I was wondering if there are any ongoing theories about the existance of the matter before it all blew up. I know that there probabaly aren't many. However I'm just wondering

Aye, there's the rub. You can take your pick between oscillating universes that have been twanging on forever, or models where there was no space or time at all before the BB. I'm a bit of a heretic - I lean towards steady-state, but usually get beaten up when I mention this.
[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_lol.gif[/img]

It really hurts your brain doesn't it when you think about this? [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] I'm not sure which theory I think is the more reasonable one. The universe existing forever is hard to picture...everything has to begin IMO. Yet, I can't see how a big bang could occur without anything to actually cause it.

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The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
--Albert Einstein

Smaug

As I understand it, the big bang is what brought matter into existence. In other words, asking where the matter was before the big bang is like asking what the ice is like 1 kilometre south of the South Pole - it doesn't exist.

However, the latest theories about the origin of the universe (M theory I think it is) talk about membranes in higher dimensions colliding which bring about the creation of our universe. If that's the case, our universe may be but one of many existing inside some sort of ultra-cosmos, the nature of which is even more unusual. But please don't ask me for any more detail than that - I'm making my own eyes water just thinking about it!

Yes. Quantum mechanics.

It says the matter existed and didn't exist.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Argos on 2002-10-30 07:46 ]</font>

Bill Mitchell discusses this in depth in "Bye Bye Big Bang, Hello Reality".
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...071443-1591366

Oh that helps! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_razz.gif[/img]

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"As I lay beneath the Southern Cross, the stars tell more than I could" . . . David Meece

Hey, that's QM for you! The Zen Science. (What is the sound of one quark clapping?)

Simplifying (greatly), QM says that nothing exists until it is observed. To be observed, it must exist longer than the Planck time (10^-43 seconds).

Virtual particles exist for less than the Planck time, so - by QM - they don't really exist.

If the Universe is (was) a "soup" of virtual particles and anti-particles being created and then destroying each other within the Planck time, no laws of mass-energy conservation are violated. By QM, nothing has happened.

But, if somehow just one virtual particle/anti-particle pair failed to destroy each other within the Planck time... Big Bang!

By QM, this creation/annihilation scenario is unstable, requiring a higher energy level than a matter/energy universe to be sustainable. So, the universe is inevitable.

Perhaps the reason there is something instead of nothing is that nothing is
unstable.
Frank Wilczek, UC Santa Barbara

Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.
Niels Bohr

Imagine it like this. A single cube of sugar. This cube of sugar contains everything that can be, or will be, (or that was?) in this single, tiny grain of sugar. Yet, it is infinitely small and contains everything. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] Then something goes wrong! And *poof* the universe is created. Or at least this is my understanding of it put into an odd metaphor.. -Colt

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Be not afraid of any man no matter what his size; when danger threatens, call on me, and I will equalize.

This is all sounding like something that cam out of Hitchhiker's....

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"As I lay beneath the Southern Cross, the stars tell more than I could" . . . David Meece

[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] Glad to know I can aspire to His great writings. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] You should hear my explanation of how "warp" works in Star Trek and it's interaction with subspace. Rugby field, grapefruit, and a guy that can run near the speed of light. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]-Colt

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Be not afraid of any man no matter what his size; when danger threatens, call on me, and I will equalize.

Yesterday the New York Times science section had some interesting possibilities:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/29/sc...ce/29COSM.html

Steady Staters have to contend with a CMB that cannot be explained using conventional integration of starlight ideas. This is why their hypotheses have gone the way of the dogs.

Many of the aspects of Goodbye Big Bang, Hello Reality have been thoroughly debunked in another thread.

One thing we CAN say for sure, though, is that we don't know whence existence. There doesn't seem to be anything a priori about matter, vacuums, and the like. Why they should be around at all is an incredible and awesome mystery that stirs humanity to the bones. There are no observational ways as of yet to get at this subject though.

All we can say is that at some point there was a bang and we don't have the foggiest (from a scientific point of view) why that bang happened, only that the why has to fall in line with current observations.

JS,

"Steady-Staters" don't bother too much of that CMB thing. CMB is the BB'ers' gismo.

Say we try to measure thermal radiation inside a conductive cavity of a few meters diameter suspended in the interstellar vacuum. What do we get, uh?

... and Big Bangers [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_lol.gif[/img] have to contend with a GR theory which is undermined by the pesky singularity that kick-started the Universe. Infinite Energy at t=0?

No chance old fruit, you can't have that big a cake and eat it.

Personally, I like to think of the universe as a static sort of space-time structure (I drop one spatial dimension so that I can visualise it). At one end, it tapers off to a point. The other end just keeps getting larger and larger as we move away from the tapered end, kind of like a cone.

Now, what's "before" the tip of the cone? Well, if you don't have an occilating universe model, you can say that there is no more cone-material there. But the cone-material is space and time.

Then, there is no space or time before the bang. No matter either, because matter has to be in the space. No quantum fluctiations either -- they too depend on time and space. Don't worry though, this isn't "something coming from nothing". I mean, if you were to construct your own little cone out of wood, does the fact that it has a tip mean that it was created from nothing? No, you made it out of wood, not nothing. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

In my opinion, the universe is either all there is, or it is made from something we cannot detect. (Definition of "universe" is subject to change [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] )

Those were the good old days, back in the singularity. Sure, it was a bit crowded, but at least we had a good excuse for never taking our wives anywhere.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

Yep, but beyond your wooden cone lies a work bench, or the cup of coffee that sustained you as you applied the finishing touches. Beyond that, the window to your workshop, beyond that maybe streets or fields and so on. Your example assumes isolation of the cone completely, but from the cone's perspective, there's a stack more "exotic" matter beyond its edges, starting with the air itself.

Ah well, maybe we're just a hypercone on some extraordinarily monstrous multidimensional entity's work bench somewhere/when/how.

This stuff reminds me of something I saw while I was at the Mall the other day....

No, wait a second, that wasn't me!

No, that was me, but I wasn't there.

Agora---

You couldn't be more wrong when you say that Steady-staters don't have to contend with the CMB. In fact, the attempt to show it was integrated starlight was a good one and a popularly held belief of those such as Hoyle. However, now with COBE and MAP we know that that model cannot be true. Dismissing the CMB as made-up data just shows how strangely out-of-touch you are with reality.

Atko-- The singularity is an artifact of the first approximation of the model. There are plenty of fully compatible Big Bang models that do not have the singularity incluing the ecpytotic model (sorry on the spelling, I have only heard lectures on that one and haven't read the papers on it since cosmology isn't my main area), the cyclic model with the DeSitter bounce, and the time-travel universe. None of these have pesky singularities, but they still show up as Big Bangs!

I love reality, that's why I hate the Big Bang. The integrated starlight must have problems with isotropy if the IGM medium is a static gas (or a static degenerate plasma). If IGM engages in flows and slow oscillations, then isotropy is simply guaranteed.