Before the Big Bang

Right, now I'll tell you what a singularity is. A singularity, in physics, is where some quantity becomes undefined or no longer makes sense.I've given this example before, but if you have a pond or live near a lake you'd have seen some ice form on the surface. That ice can be shattered so it has a certain brittleness. Very easily shattered ice has a high brittleness value, hard ice has a low brittleness value. However when the ice turns into water, brittleness no longer makes sense. You could say brittleness has a "singularity" when ice becomes water.Another example would be an electric field. Very near an electron an electric field starts having "infinite" strength. So the electric field no longer makes sense and thus has a singularity.That's what a singularity is, the point at which a physical quantity becomes undefined or nonsensical.Forgetting about the Big Bang for a moment, do you understand what I just said?

But water has mass.An electric field is generated.

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

True, what is the problem between this and what I said? I might not have been clear.

The whole page is about this universe! He says "First, a singularity must form during the creation of a black hole." - where do black holes form? This universe! (assuming this universe has a certain structure). Correct. That is what I said to rebut you who claimed Hawking said that star collapse was the only way for a black hole to form (ALL, MUST, no exceptions...remember that?). So now we agree that star collapse is only one way for a singularity to exist, we are getting somewhere. When a black hole is formed, a singularity results. It isn't the only way for a singularity to exist: he refers us to a second possibility.

Sorry Son Goku, no ice in Florida. But I think I get the idea.
Are you are saying the mass of the universe was there, it was just in a different form? As the water:Or are you saying that water in liquid or vapor form is not brittle?The electric field I don't get as it takes x energy to get x amps.

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Or a previous universe. I do not see where this statement gives another source for a singularity.

quote:

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Second, general relativity shows that under certain reasonable assumptions, an expanding universe like ours must have begun as a singularity.

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This says general relativity shows:Under certain reasonable assumptions.
.....What is reasonable assumptions?
.....How much faith must I have in these assumptions that somebody made and determined reasonable by whom to conclude an expanding universe like ours MUST have begun as a singularity?The above quote makes a statement: an expanding universe like ours must have begun as a singularity.It does not give a source of the singularity, or a second way that a singularity could be formed.If there is no second way then it had to be formed from the death of a super massive star.

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Son Goku, I thought I would come back to this statement. How much quantity of matter are we talking about to be the billions of galaxies and stars in our universe?What is the source of all this matter that is packed into the singularity?

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Given that very few people accept that our universe began as a singularity - I'd not bother having any faith to be honest. However, since we are discussing solutions to general relativity that do result in a universe with a singularity at its beginning this is not relevant to the discussion.The assumptions can easily be looked up, even the rather simplified pbs page touches on them:

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Friedmann made two simple assumptions about the universe: that when viewed at large enough scales, it appears the same both in every direction and from every location.

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You have just argued against your initial position: instead of the singularity coming from nothing - now you insist it had to come from the death of a star which is definitely not nothing. Since my initial reason for entering this discourse with you was to try and show you that the big bang singularity is not proposed to 'come from nothing' I guess my mission is a success since you now seem to accept that.Now - there are other ways for a singularity like the big bang singularity to form, but we need to look to the string theories for that and the singularity tends to not be a singularity at all when described in these theories. That is another kettle of fish though - and I'm not keen on trying to explain that - Brian Greene is an excellent source of information on that if you are interested. Some of the earlier posts in this thread might be interesting too.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I have never believed something can come from nothing.I was only going by what was stated in the references I had been able to find on the internet concerning the big bang theory.In fact if the universe came from the singularity it had to come from the absence of anything according to Hawking. Out of existence says there was an absence of anything there.But if you are now saying the singularity that our universe came from, came from something.What was It? Where did singularity come from?Answer: We don't know maybe string or M theory will tell us.So we are back to the point that we do not know where our universe came from.I like my theory better. What an event. God spoke and everything began to rush to its place.Then God: God created the earth and the heavens, and stretched out the heavens.The detection and measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation overwhelmingly verifies that God stretched out the heavens.Enjoy

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

The problem, ICANT, is that the singularity is being discussed as if it were a physical object. It wasn't. The "singularity" comes about because out physical laws (at least as we understand them) are inadequate to deal with the situation that exists when we extrapolate the expansion of the universe backwards to the so-called "time = 0" point. There wasn't a thing called a singularity -- there was a situation that we cannot deal with with our current physical models.The singularity comes about solely from applying our understanding of the physical processes to a situation with which the equations cannot be used.

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I've done everything the Bible says, even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff! -- Ned Flanders

SG has drawn a wonderful analogy. Simple. On point. Illustrative.
And yet ...Let's rephrase the question.
Q: What is 1/infinity?
A: We don't know.
When some quantity or another in a calculation turns up a term that's "divided by infinity", that mathematical term no longer makes any sense.SG said: There's an equation that's used to calculate an electric field. That's where one "gets" amps.
When that equation is used to figure out what is going on at or near T=0 or what is going on at or near an electron, the electric field approaches infinity. That is a nonsensical number. It is "a singularity".Re: another of your questions: Using GOOGLE, I found the following: Re: yet another of your questions: Stephen Hawking: I'm not going to google the answer for you.

Hawking does not discuss the origin of the singularity at the beginning of the universe - only singularities that can appear within the universe. Different things, as Hawking points out. It did not come from anything. There was no 'before' for it to come 'from'. Correct - as I have been trying to tell you - the Big Bang theory is not a theory that describes cosmic origins, just a theory that describes the early parts of our universe. Relativity is not capable of describing the origin of the universe - trying will only get you nonsense answers.We have to marry relativity with string theory to even having a hope of answering cosmic origins. No doubt - your theory proclaims to describe the origin of everything but God. Relativity has its limits and those limits are known. That's wonderful. Relativity predicts the nature of the CMB its temperature and so on, so I'll stick to that since it can be used to learn things about the universe and I'll avoid relying on ancient revelation to tell me given its track record. Stick to what you believe, all I ask is that you understand what science concludes if you wish to mock it.

Modulous, I can not find where Hawking says this is in the confines of the present universe.http://www.pbs.org/wnet/hawking/strange/html/singular.html Hawking said:General relativity demands, a super massive star dies and all matter gets crushed out of existence at the singularity.With everything crushed out of existence that would leave an absence of anything.He gives no second way for a singularity to form.Therefore the singularity He says the universe must have come from had to be formed in the way demanded by general relativity.Thus the universe came from an absence of anything.

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

I can see how you would read it that way, but obviously there is a mistake in your understanding or perhaps a mistake in the wording. There is more than "nothing" in a black hole, the extreme gravity that prevents light from escaping suggests otherwise.Hawking does not believe that black holes "leave an absence of anything" - He even suggests a way for black holes to "evaporate" (Hawking Radiation)ABE: Actually, I don't know what Hawking "believes". What I believe is that Hawking as a whole does not suggest a black hole is an absence of anything.Edited by Vacate, : No reason given.

You didn't honestly expect a 150 word summary of information on a pbs website would give you stunning insight into relativity did you? I'm not sure these words were written by Hawking incidentally. If you want to really get to grips with this subject - how about you follow my suggestions about sources? Under certain circumstances (with certain assumptions thought to be true for our universe) a star could collapse and form a black hole, which necessarily gives rise to a singularity. Correct - the second circumstance where a singularity can arise is at the beginning of a universe 'like ours'. The text does not go into detail on where this singularity 'comes from'. No, he does not say that. You are reading into it information that is not there. 'Hawking' gives two circumstances relativity demands a singularity must arise under. The first circumstance is via star death/black holes, the second is at the beginning of an expanding universe.'Hawking' does not go into 'where' the second type of singularity 'comes from'...how they are formed. If you look at Hawking's more detail writings and talks on it you might get more details. I've referred you to some more details on this.