All of the NOVA and other physics documentaries show the Big Bang happening "in" something -- 3D space. Was empty space already there for matter to expand in, or did space [the void] enter into existence with the Big Bang? When physicists say "the universe is expanding" to they mean only that the galaxies are moving away from each other or do they mean that the volume of the 3-D space that contains all matter is getting bigger?
2007-01-31 04:00:01 · 3 answers · asked by robot_pi 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
No space did not exist outside of this small dot. All of the universe was confined in a very small space (radius 10^-43 cm) and spatial dimensions were curled on themselves and very short. At the big bang, the x, y and z dimensions unfurled.
It is a but like a balloon. Imagine being an entity living on the surface of a small dot. You can walk in two dimensions, north south or east west, for extremely short distances before coming back to your origin. Suddenly the dot inflates into a large sphere. You can now walk for long distances. Well the universe is like a 3d surface of a 4d-balloon which inflated itself.
The funny thing is that there might be 7 more spatial dimensions which did not inflate at the big bang and stayed small and curled on themselves. So we might be living in an 11 dimension universe, with 10 spatial dimensions (3 large, 7 small) and one time dimension.
2007-01-31 04:13:42 · answer #1 · answered by catarthur 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, the singularity IS all of space.
The reason NOVA showed the singularity apparently in space is because it's impossible to draw an expanding universe in a way that you can put on your TV screen. There's no way you could actually observe the universe expanding from the outside (any more than there could be a "before" the singularity). All the analogies people give about the expanding universe ("that it's like a balloon or a beachball") are just analogies. You have to wrap your mind around the fact that that exploding universe thing you see IS all the volume there is. It doesn't exist within anything. There is no picture anyone could draw that is going to match with your intuition (which is predicated on living within an apparently infinite, Euclidean universe with 4 completely separate dimensions--3 space and 1 time).
2007-01-31 14:22:48 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
A singularity is singularity, high in temperature and pressure.
Dimensions, including 3 dimensions in space and one dimension in time, was being created after the Big Bang. The void, or empty space was not there, that means it was a singularity.
2007-01-31 20:43:35 · answer #3 · answered by chanljkk 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋