Doesn't the big bang theory violate the thermodynamic laws of physics?

Question

If matter is neither created nor destroyed, how can the universe, with all it's matter (stars, planets, etc.), be formed from "nothing," as astronomers tell us? First there was nothing, then a giant explosion, then the universe formed. Seems to violate the laws of conversation of mass and energy, doesn't it? What am I missing?

Sorry, I meant the "conservation" of mass and energy, not conversation! Dumb typo.

Answer 1

Nowhere in the Big Bang theory it says that before it there was nothing. Basically because the big bang theory does not study what caused it and what was before it.

So your whole statement is wrong from its basis. The thermodynamic laws where not there before the big bang. Matter and energy and laws that govern it are for this universe we live in and experience daily and did not start to apply to only a few fractions of a second after the big bang.

Just an addition for Mr Drummer boy below.

When you start going back to far, things become fuzzy. The physical laws we’re all familiar with start to break down under such high energy densities. Really weird stuff starts to happen, like different fundamental forces ceasing to exist and merging with one another.

Thanks to work in particle accelerators, which can recreate such high energy densities for brief fractions of a second, we’re starting to get a feel for how physical laws operate under these conditions, and thus, are slowly working our way backwards. But there comes a point where we just don’t have a good enough handle on things to be able to say how things work back to pretty early (10-35 seconds), but things were happening so fast and furiously, there’s still a long ways to go before we can uncover what happened to cause the whole mess.


We only now start to see what was like in the very few fractions of the second after the big bang and there is plenty of evidence in the universe that something like that took place.

Oh by the way I cannot believe that you are a physics major and wrote to us that 10 to the minus 43 is .10000000000... which is obviously equal to 0.1 - 10 to the minus 43 is 0.000000000000000000000(42 zeros)1. If you got a physics major I am an astronaut.

Answer 2

The Big Bang theory only says that the universe, at some point, was compressed into a tiny space, and the basically "blew up," but doesn't go into where the energy/matter came from. Scientific theories do have limits. The rules of chemistry don't apply before there were atoms. The rules of nuclear physics don't apply before there were nuclei. Classical physics doesn't work at small size scales, and quantum mechanics doesn't explain gravity. The second law of thermodynamics is statistical and can be violated on a small scale by random chance. Science is not a perfect description of the universe, but it's the best approximation we have.

So where did the matter/energy for the Big Bang come from? You can say Santa Clause brought it over all nicely wrapped on his sleigh if you want. Its a nice story to tell little kids, but the adult answer is we don't know. Either we don't know yet, or it may never be possible to find out, or only theoretical physicists will "understand," where it came from, which is quite possible. Quantum mechanics already doesn't make much sense, but it works perfectly. We may have to resign ourselves to the idea that we won't understand a part of nature completely unless we devote our lives to its study, because there is so much to know.

Answer 3

First of all: Sporadic's answer is a world-class cop-out! There have always been laws of physics. Just because we were not here yet to name them does not mean they did not exist. That is like saying America did not exist before Leif Erickson discovered it!
So that being said, there are THREE laws of Thermodynamics, and the First Law--the conservation of Energy--is the only one that the Big Bang theory does not quite adhere too, YET!
Law #2--is basically entropy, that choas within a system will increase over time. We see this is true from the expansion and cooling of the Universe. Law #3--Absolute Zero is unattainable. The Big Bang has no problem with the law, since it was comprised of termendous, unimaginable heat. So the first law about matter energy not being able to be created? Well, we can go back to 10 to the minus 43rd of a sceond after the Big Bang. That number looks like this: .10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000. Not bad, huh. As far as what came before. Many cosmologists now think that this Bang could have been only one in a series. Like how bubbles on the surface of water expand, pop, expand, pop, etc. As to what energy started that cycle? Well, answer that and win yourself a Nobel Prize, my friend!

Answer 4

Matter and energy are interchangeable. There are some in the quantum physics world that matter does not matter. Energy does. Energy is the only thing that exists, everything else is irrelevant. Also. many scientists speculate that the Big Bang was the collapsing and eventual explosion of all the energy currently available in the universe. On a personal note: Maybe we are living on universe V2.0. The first universe could have been a collapsing universe and ultimately collapsed so much that there was no way to go but out.

Answer 5

The laws of physics are just mathematical formulas for regularities that have been observed in nature, not absolutes handed down from some all knowing being. We have never observed a Big Bang, except from a 15 billion year distance, and only after the fact, so we don't know if any of these regularities, that we observe in the already existing universe, strictly apply to a Big Bang, of they came to apply as a result of the Big Bang. -- Regards, John Popelish

Answer 6

and He said..."Let there be light". Sorry to mix religion with science but it's a very plausible theory. What Fundamentalists Christians don't seem to get is that the Big Bang theory is consistent with the origins of the universe according to the book of Genesis. Even so... there couldn't have been "nothing" if there was a "Creator". The theory of the existence of a creator also implies that something was around before the universe began. Even if that supposed creator was energy instead of mass it still had to exist so therefore "Nothing" is an incorrect supposition.

Answer 7

The big bang violates no laws or principles.
It started with a space-time pulse of minimum size.At this time fruitful speculation can only go in one direction.
If the space-time pulse could be split it would go out existence.
In the first ten to the minus ninety -fifth second from zero only a space-time singularity existed.
No gravity,no matter,no strong or weak forces or electromagnetism
But all the parameters existed for it to evolve into the universe that we experience to-day.
The time line is extremely speculative and may never fully analyzed

Answer 8

What is missing is the potential contained in the underlying, or over lying multi-dimensional Megaverse, of which our Universe is just a small blip. The coming together of membranes of dimensions, colliding with a certain 'angle' produces what we see as matter, energy, dark matter, dark energy, and space. Matter can be created from energy and matter can be destroyed creating energy. It takes a rearrangement of the dimensions involved.

My personal hypothesis, it is not yet even a theory yet, is that the existence we call 'our Universe' is made up of 373,248 different dimensions that control, make up, regulate, and give substance to all matter and energy. I'm still working on the theoretical model so I'm not going into detail here.

Answer 9

The Big Bang resulted in two dominant things being produced .... gravity and matter.

Matter is treated mathematically as positive energy and gravity is treated as negative energy. It may be that the positive and negative are exactly equal and cancel out to zero. The universe may be the biggest free lunch we ever got.

Answer 10

The "laws of physics" are only partially completed. When it is, we'll all be traveling across the universe in just seconds. I don't know where you got the "first there was nothing" idea.... but it's wrong. There were gas clouds and debris that were scattered throughout the universe. They collected because of their gravity and formed a mass that was so large and dense that it became unstable.... then BOOM... or BANG... or whatever.