Is there any conjecture about the size or mass of the original "glob" in the Big Bang theory? And am I assuming correctly that this would also be the mass of the Universe today?
Posts: 35 | Location: Virginia, USA | Registered: 07-04-02
"The big bang theory states that at some time in the distant past there was nothing. A process known as vacuum fluctuation created what astrophysicists call a singularity. From that singularity, which was about the size of a dime, our Universe was born."
"Fifteen billion years ago, the entirety of our universe was compressed into the confines of an atomic nucleus. Known as a singularity, this is the moment before creation when space and time did not exist. According to the prevailing cosmological models that explain our universe, an ineffable explosion, trillions of degrees in temperature on any measurement scale, that was infinitely dense, created not only fundamental subatomic particles and thus matter and energy but space and time itself. Cosmology theorists combined with the observations of their astronomy colleagues have been able to reconstruct the primordial chronology of events known as the big bang."
Size of a dime or that of an atom nucleus? ********************************************************* 07-05-02, 12:56 PM gerry The size of the big bang at its origin was mighty small indeed. Like no size at all. Zero. It was a Singularity, comprised of tremendous Energy, not mass, as a direct result of infinite space time curvature (gravity, if you will) at such a singularity. We can only surmise it's size 10 to the minus 43 seconds after it's burst, the size of the Planck length, being in the order of 10 to the minus 33 centimeters, more or less.
07-08-02, 12:41 AM PotatoChips No mass - doesn't this defy the most fundamental theories of physics?
No Size? Or the size of a dime? Or the size of an atomic nucleus?
Holding all of the matter of what is the Universe?
Most of the people I have encountered at the Answer Pool seem to be really intelligent! Maybe I'm the ignorant one, but do intelligent people really believe this?
You have one big skeptic on your hands now!
07-08-02, 06:53 AM gerry Dear Skeptic Potato:
Don't forget Einstein's famous E=mc2 equation showing that mass and energy are just equivalent forms of each other. The universe's Mass at the Big Bang singularity was possibly all bottled up in the form of Energy occupying no space. Matter originated from nothing in particle-anti-particle pairs. It is probable that the Big Bang had its origin within dimensions of higher order than the 4 (length, width, height, and time) that we are familiar with. It will be awhile before M-Theory and a Quantum Theory of Gravity bring us closer to the Universe's secrets.
07-08-02, 09:41 AM Minnesota Potato
Physcists say that today's laws of physics cannot be applied to the singularity. In fact, they don't know what laws were in operation before the BB. Speculation is about all they can do. But one thing they are sure of is that matter (mass) did not exist then, only energy, as Gerry points out.
07-08-02, 12:02 PM PotatoChips Man, you guys jumped on this fast! Thanks for answering my skepticism.
I'm just a kid who's worked for a few years who's trying to go back to college, so maybe I'm missing something big here. But in the equation:
E = mc2
aren't Energy and Mass in direct relationship to one another? How can E get larger if m gets smaller?
And if there was no matter or mass to begin with, where did it come from?
Maybe this is one of the great mysteries, like the great time conundrum, that shows little promise of being solved!
...still a newly created skeptic!
07-11-02, 08:37 PM babthrower Potato pancake, remember that a theory is just that.
And 'singularity' is a word used to describe a 'once only' event. Actually, it's kind of a cheat, because it's a way to slip past the overall hypothesis of science, which is that the universe IS consistent.
When scientists speculate about the beginning and end of the universe, they are straying into the area of cosmogony, which is part of metaphysics. So your questions are well grounded.
And any equation is a statement of relationships that is USUALLY the result of some mathematical translations, so does not mean equality in the usual sense. In fact, the problem with inferring information about the universe based on mathematical statements is that of INTERPRETATION of the statements.
So we have to be wary about deciding what the statements MEAN. Example: 1 + 1 =2. But does one apple plus one orange=2 fruit? Yes; but when we divide the right side of the equation by 2, we get what? 1 orange or 1 apple? and when we divide the left side by two, we could claim we got 1/2 apple and 1/2 orange, right? So are we saying that 1/2 orange and 1/2 apple = 1 orange? This is a silly example, I know, but it illustrates the problem of interpretation.
Also, sometimes elements creep into a mathematical statement which are just inferences that the scientist has made: e.g. Einstein's 'cosmological constant'. So in that case the formula was merely a vehicle to express Einstein's intuition about the way the universe works.
Remember that when Newton devised his Laws of Motion he had been playing mathematically with models for a long time, and he finally found one that allowed him to explain the behavior of the solar system far better than any other model up to that time. So we call his theories 'good' because they are useful. It's another thing to call them 'true'.
07-16-02, 01:56 PM Alec Cawley
quote:Originally posted by PotatoChips: No mass - doesn't this defy the most fundamental theories of physics?
No Size? Or the size of a dime? Or the size of an atomic nucleus?
Holding all of the matter of what is the Universe?
Most of the people I have encountered at the Answer Pool seem to be really intelligent! Maybe I'm the ignorant one, but do intelligent people really believe this?
_You have one big skeptic on your hands now!_
Physicists don't actually claim to be able to trace all the way back to the singularity. In fact, all thay claim is to keep tenthng the time from the hypothetical singularity to the time they understand. So originally, they could only describe what happend from 1,000,000 years after the big bang. Then they tenthed that and understood what happened from 100,000 years after the BB. And they kept on doing this, and now thinnk thay undestand back to about 10^-8 seconds after the BB. But every time they do this tenthing, the physics gets wierder and wierder - which is understandable. But the nature of this progress means that they will never reach the singularity, so they will never explain the infinities when the singularity is reached. Byt, to answer the drift of your point, they do clame to understand matter at mind-boggling densities. That is why they need those county-sized particle accelerators - to create in a miniscule volume conditions like the univers at only a few seconds old.
07-17-02, 07:49 AM Matiqua I've been reading alot of Astronomy books recently and one of them (I think it's Exploring the Universe, by Roy A. Gallant) says that the big bang was an extremely dense ball of gas that for some reason exploded. The gas went off in all directions and went on to form the galaxies, stars and planets. Those galaxies furthest away from us are receding fastest, causing the universe to expand. Eventually one theory says that the galaxies will slow down and stop and go back where they came from. Then, they'll all condense into a tightly packed ball of gas and explode again.This causing the big bang to happen over and over again forever.
07-18-02, 10:13 PM Minnesota Matiqua
I would be very, very hesitant to rely on a book on astronomy that came out in 1971. Far too much changes far to quicky in astronomy. That the BB was initially a dense ball of gas, and that the expansion of the universe will stop and reverse itself are ideas that were discarded years ago.
07-19-02, 10:03 AM gerry Although the universe presently appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate, to my knowledge, the possibility of it collapsing again into a Big Crunch has not been ruled out.
07-19-02, 11:29 AM Minnesota gerry
Very little is ever ruled out as absolutely impossible, but from what we presently know of the expansion cosmologists have been persuaded that the universe is open, and not closed. As in all the sciences, statements are made from the best evidence available, and always with the understanding that they are subject to revision or discard.
07-19-02, 11:44 AM methos babthrower... a singularity is NOT a once only event. A singularity is a point in space with zero volume. (i believe the estimates of "dime sized" are based on the furthest back we've got a solid theoretical model for... the time before that, as has been mentioned, is too complicated for our current scientific knowledge). The estimate of atom-sized was most likely someone just trying to get across that it was incredibly small, but was inaccurate. There are many singularities in the universe in the form of black holes. I don't know what the current estimate of the number of black holes in the universe is, but there is one at the center of every galaxy as well as many others. scientists also debate whether or not certain particles, such as electrons and quarks, are singularities, but no one is sure about those yet. The difference between these singularities and the one just before the big bang is that they have less mass-energy.
As far as the mass energy relationship, think of it as a currency exchange. on one side of the equation, you have dollars($), on the other you have pennies(c).
c = 100*$
Say you have $3 in dollars and no pennies. This is like having a lot of mass but no energy. Then you exchange your $3 for pennies. You now have 300 pennies and no dollars. This is like having a lot of energy but no mass. the two can be freely exchanged, but the total always has to equal the same thing ($3).
07-19-02, 12:41 PM babthrower As you know, singularity theory has broad applications in mathematics and science, not just in astronomy. "The main goal in most problems of singularity theory is to understand the dependence of some objects of analysis and geometry, or phenomena from physics or some other science, on parameters. For generic points in the parameter space their exact values influence only quantitative aspects of the phenomena, their qualitative, topological features remaining stable under small changes of parameter values. However, for certain exceptional values of the parameters these qualitative features may suddenly change under a small variation of the parameter. This change is called a perestroika, bifurcation or catastrophe in different branches of the sciences." So, in the context of astronomy, the Big Bang is seen as a 'once only' event. Mind you, there are some astronomers who believe that the origin of the 'big bang' was a 'big crunch', so for them it would not be a 'once only' event.
07-19-02, 12:57 PM Minnesota babs
Would you give your source please. 07-19-02, 01:40 PM gerry Minnesota...if you define the word "persuaded" to mean "convinced", I would find it very difficult to believe that most cosmologists are convinced that the Universe is open. There is still much unknown.
07-19-02, 04:07 PM babthrower Don't remember exactly, I had it written on a 3x5, but if you search the net, something like 'singularity' and 'mathematics' and 'physics' you can find it or a similar use.
07-19-02, 05:33 PM Minnesota Thanks Babs. I'll take a look around.
Gerry:
I used "persuaded" in the sense that they are conviced enough of its reasonableness that it makes sense to use the concept, if necessary, in investigating cosmological questions. "Convinced" as with "persuaded" need not mean, "to an absolute degree." Often both terms are used alone with a tacit understanding that they express a qualified belief or stand.
As I said above, and I repeat it here, "As in all the sciences, statements are made from the best evidence available, and always with the understanding that they are subject to revision or discard." Statements in science relating a conviction or persuation always carry the proviso above. No matter to what degree a scientist is convinced of a "fact," I would doubt that any would say their conviction carries the weight of absolute irrevokable certainty. Which, of course, allows them to accept those "unkowns" from future research and investigation that you mention.
07-19-02, 09:19 PM gerry You do make a convincing (persuading) argument. But i still find it surprising that most would be convinced of an open Universe. An open universe implies one that will expand forever, and that's a long long time, resulting in a universe with zero density. The Hubble Constant has been all over the place in the past years, going from high to low to somewhere in between. M-Theory (String Theory), which many feel is the Theory of Everything, is still relatively in its infancy. A Quantum Theory of Gravity, which may unlock many of the Universe's secrets, is still years away. The Critical Mass of the Universe, determining whether it is closed or open, is still unknowm, especially in light of the mysterious dark matter which some feel comes from dimensions beyond our own. And then there's Gravity itself, space-time curvature, which still remains the greatest mystery of all. Can it halt the expansion? With all these unknowns, and more, I am certainly not convinced of the fate of the Universe. Maybe in 50 years or more we'll be closer to knowing. I won't be around, so I'll leave it up to our brilliant 13 year old Matiqua to lead the way.
07-22-02, 11:11 AM methos Big Bang Theory my point was not that the big bang wasn't a "once-only-event," although there are many theories that indicate it might not be (for instance the theory that it was a large scale version of the vacuum-energy phenomena which is constantly occuring all around us, producing electrons and positrons and quarks from out of nothing so long as they disappear quickly by annhiliating each other.... this theory suggests that we are one of many universes. or the theory of repeating big bangs and big crunched like you said).
my point was that the term singularity has been improperly defined here. the word comes from the fact the a singularity is located at only a single point, and therefore has no volume. This has nothing to do with whether or not the event is a "once-only" event.
from dictionary.com:
Singularity: Astrophysics. A point in space-time at which gravitational forces cause matter to have infinite density and infinitesimal volume, and space and time to become infinitely distorted.
Mathematics. A point at which the derivative does not exist for a given function but every neighborhood of which contains points for which the derivative exists. Also called singular point.
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