What set the universe into motion?

tacoman528 · #1 2nd February 2003, 11:55 PM

This is a question for some of you Athiests,
If the Big Bang occured the way that I've heard Athiests say, "First there was nothing then there was a particle that contained everything, That particle blew up and the universe is expanding and it has ever since."
I've even heard them say that there was something even before the big bang. If there was nothing before the big bang, then where did the particle come from? The 1st law of Thermodynamics says that (without something to create it) no matter can be created or destroyed. Where did the particle come from? If there was matter before the big bang that clumped together to form this infinitesimal particle, then where did that come from. If the Particle had always been there, then what caused it to suddenly start expanding?

P.S.: Try to stay on subject and not veer off into insults and critisizms (Like about Dr. Hovind)

Arikay · #2 3rd February 2003, 12:24 AM

A couple corrections:

It isnt just atheists that hold the views of science. People from all religions can understand science.

I believe it says that energy cant be created or destroyed, it just changes from one form to another.

There are a couple different theories, but unfortunatly no one knows for certain.

Originally posted by tacoman528
This is a question for some of you Athiests,
If the Big Bang occured the way that I've heard Athiests say, "First there was nothing then there was a particle that contained everything, That particle blew up and the universe is expanding and it has ever since."
I've even heard them say that there was something even before the big bang. If there was nothing before the big bang, then where did the particle come from? The 1st law of Thermodynamics says that (without something to create it) no matter can be created or destroyed. Where did the particle come from? If there was matter before the big bang that clumped together to form this infinitesimal particle, then where did that come from. If the Particle had always been there, then what caused it to suddenly start expanding?

P.S.: Try to stay on subject and not veer off into insults and critisizms (Like about Dr. Hovind)

RufusAtticus · #3 3rd February 2003, 12:25 AM

Tacoman,

Are you ever going to respond to that email I sent you a while back? I can always post it here if you need to remember it.

The 1st law of Thermodynamics says that (without something to create it) no matter can be created or destroyed. Where did the particle come from?

m = e/(c*c)

David Gould · #4 3rd February 2003, 12:27 AM

Matter not being created or destroyed is all about conservation of energy - in other words, if you have X amount of energy at one point then you will always have X amount of energy. You can alter what form it is in - in other words, you can have a bit of mass, a bit of velocity, a bit of heat and so on - but the total of all that must equal X amount of energy.

A lot of evidence suggests that the net amount of energy in the universe is zero. The universe, for example, has a charge of zero (it is not positively or negatively charged). Gravitational energy seems to cancel mass energy. There are some subtleties to the idea that I am not competent enough to understand but the tentative conclusion seems to be that the universe has zero energy.

If the universe has a net total of zero energy then its existence does not break the law of energy conservation.

As to how the universe became structured as it is, with the zero energy divided into areas of positive and negative energy, I do not know.

M-Theory has some interesting ideas but they are not testable at the moment.

I will wait and see what we discover.

tacoman528 · #5 3rd February 2003, 12:40 AM

To each and everyone of you,
okay, matter can be coverted to and from energy. Alright, sounds good to me. Now where did that energy come from?

tacoman528 · #6 3rd February 2003, 12:42 AM

To Atticus,
Sorry about that, my E-mail gets so much spam its rediculous. I'll go and see your message right now.

RufusAtticus · #7 3rd February 2003, 01:27 AM

Originally posted by tacoman528
To each and everyone of you,
okay, matter can be coverted to and from energy. Alright, sounds good to me. Now where did that energy come from?

Possibly a quantum singularity.

David Gould · #8 3rd February 2003, 01:29 AM

Originally posted by tacoman528
To each and everyone of you,
okay, matter can be coverted to and from energy. Alright, sounds good to me. Now where did that energy come from?

As I said, there is a net total of zero energy in the universe. Zero energy does not need to come from anywhere - you get nothing absolutely free of charge. 

If you are asking how did that zero energy get spread out into the structures that we observed today, I don't know.

seebs · #9 3rd February 2003, 01:31 AM

Originally posted by tacoman528
This is a question for some of you Athiests,

Well, I'm not an atheist, but I probably give the same answer that most of them do - "I don't know, but we have some interesting theories".

It seems to me quite possible that the universe as we know it was created directly by God, but for all I know, it resulted from natural processes on a larger scale outside the scope of anything we can comprehend or perceive. I'm not gonna limit God to my imagination.

LewisWildermuth · #10 3rd February 2003, 01:43 AM

Originally posted by tacoman528
To each and everyone of you,
okay, matter can be coverted to and from energy. Alright, sounds good to me. Now where did that energy come from?

We don't know yet, maybe it has always existed in a pre-universal soup, maybe it was made in some pre-universal event.