What came first, matter or energy?

Question

ok so energy is a result of matter, and theoretically matter can be created by energy

i doubt there is an answer to this, but what is yalls opinion on this?

how did i forget they are the same?!?!

i knew that! what the &^#$..

brain fart

Answer 1

Matter and energy are the same thing. You could say matter is just another form of energy. Or could you say energy is another form of matter. Therefore, they existed simultaneously, and neither was first.

We don't know, however, if matter/energy always existed, or was created from something else. Nobody has been able to discover the nature of the Big Bang, or what may have come before.

Answer 2

Although matter and energy can be thought of as the same, they are only interchangeable when your at a speed close to that of the speed of light. From the equation E=mc^2, it would take a whole lot amount of energy to create a tiny amount of mass. On earth, at the speed that we are travelling, we can assume that not a significant amount of every day energy is being converted to mass. In some introduction to chemistry class, we even take the liberty of teaching people that energy is NOT matter. Of course, it is not completely absolutely true, but it is to say that we don't need to worry about matter and energy interconversion in everyday macroscopic experiments.

Answer 3

I have created my own model in which it looks likely that matter came first; still it is a chicken and egg kind of question.

In my Fractal Foam Model of Univeses, the ether is a foam exactly like the cosmic foam but about 10^60 times smaller in scale, having bubble walls made up of sub-universe galaxies, held together by sub-universe gravity. The foam has random-size bubbles; and regions where the bubble size is significantly larger or smaller are the building blocks of all matter.

The basis of all energy in my model is pressure waves generated by popping bubbles as the foam is stretched by the expansion of space. When a p-wave passes thru matter its speed and direction change, imparting momentum to the matter. The matter (region of different-size bubbles) then moves thru the foam like the distortion produced by moving a weak lens across a sheet of graph paper, but in 3D.

You can't have popping bubbles until you have an expanding foam, so I would guess that the foam existed before there were any pressure waves, and it must have originated with a random mixture of bubble sizes. So it looks like the matter came first. Of course, this universe is just one in an infinite sequence of universes at vastly different scales; so there must have been both matter and energy in a parent universe which spawned our ether foam. That matter and energy, however, would have been at a vastly different scale and not actually part of our universe.

Another thing that clouds the issue of "which came first" in my model is the fact that time runs in opposite directions in any two adjacent (scale-wise) universes.

Answer 4

Energy. If by matter you mean stuff we are familiar with (baryonic matter). In the eaarly stages of the big ban the temperature was too high for matter to form and stick together as atoms. Only once it cooled did matter (initially protons and electrons) form and join up.

Answer 5

Sure, they're equivalent.

Nonetheless, there is an answer within the context of the Big bang model: The early universe was too "hot" (energetic) for the matter state of energy.

Answer 6

"they are the same" is a dodge, otherwise we would not be using two discrete terms to describe the universe. Since we are guessing, I guess that matter in the form of energy came first, instead of energy in the frozen form of matter. Thanks for asking, a truly mind-boggling question.

Answer 7

In the very first instant of the Big Bang there was *nothing* but spacetime and energy. 10^ -35 seconds later the first bits of matter began to form (..quarks and gluons..)

Answer 8

this is the answer... energy can neither be created and nor be destroyed and so is matter... hence both didnt come first .. i think your first meant creation..

Answer 9

I think its matter

Answer 10

They are the same. E=m