Stephen Hawking Has an Idea Regarding What Came Before the Big Bang

[MineralMan]

Before we begin, it doesn't involve any deities. As Hawking said in 2013, the Big Bang didn't need a God to make it happen. What did come before the event that initiated the expansion of our known universe, perhaps from a naked singularity, is a difficult question to answer, since we can't see our universe from outside of it. If this interests you, here's an interesting video, which is part of a video series on cosmology. It's 50 minutes long, and pretty dense, but if you have some time, and such things interest you, I encourage you to watch it. As you might imagine, imaginary numbers are involved, as they appear to be in most of esoteric physics.

It's all informed hypotheses, but it's probably better to have that than magical thinking, I believe:

[Cary]

1. I'll watch this when I don't have to use data.

If time is an illusion then how does something exist in time before the big bang.

[MineralMan]

3. In this concept, time does not exist until after

the Big Bang. It begins with the event and becomes a dimension of its own.

[shraby]

4. I have great respect for his thinking. One probably will never know exactly what was before

the big bang, but his theory is plausible.

[MineralMan]

7. For me, the point is that there is really no need for a creator,

which would necessarily have to exist outside of what was being created. As theories develop and are compared, we are seeing that they can lead to similar conditions at the very beginning, with different results, depending on minor fluctuations. That's what I took from this video, and it seems to bear itself out.

Look at Newtonian physics. It works perfectly in the small scale we deal with, but when one looks at more recent physics, it's clear that the Newtonian model is simply a subset of overall physics. I think something similar is at work today as we look at cosmology. Conceptually, which is the only way I can really examine it, it seems similar to the tie between Newtonian and more well-developed physics theories.

Sadly, I'm unable to follow the actual math being used completely. Conceptually, though, I get what is being discussed and how the theories or hypotheses relate to one another. It's very complicated in detail, but conceptually graspable, I think.

Part of the problem is in language. The words being used by the people in that video are used with different from conventional meanings. When, for example, references are made to "communication" between universes, that word means something different from how we use it in everyday speech or writing.

Also, if you don't understand imaginary and complex numbers at all, references to concepts like "imaginary time" make little sense. So, many people will simply bail out of such discussions and consider them nonsense. For many, they even sound like nonsense, but are not nonsense at all. They're just difficult to understand.

Anyhow, this is fun to follow, for me, anyhow.

[mitch96]

31. Didn't Einstein say you can not destroy mass it just converts to Energy

And visa versa. I remember "someone" saying before the big bang there was just energy and bang! there was a bunch of mass flying out from the singularity.. I might be misquoting but it worked for me..
m

[Eliot Rosewater]

27. Getting clever in your old age, are you

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

26. Easy, there was no Big Bang.

[MineralMan]

2. Of course, if this is too difficult to understand, you can stick to:

Last edited Sat Mar 3, 2018, 12:42 PM - Edit history (1)

"God did it. I believe it. That's all there is to it."

Then, you can go back to doing whatever it was you were doing.

[edhopper]

5. Actually

according to the Collector, before Creation itself, there were six singularities...

[MineralMan]

8. I suspect that the actual number approaches infinity.

That video is very amusing, though, I admit.

[edhopper]

12. Guardians of the Galaxy

was a very fun movie.

[thucythucy]

6. Tagged for later viewing.

Thank you for posting.

[Thyla]

9. For those interested here are a couple of papers on the matter...

All authored by Hartle, Hawking and Hertog in which they propose something called the "No Boundary Measure"

https://arxiv.org/abs/0711.4630

https://arxiv.org/abs/0803.1663

[MineralMan]

10. Thanks. Those will be very useful,

once people have watched the video, which deals with exactly that.

[Thyla]

11. No worries..

I always like to check out the source after or before too. Even if it is a heavy read.

[guillaumeb]

13. Informed hypothesis.

Sounds better than sheer speculation.

Sounds even better than a guess.

But since we cannot see our universe as spectators, it is speculation. And since it cannot be proven or disproven, we can believe or not.

[MineralMan]

14. Science, guillaumeb.

Look into it. Get informed. Or remain stolidly unwilling to learn. Up to you.

[Lordquinton]

16. Drag it down to their level

Only way they can compete.

[guillaumeb]

17. Which does not negate what I said.

Unless scientists can somehow travel back to the moment prior to the Big Bang, or can observe another Big Bang in an adjacent universe, this is speculation.

[MineralMan]

18. And, you apparently did not bother to read my post, in which I said just that.

Please do try, at least a little. That'd be great.

[longship]

19. Oh dear, Gil.

That is one of the oldest theist arguments. If one cannot supply a witness to the Big Bang, god must have done it.

Well, first, the argument is utter poppycock. That's not the way science works. If you do not understand that I suggest that you enroll in a science class.

Second, because of relativity we do have eyewitnesses to the Big Bang. It's written all over the sky as the cosmic background radiation (CBR), among other methods. And anybody can view it. Just detune an analog television set to an unused channel. The snow you see is partially the CBR.

So you too can be an eyewitness. To the Big Bang, about 13.7 billion years ago.

Easy peasey!

And before the Big Bang? We have top people working on that question, too.

[MineralMan]

20. I fear you have wasted your words.

But thanks for writing them!

[longship]

23. Never a waste.

There's always hope for anybody.

I hope.

[guillaumeb]

24. What happened to cause the Big Bang can be reduced to 2 choices.

1) The Creator did it.

2) It just happened, with matter that just happened to be lying around.

I am not disputing that the Big Bang happened, if that was the point of your response.

[longship]

25. Artificial dichotomy.

Which either way puts theism first.

The first presumes the existence of a creator, which is the most popular kind of theist begging the question.

The second is just interposing a gap in knowledge, with the invitation to presume a god in that gap, yet another common utterly fatuous theist argument. Plus, it's a god damned straw man. It just happened???

Theists just do not understand how this works.
It's a kind of making shit up.

I don't think that you want to go that way, my friend.

[guillaumeb]

41. Feel free to enlighten we poor theists.

[MineralMan]

42. He or she just did enlighten you.

You simply did not recognize it.

[guillaumeb]

43. Nice try.

[Lordquinton]

54. It was a good try

But clearly didn't work.

You can lead a horse to water...

[guillaumeb]

44. By the way,

you never did respond to my question about the Giraudoux quote.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

49. *us

[marylandblue]

48. Why do you believe in the big bang then?

We neither travelled back in time or observed one in another universe to arrive at the current theory.

[guillaumeb]

50. I accept that LeMaitre's hypothesis seems to account for

the aftereffects of the Big Bang.

[marylandblue]

52. Hawking's theory is not so different from LeMaitre

Except that it points the way to testable hypotheses about what happened before the big bang. When LeMaitre first developed his theory, he had no physical observations, just calculations based on general relativity.

[LSFL]

51. and unless scientists can travel to the stars

They are just speculating about their nature. I say they are the souls of dead warrior kings.

[ollie10]

33. He said it is speculation what may have happened before the big bang

then you looked down on him and told him to get informed.

OK inform us....since science deals with observable phenomena....just what observable facts, not subject to speculation, can you educate us about before the Big Bang?

I gotta laugh.

Can't you just admit you don't know something? Too much fun to look down your nose at someone, right?

[MineralMan]

34. Watch the video. It takes an hour.

There are several hypotheses about that question.

I do not know about a lot of things. When that happens, I go looking to see what people who study such things think. I do not consult ancient books for such answers. I know way more than those who wrote them.

Stephen Hawking, who is now gone, and his colleagues have thought and reasoned a lot of about this. They don't know, but they have credible ideas about it. Those will be refined as more information is available. The biblical account never changes. People who rely on it will never know much, and what they think they know will be incorrect.

So, watch the video. It's part of a series on cosmology. You can watch the other videos in that series, as well. From there, you can move on to books on the subject, scientific papers, and other materials. Or, you can post something here saying that I don't know anything. It's up to you, really.

BTW, this thread was started over a month ago. In that time, scientists have learned even more. Amazing, isn't it. The Bible, though, still has the same information that it has always had, written thousands of years ago. Is that what you prefer?

[ollie10]

35. Wow you are evading my question!

Big sounding words, though! Even sounds educated! But still no answer.....

I repeat my question.....just what observable facts, not subject to speculation, can you educate us about before the Big Bang?

If you can't reveal any of these observable facts....just why can't you admit that you don't know what happened?

Or at least stop the looking down your snout at someone who rightly observed that this is speculation?

Pretty in that ivory tower I see

[MineralMan]

36. No. I'm not evading your question.

I already said I don't know what happened before the Big Bang. Nobody does. It's the subject of a great deal of research by cosmologists, though. I'm following that research. I am not a cosmologist. I'm a lay person with an interest in the subject.

Here's some advice, though: Stop telling people what to do and insulting them. It's really, really impolite. You can learn about the current state of cosmology research, if you want to. That's why I posted the video, so people who were interested could watch it. Or, you can ignore it and follow your own beliefs. I don't care.

[ollie10]

37. Aw come on.....

Guillie rightly observed that this is speculation. You scoffed at him as being uneducated for that! I would give you some advice...practice what you preach! Please stop insulting him just because he doesn't live in your ivory tower


"Science, guillaumeb.

Look into it. Get informed. Or remain stolidly unwilling to learn. Up to you."

[MineralMan]

39. ..

[ollie10]

40. Predictable response

[Lordquinton]

55. Come-on

Why can't you just give an answer that would require a PhD in astrophysics to start to comprehend?

[Mariana]

46. Are you seriously mocking education on a Democratic website?

It's very surprising to see someone doing that here. It's normally Republicans who dislike education, and have such contempt for educated people.

https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/07/19/most-republicans-have-negative-view-of-higher.html

[ollie10]

47. No

You are creating a straw man argument and I think it is hilarious!

The point was the poster evaded the question.

Education is good. I am a former teacher. Using high sounding words to evade instead of enlighten, not so much

[marylandblue]

15. It's an hypothesis that could be tested someday.

We might be able to produce or simulate a singularity, then we can see what happens in one. That's what makes it science, if it is potentially falsifiable by actual testing. Unlike a god. We will never be able to produce a god, so we can't predict what it would do. Behavior ofnimaginary gods are all over the place, not one a testable hypothesis.

[MineralMan]

22. They've recently come close to that.

Nanoseconds after the Big Bang on an atomic level. Collisions of gold or lead atoms at relativistic velocities. It's pretty amazing what they found.

https://gizmodo.com/physicists-observe-completely-unexpected-effect-in-coll-1821921762

More here:

https://www.bnl.gov/science/QCD-matter.php

[guillaumeb]

45. If we produce a singularity,

it is a result of a direct action.

[Act_of_Reparation]

53. You do a lot of experimental design in your line of work, Gil?

#askingforafriend

[Cuthbert Allgood]

21. I don't believe in gravity.

It's just a hoax I cannot see.

[ollie10]

32. careful guillaumed.....it has been proven

The gods of science have proven it! According to their disciples and their orthodoxy.

The idea that you can speculate what happened before the big bang....can't have that!!! that is heresy!!!! It is established scientific fact as revealed by the Disciples!

[RKP5637]

28. Interesting, thanks, will watch. Darn, and I always thought it was a big fart by The God. LOL n/t

[YessirAtsaFact]

29. Interesting. I always thought the Big Foreplay came before the Big Bang

[LuvLoogie]

38. Then came The Big Cigarette followed by The Big Cab Ride Home.

[Lordquinton]

56. I'm sorry that the memory of Hawking's is already being dragged through the mud

By people who refuse to open their minds. I guess believers have to see the world through their viewpoint, and can't comprehend how science works.

[MineralMan]

58. Yes. It's a sad state of affairs, indeed.

[Permanut]

57. Thanks for posting, MineralMan..

incredible stuff. I'd love to come back for a visit ten thousand years from now, to see if we made it, and to see if we figured out some of the answers to how we got here.