Universe Race

Why don't you save everybody some time and just ask, "Why does the universe exist?"

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

Personally, cd, I think you should take Admin's advice. Ignore him. If you want, use his comments if it inspires you to write a further explanation or clarification that will edify the readers on some point, but basically realize that you are not really speaking with ICANT. Hell, I'm not even sure anymore that he isn't really trolling.And if you really can't think of anything to say that hasn't been repeated several times already, then just ignore him. Let his inane posts rot on the vine.

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

Welcome to EvC, Mac. To be more precise, we can't say anything meaningful before t=10^-40. Our current understanding of the laws of physics don't work past this point in time -- the energies and densities become too large and the "size" of the universe too small.- Well, with the currently accepted physics, we can't do anything at all with the time before t=10^-40.- The inconsistencies between GR and QM don't need to be explained -- they're there. I think you mean "resolved."What theorists are doing is trying to construct a theory that will work in the areas where GR and QM are currently inconsistent. There are several candidates, as far as I know. This is a difficult field because it is very difficult to test these theories -- the areas where they differ from standard GR and QM are at conditions that are inaccessible experimentally, and it's probably hard to take apply them to the time before t=10^-40 and extrapolate it forward to find new cosmological phenomena to observe.- I don't know why, "It must be God!" is better than "I don't know. Let me try to find out." But then I don't really understand the theistic mindset.

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

I don't really know. I don't really have the training to truly understand this particular field, and I haven't even kept up with the popular science accounts in the last decade so what I think I know is probably out of date.- That may very well be true. I don't know about those particular theories, but I think our theories are getting close to a point where we might not be able to test them. And, in that case, we start getting into things that no longer fit into what we consider to be science.But they are certainly close to science -- they are serious attempts to mathematically model areas that we do not yet clearly understand. It's possible that our concept of what science is will change to accomodate this type of work. The definition of science has changed in the past (to accomodate geology and biology, for example), and it's likely to change in the future.

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

No, it pretty much crawls there all by itself until dragged out by people who don't understand science much.

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

Wow! The "whoosh" as that joke went over johnfolton's head knocked me on my butt!Edited by Chiroptera, : wind -> "whoosh"Edited by Chiroptera, : typo in correction

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

No, we have not.Using the equations of General Relativity produces a singularity at t=0, meaning that the equations of General Relativity do not work at t=0. Hence we really know nothing at all about t=0.In fact, we already know that General Relativity does not work before t=10^-40 (Son Goku, correct me if I'm wrong here). Therefore, we really know very little about what is going on before t=10^-40. For all we know the "true beginning" may have been at the time GR gives as 10^-75. Or maybe the "true beginning" of the universe occurs way earlier than the time that GR produces a singularity.Maybe, just maybe, the universe extends infinitely far into the past. Or maybe time itself will cease to have any real meaning whatsoever in the new theory that replaces GR for describing this era, so talking about "before" or "after" becomes meaningless.No one can really say much about anything at all about the universe before t=10^-40.Added by edit:Or cavediver! I see cavediver is logged in. Maybe cavediver can correct my errors!Edited by Chiroptera, : typo -- dpurious character in exponentEdited by Chiroptera, : More typos. Fat lot of good preview does me.Edited by Chiroptera, : No reason given.

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

Heh.Anyway, even if there is a t=0 point in time, there probably wasn't anything before t=0. Not even nothing.

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

Well, be a little more accurate. People are telling you that there is no scientific answer, at least not yet.And some, like me, have been saying that there may not even be a scientific answer in principle.But because there isn't an answer doesn't mean that one can just believe whatever one wants. When there isn't an answer, then one simply accepts that there isn't an answer.Well, okay, one can always believe what one wants; one can even believe what one wants even when there is a scientific answer. We see this all the time here, where people believe that the earth is only a few thousand years old even though it is very clearly billions. Of course that is foolish, believing what one wants despite the actual answer being very clear. But I don't think it's much less foolish to believe what one wants even when there is no clear answer whatsoever.

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

The part where we're not saying, "Omigosh! Materialist atheism is completely wrong! There must be a God!"

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

Well, no, there are no assumptions required, except that we can generally trust what we see and make logical inferences based on that (at least in a collective manner, since individuals can always be wrong).From t=10^-40 until today, we have a general idea of what the universe was like and what has been happening. This is not mere assumptions, simply using the laws of physics as we observe them, and comparing our ideas with what we see when we look at the universe around us. This general procedure is good enough to figure out cigarettes can kill people, it's also good enough to flesh out some of the details of the universe since t=10^-40.Before t=10^-40, we know nothing. We cannot make assumptions until we have a theory that will work under the conditions that existed then. If and when we have a theory, we can then, under the assumption of that theory, make predictions of what we should see in the universe around us today. If the predictions don't match observation, then the assumption was wrong and we discard the theory. If the theory regularly predicts phenomena that we actually do see today, then the theory is confirmed, and the theory will no longer be an assumption but a reasonable inference of what the universe was like.But we are not yet at that stage. We know little about the time before t=10^-40, and we really can't make assumptions. Now some scientists may make assumptions on an ad hoc basis to come up with some educated guesses about what the universe was like before t=10^-40, but no one can be expected to accept or trust the assumptions until a real theory is developed.

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

Sounds pretty sensible to me.- If you are talking about what occurred before t=10^-40, I wouldn't be so pessimistic. We may come up with a theory that works during this time, and that theory may suggest testable predictions.If you're talking about the question, "How did the universe begin?" then I am inclined to agree with you. I don't think the question is even askable, much less answerable.- Ah. So you've already made up your mind about the truth, have you? Well, I wouldn't recommend just making stuff up as you go along as a regular course of action myself, but good luck with it.-The rest of your post doesn't really touch upon the early universe, except that you obvious feel some sort of emotional distress concerning the topic. Good luck with dealing with that.

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

Sure. This is just like predicting where the planets will appear in the night sky. In order to calculate their positions, we use the theory that they revolve about the sun in ellipses according to Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion. But we need to input certain initial conditions in order to make these calculations, namely, the eccentricity of each orbit, their semi-major axes, how much the orbits are tilted with respect to the ecliptic, and so forth. Keplar's Laws do not give us these parameters -- they must be figured out based on how we see them move now; one they are figured out, then they can be input into the theories to predict where they will be in the future.The fact that these need to be input by hand does not mean that the planets do not orbit the sun in Keplerian orbits. In fact, that we can come up with a set of parameters for the orbits that work for known positions in the past is itself confirmation of the existence of Keplerian orbits. And, of course, we continue to test the theory of Keplerian orbits by computing future positions of the planets.This is like the parameters that go into Big Bang. Our physical theories do not give us the values of these parameters; they must be figured out by what we see. But the fact that a set of parameters can be found that does lead to what we see today is itself a indication that the theories are correct. And, in fact, using these parameters cosmologists can predict phenomena that were not used to figure out the parameters. In other words, the theories with the parameters inputted then lead to predictions that can be checked.Just like Keplerian orbits.- No, we use some observations to determine the correct values of some of the parameters; then predictions are made and compared with observation.Sometimes the parameters need to be fine tuned -- that is like all areas of science -- as more observations come in, the theory may need to be tweaked a bit. You aren't criticizing Big Bang here -- you are citicizing the science that produces vaccines for your kids and the computer at which you are sitting. I'mnot sure why you accept that this same procedure allows us to build computers and send satelites into orbit but can't be used to find out about the early universe.

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

Then what are you arguing about in a thread about cosmology?- Then go to a street corner and pass out leaflets.This is a thread about the science of cosmology. It's purpose is to explain the science as well as it can, with which you claim to agree, and to try to convince people that the science is sound, with which you also claim to agree.There is nothing in this thread about creators or eternal souls.

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies

So, we're done talking about Big Bang now?

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
-- The Barenaked Ladies