The Big Bang Theory

Today at 06:09 AM LewisWildermuth said this in Post #13




That would be the Bang/Crunch model, which has been tossed out for about ten years or so if I remember corectly...

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Yes, the Bang/Crunch hypothesis has been dead for about a decade, and the final nail was the discovery that the expansion can't be reversed.

However, ekpyrotic has introduced a variant that really would have a continuous round of annihilations/new Bangs as membranes in higher dimensions collided and then pulled apart, only to come together and collide again.

Today at 05:11 PM Jon said this in Post #14

Creationist pick the Big bang most often because its the easiest to show to be wrong.

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LOL! Which is another indication of just how much trouble the creationists are in!

19. MJ Reese, Piecing together the biggest puzzle of all.  Science 290: 1919-1925, Dec 2000.

31st March 2003 at 03:40 AM lucaspa said this in Post #20



That wasn't the origin of the Big Bang.  However, Big Bang has been used that way by many theists as a counter to the common atheist argument of an always existing universe.  According to Hugh Ross, only an atheist would resist the Big Bang. 

And Lerner is an atheist who does just that in The Big Bang Never Happened.  He even borrows from creationists and blames all the bad things in the world on Big Bang theory.  In particular, he blames the death sentence of Salmon Rushdie on the Big Bang!

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As an atheist I would like to distance myself from this man.

Creationist pick the Big bang most often because its the easiest to show to be wrong.

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Fix that:
Creationist pick the Big Bang most often because it appears to be the easiest to show to be wrong

The Big Bang says that once everything was inside a little dot about the size of a period(.)

Now how can you fit everything in this universe into a dot that small?
I can't even put a '2cm X 2cm X 2cm' cube in a '1cm X 1cm X 1 cm', how then can you expect to fit this hole universe into a tiny dot(.)?

I can't even put a '2cm X 2cm X 2cm' cube in a '1cm X 1cm X 1 cm', how then can you expect to fit this hole universe into a tiny dot(.)?

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You can't put a 2cm cube into a 1cm cube because they're inconsistent, by definition. You might have noticed that the Universe doesn't have markings on it - '1cm...2cm...3cm...'
It is the length scale of the Universe itself which is changing.

You still cannot put everything inside the universe into a dot(.)

4th April 2003 at 01:28 PM Jon said this in Post #28

You still cannot put everything inside the universe into a dot(.)

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Says who? As long as there is no maximum density limit for matter, then I don't see why not.

"You still cannot put everything inside the universe into a dot(.)"

Even though this isn't what the Big Bang Model really proposes, I'll ask you, why not? If the force pulling something inward is stronger than the force pushing it outward, won't it shrink indefinitely? Why can't the density of an object approach infinity?

This is, of course, a huge simpliciation of what is going on in the BB Model (in fact it doesn't even resemble the BB Model).

New here, so maybe this has been brought up before.

In the new inflationary theory of the big bang, the origin of the universe is a piece of false vacuum weighing about an ounce, packed into a region of about 10E-26 centimeters (with a density of about 10E80 grams/cubic centimeter). This region expands exponentially by a process where gravity and energy are created (yes, created) as opposites of each other (think of gravity as anti-energy). (See The Inflationary Universe by Alan Guth).

Alas, there is still the question of the origin of the ounce of false vacuum. But this is an incredibly exciting step in our understanding of the origin of the universe.

Just curious about two things:

1. Why is this called "Big Bang Theory" instead of "Big Bang Fact"?

2. Assuming that the one ounce vacuum model is correct, did all matter already exist within the vacuum, or was it "created ex-nihilo" as the vacuum expanded exponentially?

4th April 2003 at 02:02 PM abraham said this in Post #32

Just curious about two things:

1. Why is this called "Big Bang Theory" instead of "Big Bang Fact"?

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Because the Big Bang Theory (like all scientific theories) is an explanation for certain observations about the known universe. That's all it is and that is all it will ever be.

edited to add: "Theory" in terms of science is used differently than in everyday usage. Hypotheses only graduate to theories after rigourous scrutiny and testing.

It was created (in this theory) as the false vacuum expanded - more like replicated, actually - exponentially. The energy density of the false vacuum was very high. When it stopped expanding (replicating) by decaying into normal vacuum, it had lots of energy, which then produced particles as it expanded and cooled.

4th April 2003 at 01:02 PM abraham said this in Post #32

Just curious about two things:

1. Why is this called "Big Bang Theory" instead of "Big Bang Fact"?

2. Assuming that the one ounce vacuum model is correct, did all matter already exist within the vacuum, or was it "created ex-nihilo" as the vacuum expanded exponentially?

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Matter would not be created ex-nihilo but instead was created from the energy released from the false vacuum. As Einstein taught us, energy can be converted into matter (E=mc^2).

So the atoms already existed as atoms in the vaccuum?

First, the Universe was filled with energetic photons, leptons and quarks. As the Universe expanded, the Universe cooled and the quarks combined into mesons and baryons (e.g. protons and neutrons). Later, the baryons were able to form stable nuclei which eventually captured electrons and formed hydrogen and helium atoms. These atoms collapsed into stars, where heavier elements formed by nuclear fusion.

"So the atoms already existed as atoms in the vaccuum?"

Nope, atoms came quite a bit after the initial expansion of the Universe (or Big Bang). Atoms aren't as fundamental as many may think - they are composed of several subatomic particles that are kinda the boundrary line beween matter and energy - i.e. calling a subatomic particle either is a bit of a stretch (depending on the particle they may be more one than the other).

Yesterday at 06:40 PM fragmentsofdreams said this in Post #37

First, the Universe was filled with energetic photons, leptons and quarks. As the Universe expanded, the Universe cooled and the quarks combined into mesons and baryons (e.g. protons and neutrons). Later, the baryons were able to form stable nuclei which eventually captured electrons and formed hydrogen and helium atoms. These atoms collapsed into stars, where heavier elements formed by nuclear fusion.

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Is this fact or theory?

Today at 09:57 PM abraham said this in Post #39




Is this fact or theory?

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All science is theory. Even the theory of gravitation, it's very frustrating to understand the scientific language. Been there done that.