Before Big Bang God or Singularity

The Big Bang/Singularity is not the origin of the Universe, it is merely one end of it. Delving into the past just tells us what conditions were like back then, it does not tell us why the Universe exists. It may be that there is only a finite distance you can go back in time, before you reach a minimum and start heading forwards again (as with travelling north to the North Pole). It maybe that there is no minimum (at least, not at the Big Bang) and we can push through into some other region of existence. But in neither case do we gain an understanding of why the Universe exists. We merely see what came before. The past no more explains the Universe's existence than the North Pole explains the Earth's existence. All it can do is help explain why the slice of the Universe at T=now looks the way it does.This topic and its predecessor are so littered with abuses of terminology that it is extremely difficult to respond to any particulars...There is no such thing as conservation of matter.
Conservation of mass/energy is LOCAL and is not necessarily obeyed GLOBALLY.
The Universe is not 'made of energy' in the way that oceans are not 'made of waves'.
The singularity is the breakdown in the physics of classical General Relativity at T=0 in the Big Bang cosmology.
Strictly, the singularity does not exist as it is simply the artifact of inapplicable mathematics (as quantum General Relativity is required at this point.)
Colloquially, the singularity refers to the ultra-dense, ultra-hot state around T=0 (up to say T=10^-43 secs), and all evidence points to this very much existing.
Whether or not T=0 represents the lowest bound on T is very much work in progress.
God is not a singularity, unless you want to redefine 'singularity' to mean 'that which is God', and then it no longer has any meaning in mathematics/physics. If there is no East
If there is no West
If there is no NorthThen how can I be anywhere?Therefore there is no North Pole...

If you want to quotemine me and ignore the obvious implications in what I am saying then I'm afraid I'm too busy to bother communicating any further Watching you play the fool with my time is not fun

Unfortunately, that is all ICANT wants to do. His disrespect for actual knowledge is blatently obvious. Typical idiot teenager. As a Christian, he needs to go to his pastor and ask him about humility and how one goes about learning topics that are seriously out of his depth. Hopefully his pastor will have the good grace to explain a few home truths.

Yes, I am well aware of these facts My post remains. I attempted to give you some meaning to the word singularity, which you and others throw around with little to no understanding. In return, you act like an idiot teenager who thinks he's sooooo clever.Until you understand what is meant by a 'singularity' how can you possibly ask your question? If you are completely unwilling to learn what the word singularity means, why would I even begin to answer your question?

CS, I hereby offer an invitation to come over to England and stay at my place, where you will be instructed in the ancient arts of sarcasm, irony, and satire

Why do you insist on making such a prick of yourself by refering to Hawking as 'Dr Hawking'? We've been through this before - his title is professor. It evens says this at the top of the page in your link!! Why do you insist on changing it? What perverse pleasure do you gain from this? Is it because of his disability and it gives you a sense of superiority?And the lectures were not at the Isaac Newton Institute - they were at Lady Mitchell Hall on the Sidgwick Site. We had far too many visitors to fit into the old Isaac Newton lecture hall. The arrogance is astounding. You think you can read some of Hawking's comments and suddenly 'I know what it means'!!! I think you seriously overestimate your ability here. utter bollocks oh, believe me... you don't Utter, utter bollocks... you have completely failed to understand what he is saying.

I'll supply the beer I just cannot understand his attiutude here. He's reading notes from a highly technical (albeit advanced-layman) talk and expecting to be able to use what he's learned to formulate his own ideas. And then expects those original notes to back up his ideas... and says that anyone challenging his ideas is essentially challenging Hawking!!! Truly bizarre.

Yes, the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems show the necessity of singularities in classical space-times. Then in the early eighties, Hawking and Jim Hartle developed the No-Boundary Proposal, in semi-classical quantum cosmology, which potentially removed the singularity from a Big Bang type cosmology, leaving a smooth 'South Pole' to the Universe around T=0.This is what Hawking is describing in this lecture. Somehow ICANT has managed to get this completely arse-about-face.

From out of the mouths of babes Thanks T4C, you'll go far...

If you demonstrate it using good replicable science, then who's to complain? But $1000 to the charity of your choice says you don't

*sigh* i.e. - the spacetime is singular if it is (timelike or null) geodescially incomplete *AND* *IF* it cannot be embedded in a larger spacetime - in other words, the space-time cannot be analytically continued into some larger 'covering' metric, such as what we do with the Schwarzschild black hole, moving from Schwazschild coordinates to Kruskal-Szekeres coordinates, which shows that the 'singularity' at r=2M is not really a singularity at all, but simply an artifact of the coordinate system.This is used to determine that a space-time will be singular if it obeys the above two conditions. If we take a space-time that has a blatent singularity in its metric, such as the 'big bang' FRW space-time, then it's not that particularly useful!!! It's f'ing obvious it has a singularity. WHAT? What the hell are you asking? What has this to do with what Hawking says above? He's talking about a situation where there are no analytical continuations that will save you from a definite curavture singularity. You do not understand this at all. I would never expect anyone below a student of general relativity to understand this. Why are you wasting my time? No. 'Gravity curls up spacetime' is a simple layman statement of Einstein's General Relativity. Hawking says 'gravity curls up spacetime so that it has a begining and an end', which is just another statement of the singularity theorems. Yes, but not in any way you understand. You think this means some temporal causal relation between positive curvature of spacetime 'in the past' 'causing' a singularity 'in the 'future'. Utter bollocks. Here we are considering the entire 4d solution and this is not a causal relationship. Think of it more as a boundary condition when solving a 4d elliptical differential equation. In classical GR there is no 'before', so your question is meaningless. In classical GR there is no 'before', so your question is meaningless. Meaningless garbage resulting from completely failing to understand the point above.In the standard classical big bang cosmology, T is larger than or equal to zero. T=0 is the singularity. As ever, there is no before. hardly No, it wasn't. I have no complaint whatsoever to you referring to him as Hawking, Stephen Hawking, SWH, Prof Hawking, etc, etc. He is just NOT 'Dr Hawking'. It is not his title.

When a first year physics/maths undergrad stands up in a lecture hall and announces that they can prove God using the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems, they get reviled, pelted, laughed-at, and chased off campus. Then you are going about this entirely the wrong way...

The unbelievable arrogancy that you don't leave room for the possibility that you may have completely misunderstood what he was saying...

No, the singularity is a point in space-time (taking the easy case of a closed FRW), specifically the point T=0. Every other point in the Universe lies to the future of the singularity. Yes Yes Not really relevant but ok has No, for all points T>=0. The Big Bang is at T=0. No, for all points T>=0. The Big Bang is at T=0. Nonsense, the singularity is at T=0.Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

As Hawking said, the positive curvature of the space-time.