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The Big Bang is so unbelievable
The Big Bang is so unbelievable

The Big Bang is so unbelievable

crossword
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Posted 08/03/07 - 05:54 AM: Subject: The Big Bang is so unbelievable	#1
Call me an ignoramus but I can’t really believe that some matter exploded and gave birth to the immense universe we have today with its billions of planets. I mean that just seems so unbelievable to me, that the simple formless whatever that gave rise to the Big Bang could have exploded into the complex immense Universe guided so strongly by scientific principles. What, did the Big Bang created science too as well as creating time and space? It seems to have done so many things that we should probably be worshipping the Big Bang as god – except its hard to look up to something that has no mind or intelligence. And hard to believe that something with no mind or intelligence could have given rise to the ordered complexity that is the Universe, where even in chaos there is superimposed some kind of order, some scientific rules that guide the workings of the universe. I have no problem believing in evolution – I think there is enough proof of that. and obviously evolution makes far more sense than the Biblical version of events. I just can’t believe that a process like the Big Bang could have created this immense, possibly infinite universe. And the theory of many universes collapsing upon themselves way back into infinity makes no sense to me either. But the Big Bang theory is pretty much accepted...and I’m wondering how it could be even possible.

Kwalish Kid
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Posted 08/03/07 - 06:02 AM:	#2
I'll call you an ignoramus for starting a new thread on the topic when you already have one going. The Big Bang theory is a theory of the history of this universe, not so much about its origin. If you'd like to know how it's possible, you really have to study the science. According to the Big Bang theory, all that was required for the complexity that we see today was there in the early history of the universe: physical laws and slight differences from place to place. Take those two things and stir and, given enough time, you'll get complexity.
_____________________ "Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive nature of things." - KM, V, P and P "A fishnet is made up of a lot more holes than strings, but you can't therefore argue that the net doesn't exist. Just ask the fish." - Jeffrey Kluger "…Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people." -Ben Stein

Opies
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Posted 08/04/07 - 11:14 AM:	#3
well judging from your post you dont even have the slightest idea about the concepts behind the big bang. Try learning more about it before you call it too strange to be true
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Landlady
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Posted 08/07/07 - 10:12 AM:	#4
The Expanding Universe - The Big Bang (The World Almanac video)
_____________________ There is time to laugh and there is time not to laugh, and this is not one of them. - Insp. Clouseau. From the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all. But whether or not one can live with one's passions, whether or not one can accept their law, which is to burn the heart they simultaneously exalt--that is the whole question. � Camus.

PeeGee
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Posted 08/10/07 - 11:33 AM:	#5
The universe occupied mass but occupied no space (singularity). If this is too hard for you to grasp the rest of this post will do you no better. Since the entirety of existence (at that 'time', even though time has no meaning with matter occupying nil space) occupied a distance smaller than a concept called 'planck length', causality and known physical laws fall apart. Consequently we don't even know if matter came from nothing (ex nihilo), or always existed (ie: conservation of energy law)
_____________________ The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

MoridinDeath
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Posted 08/11/07 - 07:41 AM:	#6
There is actually scientific evidence for such an occurence. For example, we have got Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) that is the afterglow of the Big Bang (CMBR was predicted by the theory). It corresponds to currently established theories and laws, which is why it has been accepted widely despite its "unbelievability". In any case, much of science is also unbelievable - how do you visualise gravity? Two planets pulling each other with invisible hands? Also, Big Bang is simply the means to the end of creating our universe - as to the cause of the Big Bang, that has yet to be determined. Cosmologists actually answered that problem as follows: It is irrelevant to ask what happened before the Big Bang since time only began with the Big Bang (ie, there is no such thing as time before BB). Therefore, it is also out of point to ask what CAUSED BB.
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tr0lle
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Posted 08/12/07 - 06:33 PM:	#7
Technically matter didn't explode, and it wasn't a bang. It was more or less a gigantic expansion/inflation at a rate of the singularity doubling it's size every 10x34th of a second. And on the subject, could anyone point me to some good sources explaining the "Big Bang" besides from Wikipedia and A Short History of Nearly Everything?

Exigency
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Posted 08/13/07 - 04:34 AM:	#8
crossword wrote: What, did the Big Bang created science too as well as creating time and space? It seems to have done so many things that we should probably be worshipping the Big Bang as god �" The Big Bang is an event, to worship it as a God would be akin to a religion created to ensure the life-giving Sun rose everyday through worship. crossword wrote: And hard to believe that something with no mind or intelligence could have given rise to the ordered complexity that is the Universe, where even in chaos there is superimposed some kind of order, some scientific rules that guide the workings of the universe. Well, the underlying law of the Universe is entropy and chaos, where everything is in a state of degeneration or collapse. Moreover, the rules that govern the universe aren't exactly universal. On the atomic level there is a whole new set of physics completely different to that of everyday Newtonian physics, and we have limited idea what's going on in black holes, for example; the laws there could be completely different again. There is also a teleological question of form and function: Do the rules guide the universe , or does the universe guide the rules? It may be useful to look at this "And hard to believe that something with no mind or intelligence could have given rise to the ordered complexity that is the Universe'' from this perspective: The atoms that make up your body have no mind or intelligence, but they create the ordered complexity that is your person; an ordered complexity with a mind and intelligence. If you can believe that you exist, then surely the Big Bang isn't more outrageous a concept than the existence of yourself.

Exigency
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Posted 08/13/07 - 04:44 AM:	#9
Edit: Triple Post Edited by Exigency on 08/13/07 - 02:20 PM

Exigency
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Posted 08/13/07 - 05:32 AM:	#10
Edit: Triple Post Edited by Exigency on 08/13/07 - 02:20 PM

MoridinDeath
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Posted 08/13/07 - 07:52 AM:	#11
The Goldilocks Enigma by Paul Davies explains a lot about the Big Bang... in layman's terms =)
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PeeGee
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Posted 08/13/07 - 09:55 AM:	#12
tr0lle wrote: And on the subject, could anyone point me to some good sources explaining the "Big Bang" besides from Wikipedia and A Short History of Nearly Everything? Are the source documents to create the wikipedia document good enough? * Barrow, John D. (1994). The Origin of the Universe: To the Edge of Space and Time. Phoenix, 150. * Alpher, R. A.; R. Herman (August 1988). Reflections on early work on 'big bang' Cosmology. Physics Today, 24–34. * Mather, John C.; John Boslough (1996). The very first light: the true inside story of the scientific journey back to the dawn of the universe, 300. ISBN 0-465-01575-1. * Singh, Simon (2004). Big Bang: The most important scientific discovery of all time and why you need to know about it. Fourth Estate. * Cosmic Journey: A History of Scientific Cosmology. American Institute of Physics. * Feuerbacher, Björn; Ryan Scranton (2006). Evidence for the Big Bang. * Misconceptions about the Big Bang. Scientific American (March 2005). * The First Few Microseconds. Scientific American (May 2006).
_____________________ The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

PeeGee
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Posted 08/13/07 - 09:56 AM:	#13
tr0lle wrote: And on the subject, could anyone point me to some good sources explaining the "Big Bang" besides from Wikipedia and A Short History of Nearly Everything? Are the source documents to create the wikipedia document good enough? * Barrow, John D. (1994). The Origin of the Universe: To the Edge of Space and Time. Phoenix, 150. * Alpher, R. A.; R. Herman (August 1988). Reflections on early work on 'big bang' Cosmology. Physics Today, 24–34. * Mather, John C.; John Boslough (1996). The very first light: the true inside story of the scientific journey back to the dawn of the universe, 300. ISBN 0-465-01575-1. * Singh, Simon (2004). Big Bang: The most important scientific discovery of all time and why you need to know about it. Fourth Estate. * Cosmic Journey: A History of Scientific Cosmology. American Institute of Physics. * Feuerbacher, Björn; Ryan Scranton (2006). Evidence for the Big Bang. * Misconceptions about the Big Bang. Scientific American (March 2005). * The First Few Microseconds. Scientific American (May 2006).
_____________________ The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

Kwalish Kid
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Posted 08/13/07 - 11:02 AM:	#14
tr0lle wrote: Technically matter didn't explode, and it wasn't a bang. It was more or less a gigantic expansion/inflation at a rate of the singularity doubling it's size every 10x34th of a second. And on the subject, could anyone point me to some good sources explaining the "Big Bang" besides from Wikipedia and A Short History of Nearly Everything? The WMAP page on cosmology: http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni.html Ned Wright's Cosmology Tutorial: http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm The Homepage of the High-z Supernovae Search Team: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/supernova//HighZ.html Papers on the subject before 1995 can be found here: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/ You might also want to check out Bad Astronomy: http://www.badastronomy.com/
_____________________ "Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive nature of things." - KM, V, P and P "A fishnet is made up of a lot more holes than strings, but you can't therefore argue that the net doesn't exist. Just ask the fish." - Jeffrey Kluger "…Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people." -Ben Stein

Kwalish Kid
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Posted 08/13/07 - 11:03 AM:	#15
Edit: Double post thanks to the weird ISP I'm using in China. I'll respond here to the post below. No problem, tr0lle, philosophy of cosmology is what I do, so I have quite a few links on hand. I just gave a talk on it here in Beijing yesterday, and I'll be going to a seminar on the subject in about an hour. If you're looking for more scholarly works, PM me. I don't know if I'll get back to you in the near future, though, since I'll be traveling back home. Edited by Kwalish Kid on 08/14/07 - 02:31 AM
_____________________ "Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive nature of things." - KM, V, P and P "A fishnet is made up of a lot more holes than strings, but you can't therefore argue that the net doesn't exist. Just ask the fish." - Jeffrey Kluger "…Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people." -Ben Stein

tr0lle
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Posted 08/13/07 - 05:22 PM:	#16
I am in your debt to the most extreme sense of the word, thank you, I shall begin reading these immediately.

magiduck
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Posted 12/01/07 - 12:32 PM:	#17
I believe that the big bang is one of the most substancial arguments for the origins of the universe but I'll need more physical evidence to prove it. I've been thinking though when the universe first expanded rapidly it was smaller in size but had the same energy it has now (energy can't be lost) but as it was distributed in a smaller space it was easier to expand. Won't then, as the universe expands more the energy will be spread throughout the universe and so each item will have less energy. Then won't some of the energy won't be used not for expanding and the expansion may decrease in speed and come to a halt. I'm not a professional astronomer or physicist but that's my opinion. Am I correct? Has it already been worked out?
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