In the beginning

I was under the impression that nothing can be smaller than the Planck length, so assumed the "singularity" was at least 1 Planck length in diameter. Is this wrong?

G.

The singularity could not be a planckth legnth. Even the planckth legnth is too large. It simply is the smallest legnth that physical matter expresses any gravitational pull.

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Hey, how do you do those cool 'quote other people things'?

Until i find out, sorry i'll just have to do it like this:
Karl: Why does an unknown cause mean there was no cause?

Maybe i should re-word that to "In the beginning, there was nothing... then for no known cause...."

Karl: You seem to see the Big Bang as an explosion in space. It wasn't; it was an expansion of space.

I just said that everything we know and love apparently came out of it. Including space.

Karl: Water? It formed from the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen. But this happened long, long after the Big Bang - heavier elements than hydrogen are formed in stars.
So in a nutshell, water eventually came out of the products of the big bang. Thus, water in a way, did come out of this explosion.

Karl: Well no. Evolution doesn't change mud into anything, because it is a process limited to reproducing replicators. And the total time from the first life to humanity is at least 3 billion years.
I heard somewhere it was 1500 million years, for the first multicellular organisms. These would have been invisible to the naked eye, and therefore look like mud in their natural habitat.

Karl: it is a process limited to reproducing replicators
I dont understand

Karl: If there's negative energy as well the sum total energy...
Whats negative energy? And what if there isnt any?

Karl: at what point does the law of the conservation of energy start to be applicable?
Good question

Gormless: We do not know whether there was nothing prior to the big bang or not. Come to that we don't know if there was a "before". There may or may not have been nothing.
Well if there was something, then the law of conservation of mass was broken (unless negative energy exists), otherwise there was nothing.

Gormless: The "big bang" didn't go bang. There was no explosion, it was an expansion.
I heard it was really hot, and if all the stars are currently flying apart at such high speeds... then they surely something violent sent them outwards. These particles would have to travel through space, and within these particles a sound would be heard. I think its funny if the big bang didnt go bang. It shoulda been called the big expansion of space.

wow so many replies so little time...

How do we know that the laws came into effect after the appearance of a planck length?

Maybe I have got the wrong end of the stick regarding the Planck length then as I was under the impression it was the basis of quantum mechanics as the smallest unit of the three basic dimensions. For example if a sub atomic particle moves, it has to move an exact number of planck lengths. It cannot move half a planck length, for such a distance doesn't exist.

G.

Right, I have heard about that, but when I looked up what a planckth legnth was, it gave a value expressed in sceintific notation. And it said that thing about gravitation.

Basically, the singularity existed in no dimensions, meaning it would have to exist without space. But as we all know, the 0th dimension is a point, meaning something existed without taking up space. Energy in the form of light takes up no space and has the ability to exist in an infinitely small point.

edit- this is true unless the No Boundary theory is correct.

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