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Originally Posted by Eldaran
This of course, made me wonder just what "nothing" meant.
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Nothing is one of the most difficult concepts for one to wrap their brains around. In this case, it means no matter, no space, and no time, and maybe even no energy.
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I mean, forgive me if I sound hopelessly thick, but if the concentration of all matter that gave birth to the universe existed even one nanosecond before the Big Bang,
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If time starts at t=0, and t >= 0 for all t, then there is no "before" to speak of.
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...then it existed somewhere, not in "our" space-time, since that was contained within the aforementioned concentration of matter, but if it was in existence before the Bang, then something had to contain it. Whether this mystery dimension vanished with the Bang, I don't know (heck, obviously I don't know if such a dimension existed to begin with), but it seems only logical to me.
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It's frequently said that time, space, and matter were all formed in the big bang. This isn't like "the flower formed in the ground", and the flower is constructed using material lying around. It's definitely not like "I couldn't see you until you left your house, so you were created at that time, and before then existed outside of the universe (which excludes your house). It's more like there was nothing to speak of, and then there was.
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Now the second thing eating away at me... What lies "outside the universe".
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Defining the universe as all matter, energy, and space, then there is no "outside". That word doesn't even have any meaning.
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Again, I know I'm oversimplifying, but... If space itself is expanding, then isn't it exapnding into something?
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You mean like, say, more space? Let's include that in the universe, too, then.
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If the universe is finite and expanding, then something has to be containing it, just as something containing the "primeval atom" just before the Big Bang.
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The surface of a baloon is finite and expanding, too. What is it that contains that? Space?
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do you think modern (or future) science will ever arrive at a concept of "nothing" that doesn't necessarily mean "the absence of everything"?
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Look at the word carefully. "No thing". If the word already has a perfectly good definition, why does science need to change it?
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Could a still-undiscovered dimension "hold" our universe, and could something along those lines have "held" the Big Bang?
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Why do you think in terms of something like this not being part of the universe? Basically, you seem to want to redefine universe, but universe is a flexible term. Depending on the situation, you can use "universe" to describe a shoe box.
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Usually, the answers I've read online have been along the lines of " the universe is literally all that exists, so nothing could be outside it", and "time was born at the Big Bang, so there was no before", both of which leave me unsatisfied, since they sound a bit like circular reasoning.
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I'm not sure I see the cycle.
What's outside something that includes everything?
What comes before when the concept of "before" is meaningless?