Your thoughts on how time and space can be infinite?

Question

How can the "big bang" be validated...what came "before" this event...and how can time have a beginning and an end?

Answer 1

Before the big bang, all the things in the universe got to know each other very well by just hanging around and having a good time. After the big bang, some of the things thought it best not to see one another and headed off in different directions. Others got together, like galaxies for example, decided to stay together and make planets and stars and such.

Answer 2

There is scientific evidence for the big bang including expansion of the universe, background radiation, and other things. The big bang theory does not describe anything that happened before the big bang. Nobody knows what came before the big bang. Time has a beginning because the big bang occured at time=0, and time has been progressing ever since.

Answer 3

As far back as science has been able to see the galaxies, they have discovered that they all seem to be moving “outward,” that is, becoming less densely packed.

With at least a modicum of intellect and logic, one might reasonably deduce that at one time they were more densely packed… closer together. Even further back in time, they were VERY densely packed… perhaps into some kind of primordial ball of "universe stuff". But something pretty catastrophic happened, and the ball came apart. Because of how much stuff must have been condensed there, the energy to keep it together must have been pretty tremendous. So the energy released when it came apart must have been pretty incredible too. That release of energy is what is referred to as “the Big Bang.” Whatever it was, was enough to blow all the stuff we now see as galaxies, stars, etc, outward with such force that we still see it expanding… even after all this time.

The question as to what existed before that Big Bang, the object of conjecture. There’s the theory of a “pulsating” universe in which the gravity of the mass of the stuff in the universe eventually slows down the expansion and it begins to collapse back on itself… reforming that ball of space stuff that will one day do its “Big Bang” thing again, repeating the cycle.

There’s also a theory that the universe will keep expanding until all the energy has been expended, and all the stars will burn out, and nothing will be left but a lot of floating rocks in space.

But nobody really knows.

What was there before that primordial ball? Well, humans seem to have difficulty with the concept of matter being there all by itself… matter existing forever. But why not? How did it get there? It was always there. What caused the “Big Bang”? The laws of physics. They were always there too.

Time is an interesting concept. We tend to try to measure it. In so doing we think of it as finite. For that reason, the idea of time not having a beginning or an end, seems to elude many.

I think of a line, a one-dimensional thing that goes on for ever in both directions in one dimension. I can look at an inch of that line, but it’s only an arbitrary measurement and does not affect the infinity of that line.

I think of a plane as a two-dimensional thing that goes on for ever in both directions in two dimensions. I can look at a square meter of that plane. I can subdivide a piece of that plane anyway I want. But that is only my consideration of a piece of this thing. I don’t affect the infinity of the plane.

I think of three-space as a thing that goes on for ever in both directions in three dimensions. I may occupy a piece of that space… I may walk around in it. I may live on a planet that exists in it. The planet may exist in a galaxy that occupies a piece of it. But my considering pieces of that space doesn’t affect the infinity of that space.

I think of 4-space as a thing that goes on forever in four dimensions. I may not understand a direction perpendicular to the three perpendicular directions with which I’m familiar in 3-space. I may chop off a slice of time and look at 3-space as it is in that slice. I may note an event in one slice, and another event in another and figure out the fourth-dimensional distance in hours between the two events. But, again, nothing I do affects the infinity of that 4-space.

How can one do that? Well, when you figure out the area of a piece of land, You measure off the length of one side, and the length of the other, and then multiply them together… as if the Earth were flat. Usually that method is close enough. But regardless of how we divide the surface of the Earth up, it doesn't alter the fact that the Earth is actually more spherical than it is flat. And a sphere is smacks a little of the infinite. You can start in any direction on the surface and go on forever.

Answer 4

Time began about 13.7 billion years ago. You can define time as a change in motion of an object, element, or light. Time will end when everything in the universe is so far apart that no reference of motion can be made from one point to another.

Answer 5

Time is only a concept of man, it began when people started counting the days, and it will end with the death of mankind. In other words no other creature, on this planet anyway, has any concept of time.

Answer 6

I am utterly baffled at how space and time are infinite, and I'm afraid if I think about it too much my brain might liquify.

Answer 7

A.) It can't.

B.) Let me ask some of the guys here at the Bar...

C.) Because there is this little button that says "Start"
and one other one that says "Stop."

Check this out now...
When you push the little button that says Start, it begins.
When you push the little button that says Stop, it ends.