Sho-Nuff, how do you know matter and energy always existed?

Question

I am just curious because I have never seen this said and the proof of this. I have read "A Brief History of Time" and "The Universe in a Nutshell" but never been much of a physicist. And, I am not a typical "Christian" so it's not like I think you don't know what you are talking about, I am just curious.

Resurrectionist...I never said I knew God always existed. That is just a belief I have and I know it could be wrong. It is a God that I want to believe in and that no one else told me to believe in, and I am still trying to figure out what this God is like. I am not making fun of others for their beliefs.

Thanks QED, but I knew all of that. But, this "singularity" thing is confusing me. And, I am talking about matter and energy, not time.

Oh, and when I say I have never been much of a physicist I mean I don't know a whole lot about it - I am not saying I don't like it or anything.

Answer 1

I don't say I know anything. Through what I have learned and my own reasoning eternal energy/matter only makes sense. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. There has never been any experiment that created energy, otherwise we wouldn't have to pay so much for it I'm sure. Energy can be converted into heat or work. Time, by itself, does not exist otherwise we would be able to show what was 10 minutes ago and what is 10 minutes from now, but we cannot. time is measured using motion and distances. Motion and distance are both characteristics of matter and energy. Without matter and energy time cannot exist so I can say that there was never a time when matter did not exist.

I hope this makes sense.

Oh, and please don't think I'm some smart dude. I'm just some dude.

Answer 2

I will take a stab at this (I am similarly not a scientist, but fairly well-versed in the subject).

Think of watching a film strip. We see the universe expanding and cooling. Therefore, we can reason that if we make the film run backwards, the universe will get hotter and smaller.

Using math and quantum mechanics, we can determine what the universe was like as it got very small and very hot (just after the big bang). Thus, we can predict how particles would behave in those conditions, and can derive from that that energy did exist at the first moment of time.

The first moment of time is called the planck epoch (check wikipedia article). It is the first point at which "time" occurs. If makes no sense to discuss "before" this moment. A analogy is it makes no point to discuss a basketball game until the millisecond the centers finger touches the ball on the opening toss.

At the moment of the planck epoch, we know quite about about what the universe was like. Matter and energy are simply different versions of the same thing (e=mc(squared). At the very early part of the bang (planck epoch and just after) there was only energy, but a few milliseconds later matter did begin to form. The inflationary theory also proposes how more matter (stuff) came about from the relatively small singularity of the big bang.

I guess it would be accurate to say energy has always existed, but matter has not. But that is merely an academic distinction.

See the two links below, but the central idea is that there is no "before" the planck epoch, so it makes no sense to discuss "When" matter and energy didn't exist, since they did at the planck epoch.

Answer 3

Well, the short answer is we don't know. You get too far out into esoterica, there is a certain interpretation level that takes over where the data is missing. Has anyone told you about the Hum at the Edge of the Universe? I can't remember now if it is 3 degrees or 4, but apparently some very smart cookie (with very sensitive equipment) has detected a steady hum at a very, very low frequency that is the same in all directions, and people have speculated that it is the remnants of the Big Bang. That is, the Bang is still going on, but we are inside it. That's why the universe is expanding: it's still banging!

But face it, "Let there be light" is as good an explanation as any. We just don't know, except in a speculating, theoretical, interpretative sort of way.

Feel free to join the party, and add your own best guess.

Answer 4

I'm not him, but I can say this; How do you know that god has always existed? Why is it such a stretch to believe that matter and energy did instead (or, if you must, "as well")? Logically it seems that "something" must have always existed. There's no more proof that the universe was once a complete void. Theists are always assuming that. "How did something come from nothing if not for god?" How do they know there was ever a time when there was nothing? Perhaps there wasn't.

Answer 5

According to Quantum Physics, energy can never cease to exist it can only change forms. Matter is energy vibrating at a different level. According to String and M theories, it is speculated that everything is made of energy, nothing is really real not even reality. We maybe living in a hologram, like a big God experiment.

Answer 6

The existence of mater can be seen by the naked eye if we are talking about the Macro scale. Any object is matter. Now days one can see the atoms using 1M X microscopes. As for the energy, we can see its effect on us. Heat, light, sound are all types of energy. You can also measure their intensities, levels, effect ..etc. As for the co existence and transformation from one to the other, Uncle SAM and the others have showed us what the atomic bombs can do. Do we need more prof.

Answer 7

Both matter and energy are the same thing in different forms.
Hey since you are sincerely questioning, check out the Many Worlds Interpretation ( of physics) It might help you

Answer 8

You can't know this. Time is a dimension and the universe had higher dimensions from which matter and energy derive which are timeless.

Answer 9

We don't. As Confucius said: we understand so little of our own life, how can we say what happened before or after?

Answer 10

Oh wow - I just asked a question that goes along with this one very well...