(along with black holes, curved space, etc.), according to Tom Van Flandern:

Physics Has Its Principles

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

"Something is wrong with science - fundamentally wrong. Theories keep getting stranger and stranger.” - Tom Van Flandern

Sorry Mr. Van Flandern but nature is not always obligated to be served up as Meat and Potatoes. Sometimes it comes out as Sushi, Pad Thai, or even Jell-O! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

TvF: ... However, this is a particular case worth considering on its own merits because our primary cosmology today, the Big Bang, begins with the ultimate creation-from-nothing scenario - the mass, space, and time of the entire universe from nothing - as its first step.

Although commonly believed, this is simply not true, and Van Flandern really should know better than to make such an assertion. The focus of big bang cosmology is that the early universe was small & hot, and it has expanded since then, into the universe that we now know. But how the universe came to be that way is a wide open question.

The popularized idea of the universe springing from "nothing" comes out of the singular nature of the beginning in general relativity theory. In 4-dimensional GR alone, the universe indeed comes from "nothing". But quantized GR, or even GR in many dimensions without quantization, allow for the event we call a big bang to have clear physical antecedents. Likewise in string theory (a superset of GR), which allows for the "colliding brane" scenarios, and other models generically named "pre big bang cosmology".

Van Flandern ignores a great many things when it suits him to do so - I think he still has up his "ten reasons the Big Bang is wrong" even though half of them have been made obsolete by recent findings.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Van Flandern's conclusion is logically impossible, since the Big Bang did happen.

The way I see the BB, it doesn't state that something came from nothing. It simply pushes back the creation of the "something" back a bit. The BB postulates a singularity (or whatever) as the origin of the universe. What the BB doesn't (and probably cannot) do is adequately describe the origins of that singularity. That doesn't make it logically wrong, it's simply a definition of the scope of the theory.

But in any case, wouldn't this be a problem with all cosmologies? no matter what you imagine the universe to be, you can always ask the question "Well, what created that?" In fact, with a universe infinite in time and space the question becomes even trickier than with the big bang. What is the origin of something that has no beginning?

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

In science there are people that have the imagination to make theories that make sense out of the universe, and there are other people that don't have the imagination to make sense out of the universe, but demand that you believe their no sense theories anyways, by saying the universe makes no sense.

Nothing tricky here - eternal existence is the origin of self, exactly the same way as today "originated" from yesterday.

At least TvL's Leonid model seems to have been the best predictor of the clumps arrival times.

The way you perceive or approach the issue on hand, raised this issue ('What created the universe'), while it is simply a non-issue.
Let us first define, that the universe is self-contained. Everything that exists, is in the universe. The universe constitues eveything that is.
Further, even though one can say that everything IN the universe has been caused by some previous state, this is NOT TRUE for the WHOLE.
The universe IS, HAS BEEN, and always WILL BE. And there cannot be a cause for the universe.

To think of that in such a way, is a simple misconception. But I think almost anyone makes that misconception.

The only way to arrive at the proper conclusion, is from proper definitions.
First, the universe is everything that is in existence, and as such, cannot have a beginning or end, it just exists.
( So, if the Big bang realy happenned, it follows that what we conceive of the universe, is not the whole, so a 'super-universe' must exist)

Second, and this more or less is a foundation for the first statement, 'nothingess' cannot exist, which explains that 'something' must have always been existent. Existence has no alternative.


Well, if one does not understand this fundamental issue, one is obliged to think that 'everything' came into existence from 'nothing' by an act of 'creation'.
But such an act of 'creation' is logically unnecessary and even impossible.


Btw. in some explenations of the Big Bang, it is supposed that the universe was even at the early stage infinite in extent, and contained an infinite amount of matter.
I think that is a misconception too, cause the issue of contraction or expanding, can only be a feature of a 'universe' which has a finite extent of matter.

Can someone dig into that issue?

One way to perceive of this is as follows.
Let us assume that in some stage, the universe was exactly ordered. There was exaclty one H atom in every cubic unit (conforming the average density we observe it to be now) throughout all of space, which was infinite in extent. We assume we 'create' this state with infinite precission, as to make all forces exactly balance out, or as precise as nature allows us to do.
Well, as nature has peculiarities at the quantum level, such a universe would not be stable, but matter would clutter together, although it could be that a huge amount of time is necessary for even the slightest change in the overall matter distribution to occur. But what DOESN'T happen is that the whole universe collapses on itself. THAT to happen namely, would require an INFINITE amount of time, so best said, that would NEVER happen. And besides of that, WHERE should that overall collapse occur, since all places in the universe are equal candidates. That means it would not happen ANYWHERE.

Got it now?

Of course this 'initial' state is just a thought experiment, in reality there is no initial state for the universe.


PS.
I think such a 'universe' when it had been in such a state, would in the long run just look as our current universe looks.
It is obvious that when TAKING INTO ACCOUNT the infinite of space and extent of matter, although the force of gravity extends throughout all of space, this doesn't give rise to an overall collapse (and therefore there is no need for expansion either), because in the infinitness of space all gravity balances out. That is the very nature of the universe.

PS 2

Let us call this (non-existent) intitial state, as opposed to the HOT BIG BANG model, the COOL INFINITE SEMI STEADY STATE model.
[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

(What's in a name?)

PS 3

And proper reasoning allows you to make the statement that, even though this 'inititial' state was never part of the history of the universe, which indeed is infinite, one can easility derive from this model that the universe as it exists now, behaves in the same way (doesn't collapse or expand as a whole). While on the other hand, in the BB theory, there ISN'T an alternative BUT to conclude that the universe at the beginning was in a bizarre and absurd state, which COULDN'T have happened, and there fore didn't happen. So the model is not valid for that reason.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: heusdens on 2002-11-27 10:54 ]</font>

For the real BB fanatics (and there are a lot out there) this ain't a conclusive statement.
They INSIST on saying that the universe was a bit smaller yesterday as today...

This is not true. An infinite universe can just as well expand and contract.

Here's why Quasi-Steady State is bunk:

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/stdystat.htm

Yeah. Didn't you look up in the sky, and saw all these galaxies and stars???

It means that contractions is happening everywhere!!!

Everything IS contracting, like I explained in my model. But it is not contracting on itself as a WHOLE, but only in finite extents of the infinite.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: heusdens on 2002-11-27 12:59 ]</font>

Ha ha ha ha ha/.....

Now, I don't believe this QSS model either, cause it sill goes on assuming this nonsense of creation ex nihilo....


Please critice MY MODEL and not something else, which contains the same nonsense as the BB theory.

For your convenience, I gave it a proper name. It's called by the name "COOL INFINITE SEMI STEADY STATE".

It's totally different then QSS or any other model.

Like it or not, quantum mechanics makes creation ex nihilo a possibility...at least for a little while...

Yeah. The world was just a superposition of wave functions who collapsed at the moment the human observer came into being...

that sort of thing???

If you realy believe this, outside of the context of the microcosmos, then please show me the creation of .. let's say a diamond .. a pound of gold .....

If the universe came into existence out of a vacuum bubble, then that must be a piece of a cake for you!

I submit that we will never truly know the answer to the questions posed, answered, and critiqued here.

My reasoning is not that this is beyond our comprehension or sleuthing ability.

It is that WAY TOO MUCH funding is riding upon not finding the absolute understanding. And I suggest that some of the responses on this page reflect this. This is not to suggest that it is intentful, but that the truth can be blinded by a flash of green.


DJ

Yeah, you know. For some people (calling themselves scientists) this is a way of living, creating illusions, and creating everything from nothing...

Now anyone denying that magicians should have a living too???

But let's say, perhaps they should just perform in theatres, and not use the stage of science for their illuster tricks and cheats.

Science has an important task in explaining the world AS IT IS, and no play tricks with peoples minds!!

You know, a lot of people on this planet don't even have access to proper education, which is a BIG SHAME!!!

I know of many ways how to use those GIGANTIC science budgets, for eduacting and helping mankind with the REAL problems which need to be solved.

So, let's pinch through that self created false images and get rid of those infalting vacuum bubbles theories.

We KNOW what the universe as a self-contained entity is like, it's INFINITE, and that's the only way it can be.

There are a few details worth exploring (just for knowing, not for any practical purposes), but they don't allow us to spend so much money on that!

Yeah, and it's a shame they got almost everybody brain washed on that!

RELIGION is not an alternative to understandint, that's for sure. But current 'inflation bubbled' science can be easily put into that same camp of Creation Scientist, since they in fact don't serve another purpose as to brain wash people into believing "creation ex nihilo" and other mysteries.

And this for the simple fact they refuse to adopt to proper concepts of time, space and matter, and don't want to conceive of an infinite self-contained universe.
Big Bang hypothese is just an inflating lie.
It's a bubble of vacuum, there is realy nothing in it, in fact you cannot even pinch through it, cause it contains nothing.

For real knowledge you must relie on other sources. For a good theory of everything, I would propose you look in the old books of dialectical materialism, because that contains knowledge that is realy different from religion.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: heusdens on 2002-11-27 14:40 ]</font>

No offense, heusdens, but to me arguments like these always seem like some sort of a cop-out. It looks like they amount to just changing the notion of “universe” into something else that couldn’t possibly have had a beginning, by definition.
But this is evading the question. When people ask: “How did the universe begin”, they’re not thinking of everything that “IS, HAS BEEN”, or “WILL BE”.
When the man on the street – like me – asks that question, he’s thinking about the past, not the present, and not the future. And it isn’t even all the past, but some initial moment in the past.
Now, it may be that for physical reasons the question “doesn’t even make sense” (although that’s tough to swallow), but to simply change the defin