.

But there was no four dimensional universe for it to be a point on as there was an absence of anything, until after t = 0

The early theory was that the universe was infinite. That is that it had always existed and would always exist.Then the theory was changed when it was discovered that the universe was finite and that it had a beginning, a middle, and a future. Thus the Big Bang theory.Now when there are problems with the Big Bang theory rather than can it for a better theory we will just modify it to include string or M theory.The Big Bang theory was started in the beginning because it was discovered that the universe was finite and had a beginning. It did away with the theory of a infinite universe.String and M theory have to have an infinite universe.

The Big Bang theory was started in the beginning because it was discovered that the universe was finite and had a beginning. It did away with the theory of a infinite universe.

Then the theory was changed when it was discovered that the universe was finite and that it had a beginning, a middle, and a future. Thus the Big Bang theory.

Now when there are problems with the Big Bang theory rather than can it for a better theory we will just modify it to include string or M theory.

String and M theory have to have an infinite universe.

That is the only point I am raising. I have put forward two cosmologists that confirm this description of the big bang and you have dismissed them, preferring what seem to be geologists. You have given no explanation for dismissing Hawking or Greene. I can only imagine that is because you lack the ability to directly contradict what they say about the big bang.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/hawking/strange/html/singular.html
General relativity demands that singularities arise under two circumstances. First, a singularity must form during the creation of a black hole. When a very massive star reaches the end of its life, its core, which was previously held up by the pressure of the nuclear fusion that was taking place, collapses and all the matter in the core gets crushed out of existence at the singularity. Second, general relativity shows that under certain reasonable assumptions, an expanding universe like ours must have begun as a singularity.

The page you were looking for doesn't exist (404)At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. At a singularity, all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The
universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before.
Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang.

It seems that Quantum theory, on the other hand, can predict how the universe will begin.
Quantum theory introduces a new idea, that of imaginary time. Imaginary time may sound like science fiction, and it has been brought into Doctor Who. But nevertheless, it is a genuine
scientific concept. One can picture it in the following way. One can think of ordinary, real, time as a horizontal line. On the left, one has the past, and on the right, the future. But there's
another kind of time in the vertical direction. This is called imaginary time, because it is not the kind of time we normally experience. But in a sense, it is just as real, as what we call real
time.

In fact, James Hartle of the University of California Santa Barbara, and I have proposed that space and imaginary time together, are indeed finite in extent, but without boundary. They would be like the surface of the Earth, but with two more dimensions. The surface of the Earth is finite in extent, but it doesn't have any boundaries or edges. I have been round the world, and I didn't fall off.If space and imaginary time are indeed like the surface of the Earth, there wouldn't be any singularities in the imaginary time direction, at which the laws of physics would break down. And there wouldn't be any boundaries, to the imaginary time space-time, just as there aren't any boundaries to the surface of the Earth. This absence of boundaries means that the laws of physics would determine the state of the universe uniquely, in imaginary time. But if one knows the state of the universe in imaginary time, one can calculate the state of the universe in real time. One would still expect some sort of Big Bang singularity in real time. So real time would still have a beginning. But one wouldn't have to appeal to something outside the universe, to determine how the universe began. Instead, the way the universe started out at the Big Bang would be determined by the state of the universe in imaginary time. Thus, the universe would be a completely self-contained system. It would not be determined by anything outside the physical universe, that we observe.The no boundary condition, is the statement that the laws of physics hold everywhere. Clearly, this is something that one would like to believe, but it is a hypothesis. One has to test it, by comparing the state of the universe that it would predict, with observations of what the universe is actually like. If the observations disagreed with the predictions of the no boundary hypothesis, we would have to conclude the hypothesis was false. There would have to be something outside the universe, to wind up the clockwork, and set the universe going. Of course, even if the observations do agree with the predictions, that does not prove that the no boundary proposal is correct. But one's confidence in it would be increased, particularly because there doesn't seem to be any other natural proposal, for the quantum state of the
Universe.The no boundary proposal, predicts that the universe would start at a single point, like the North Pole of the Earth. But this point wouldn't be a singularity, like the Big Bang. Instead, it would be an ordinary point of space and time, like the North Pole is an ordinary point on the Earth, or so I'm told. I have not been there myself.According to the no boundary proposal, the universe would have expanded in a smooth way from a single point. As it expanded, it would have borrowed energy from the gravitational field, to create matter. As any economist could have predicted, the result of all that borrowing, was inflation. The universe expanded and borrowed at an ever-increasing rate. Fortunately, the debt of gravitational energy will not have to be repaid until the end of the universe.The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. The beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down. Nevertheless, the way the universe began would have been determined by the laws of physics, if the universe satisfied the no boundary condition. This says that in the imaginary time direction, space-time is finite in extent, but doesn't have any boundary or edge. The predictions of the no boundary proposal seem to agree with observation. The no boundary hypothesis also predicts that the universe will eventually collapse again.

The predictions of the no boundary proposal seem to agree with observation.

What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn't prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary. [Stephen W. Hawking, Der Spiegel, 1989]

You WANT to believe that TBB says there's a "beginning" and that there wasn't "anything" before the "beginning" because you WANT to believe in a god.

In one breath Mr. Hawking says universe started with big bang that came from a singularity.In the next he says the universe started from a point in space and time. No big bang.

I have been reading a lot your God says about the beginning.

If you think that this is contradictory - you have a lot to learn not just about physics but about science.

Can I use that the next time someone tells me the Bible is full of contradictions?

I probably wouldn't argue it if you want to maintain the Bible contains absolute eternal truths.

The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxy are on a collision course! In about 3 billion years, the two galaxies will collide.

Approximately 13.7 billion years ago, the entirety of our universe was compressed into the confines of an atomic nucleus. Known as a singularity, this is the moment before creation when space and time did not exist. According to the prevailing cosmological models that explain our universe, an ineffable explosion, trillions of degrees in temperature on any measurement scale, that was infinitely dense, created not only fundamental subatomic particles and thus matter and energy but space and time itself. Cosmology theorists combined with the observations of their astronomy colleagues have been able to reconstruct the primordial chronology of events known as the big bang.

OK. Not sure about this though.

Modoulous writes:Yes indeed - I still contend that this makes no sense. What is a moment if not something that exists in time? This is the problem we face when discussing the big bang - but I suggest you look to a better source than this. I'll see if I can't dig up some quotes from a book on the subject rather than a short web article on it.

The Big Bang is often thought as the start of everything, including time, making any questions about what happened during it or beforehand nonsensical. Recently scientists have instead suggested the Big Bang might have just been the explosive beginning of the current era of the universe, hinting at a mysterious past.

The night sky presents the viewer with a picture of a calm and unchanging Universe. Therefore, the discovery by Edwin Hubble, in 1929, that the Universe is in fact expanding at an enormous speed, was a revolutionary one. Hubble noted that galaxies outside our own Milky Way were all moving away from us, each at a speed proportional to its distance away from us. Most importantly, this meant that there must have been an instant in time (now known to be about 14 billion years ago) when the entire Universe was contained in a single point in space. The Universe must have been born in this single violent event which came to be known as the "Big Bang."

The Big Bang marks the instant at which the universe began, when space and time came into existence and all the matter in the cosmos started to expand.

There's another important quality of the Big Bang that makes it unique. While an explosion of a man-made bomb expands through air, the Big Bang did not expand through anything. That's because there was no space to expand through at the beginning of time. Rather, physicists believe the Big Bang created and stretched space itself, expanding the universe.

No beginning means no middle and no end.

The area I bolded states nearly all the galaxies were moving away from us. If nearly all but not all are moving away from us that means some are moving towards us. If some are moving towards us how could everything in the universe have orginated a that single point in spacetime you refered to in an earlier msg.

Why should I not come to the conclusion that everything we see in the universe came from absolutely nothing according to TBB?

I was talking about the contradictions in the statements of one man, Mr. Hawking.

The area I bolded states nearly all the galaxies were moving away from us. If nearly all but not all are moving away from us that means some are moving towards us. If some are moving towards us how could everything in the universe have orginated a that single point in spacetime you refered to in an earlier msg.

Now back to the nothingness:Create a Website | Tripod Web Hosting

This says Hubble noted that galaxies outside our own Milky Way were ALL moving away from us.
But the Andromeda galaxy and the Milky Way are on a collision course.

If energy existed where was it? There was no place for it to exist.

And we are not talking about Mr. Hawking's imaginary time or any of the half-dozen or so theories.

Why should I not come to the conclusion that everything we see in the universe came from absolutely nothing according to TBB?

Because it doesn't say that everything came from absolutely nothing. Everything was there, it was just in a different state and location than it is now.

It is not impossible for galaxies to collide under the Big bang Theory.

The sites that I had referenced:

The nasa site said: "Most importantly, this meant that there must have been an instant in time (now known to be about 14 billion years ago) when the entire Universe was contained in a single point in space." How could there be an instant in time? Time did not exist. How could there be a point in space? When space itself did not exist.

Space.com says: "The Big Bang is often thought as the start of everything, including time." What is not included in everything?

If there was No:
Space
Time
Particles
Matter
EnergyWhat was there and where was it?

The only way I see they could collide would be if they started in opposite directions and the universe is a sphere and one goes clockwise and the other counter clockwise then they could meet but it would take a lot longer than 20 billion years.

The only other possibility would be that they started at a small degree of angle difference which grew to a very large difference then something changed their direction so as to make them angle back together to meet at a point in the future.

If that took place how much force would have to be applied to a galaxy as large as either the Milky Way or Andromedia to change their course considering the speed at which the two large masses are traveling. Sounds possible but not probable.

Seems to me...

The only way I see they could collide would be...

The only other possibility would be...

Sounds possible but not probable.