If all matter was a singularity at the time of the big bang, how is it we look back in time when viewing >?

Question

light from distant stars? In some cases we seem to be looking billions of years in the past yet we originated from the same singularity? It is soo confusing =/

Answer 1

Don't think of the Big Bang as happening at a particular place. Also, its size is really gigantic, possibly even infinite, after "early inflation".

It is best not to worry (at least at first) about what things looked like at time zero. Our physics is not able to deal with time zero anyway.

So, let's think about the Big Bang at time = 1 millisecond. All the wierd physics and incomprehensible particle stuff is over by then, and "early inflation" is over and done with. If we were here at that time (13.7 billion years minus 1 millisecond ago), our event horizon at that time would be 2 milli-light-seconds across, or about 300 kilometers. Everything inside that 300 kilometer diameter sphere would be a similar, hot plasma, denser than a neutron star. In fact, everything inside a much larger sphere would also be the same---the large sphere which is our current event horizon. (We know this because we can now see that whole sphere, and on a large scale it looks uniform) One millisecond after the Big Bang, that sphere was around 1000 lightyears in radius. Shortly after the Big Bang (only 400,000 years later), light decoupled from that sphere and started on its way to us, to become the Cosmic Microwave Background that we see today. But at 1 millisecond after the Big Bang, the Universe was even bigger than that. If early inflation is true (as is now seems to be), then at 1 millisecond the Universe was at least 10^12 lightyears across---way bigger than our current event horizon, and perhaps bigger than our event horizon will ever get, given the acceleration of the Dark Energy.

Answer 2

The theory that the universe began in a state of extremely high density and has been expanding since some particular instant that marked the origin of the universe. The big bang is the generally accepted cosmological theory; the incorporation of developments in elementary particle theory has led to the inflationary universe version. The predictions of the inflationary universe and older big bang theories are the same after the first 10−35 s.

Two observations are at the base of observational big bang cosmology. First, the universe is expanding uniformly, with objects at greater distances receding at a greater velocity. Second, the Earth is bathed in the cosmic background radiation, an isotropic glow of radiation that has the characteristics expected from the remnant of a hot primeval fireball.

Tracing the expansion of the universe back in time shows that the universe would have been compressed to infinite density approximately 8–16 × 10 to the power of 9 years ago. In the big bang theory, the universe began at that time as a so-called big bang began the expansion. The big bang was the origin of space and time.

In 1917, Albert Einstein found a solution to his own set of equations from his general theory of relativity that predicted the nature of the universe. His universe, though, was unstable: it could only be expanding or contracting. This seemed unsatisfactory at the time, for the expansion had not yet been discovered, so Einstein arbitrarily introduced a special term—the cosmological constant—into his equations to make the universe static. The need for the cosmological constant seemed to disappear with Hubble's discovery of the expansion, though the cosmological constant has subsequently reappeared in some models.

Further solutions to Einstein's equations, worked out in the 1920s, are at the basis of the cosmological models that are now generally accepted. These solutions indicate that the original “cosmic egg” from which the universe was expanding was hot and dense. This is the origin of the current view that the universe was indeed very hot in its early stages.

Answer 3

Space+Time. The space that exists between the observer and the observed takes up a calculated amount of time.
If star A is at Time Point B and the Observer is at Time Point E, then it is a fancy agreed upon math to figure out a solution.
The fact is that we do not know. When we can admit how little we do know, then we can learn Truth.

Answer 4

To put it simply, it takes so many light years, or a certain amount of time for that light to travel all the way from that star to where it becomes visible to us. So when you see a twinkle of a star, you're looking at that twinkle as it arrives here but really it's been traveling for awhile - so that you are in fact looking at something that already happended.

It is confusing! lol

Answer 5

The big bang theory defies the laws of physics, and most likely isn't possible at all. I mean, one, the law of conservation of angular momentum basically says that if an object that is spinning in a frictionless environment (like space) that object will continue to spin its original direction (i.e. clockwise) until meeting resistance.

Two of the planets in our own galaxy rotate the opposite direction, and MANY of the moons as well. The force it would take to change the rotation of a planet would have left a huge "dent."

Also, two, we still have MANY visible spiral galaxies. IF the big bang had occured and all matter was radiating outward from the same point over the course of billions of years these spiral galaxies would have uncoiled by now.

I urge you to seek alternative theories and put them to test. :)
Hope this helps!

Answer 6

Putting the whole vasteness of space and all the billions of Galaxies spread at a distance of 1.5 x10^23 kilometers into a volume the size of a golf ball? My little boys said: "no way!" are you kidding ?
May be he is right;its like putting your groceries that only fits in a 10lbs bag into a one pound bag.
no wonder its so confusing.