If there was nothing before the big bang then how did nothing explode?

Question

Obviously there had to be something to explode and create the rock and elements in our universe. I think there was one gian mass that blew up like a nuclear bomb. Where did that mass come from? Was it floating in the nothingness of the universe and where did the energy that caused the explosion come from?

Thinking about such things is a good argument for God. Maybe everything didn't happen on earth the way that it is stated in the bible, but something had to be behind the creation of the universe. And if there is a God then where did he come from?

I don't believe in a big bang theory as the start of the universe. The big bang may have altered the make up of our universe, but there had to be something before the big bang to blow up. How could there have ever been nothing, but now the universe is loaded with matter? Somebody had to create it.

Answer 1

It's not that there was "nothing."

There was a huge mass, but it took up very little volume - it was for all intents and purposes infinitely dense, because it had so much mass for such a small point. This is called a singularity, and there are (muchmuchmuch) smaller ones at the core of every black hole.

As for WHY the singularity that formed our Universe exploded (explosion isn't the right term - technically an explosion is a fast-moving kind of detonation that requires oxygen, but it's good enough for the sake of general discussion), nobody knows.

God is a tidy explanation, and if you choose to believe that God created the Big Bang, that's fine. You'll get no argument from me, mostly because I don't know any better. But there could have been a non-God reason as well.

As for where the energy that caused the singularity to explode came from: again, nobody knows. We do know that everything that makes up our Universe arose from the Big Bang - energy, matter, subatomic particles.

We DO know that because the singularity was infintely dense, there was no Time beforehand, according to theories related to relativity. It could be that God exists outside of the constraints of Time. Again, if that is your belief, fine by me.

God is tidy. God is not necessarily correct; God is not necessarily incorrect.

Read more about the Big Bang here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

EDIT: Just because you don't believe in a Big Bang doesn't mean that it didn't happen, or that it isn't very strongly supported by all sorts of scientific evidence. And, again, there WASN'T "nothing." There was "something." It was just very, very small and very, very massive.

Answer 2

There are some theories that are currently trying to answer that question.

1. Some say that the universe expands to a certain point and then contracts in what is known as the big crunch. Then the cycle repeats.

2. String theory tries to explain the universe by saying it is made up of energy strings and membranes vibrating at different frequencies. When two membranes touch it releases an enormous amount of energy like that of the big bang. The theory holds that there are 11 different dimensions. We are most aware of 4 while the others are very small and are used by the energy strings. These other dimensions allow for access to parallel universes. The only string small enough to move freely through the different universes is what is known as the gravatron. It is a particle that is known to exist only in theory but is currently under intense research to find by smashing atoms together. We can feel it's effect in what we are all aware of as gravitational forces.

The nice thing about string theory is that is ties in how matter and energy are related. It says that the parts of an atom such as the electrons, protons and neutrons are actually made up of energy strings which vibrate at different frequencies. One frequency would make the parts of the electron and so on.

Before our universe existed two membranes had collided creating the universe we know of today. Of course the theory has a lot to answer and is not by any means been accepted as the "Theory of everything" and may in the end prove to be incorrect.

Answer 3

Excellent question Rollin West.

Unfortunately, the only current, truthful, answer is that we simply don’t know. Anyone claiming to fully know where the universe came from would simply be lying.
I think that as time goes on though, physicists will gain a better understanding of how the big bang was formed or even where it came from, but for the time being, we can only speculate.

Personally, I do not think that our ignorance is a good argument for god, nor is it a solution to your problem. Invoking god only changes the problem because, as you rightly asked, we would now have to ask where that god come from as well. Doing this commits you to an infinite regression.

Did something really have to be behind the creation of the universe? Maybe it wasn’t created at all. Maybe it has just always existed. If it’s ok for people to say that god has always existed (and therefore came from nothing), then why can’t we just say that the universe has always existed instead?

Nero

Answer 4

So far, there is no generally accepted science theory for what was "before" the Big Bang (BB). What we have is a set of concepts and equations that describe what the universe was like, and how it changed to what we see today, starting at about time = 10^-43 seconds.

Instead of God, BB scientists invoke a set of several dozen "magic numbers" that describe the universe at that start time. Such as the charge on the electron, the total mass-energy, the speed of light, the fine-structure constant, and many others. Then they show that from these starting conditions, the universe that we observe today is a reasonable thing to see, and vice versa.

Answer 5

(edited)
Before the Big Bang ? Nobody knows.
Prior to the 1930s the common scientific paradigm of cosmology was that the universe was static and probably endless. Of course the faith of evolution , the major paradigm of all science had been around for a long time, even way-long before Darwin. So have the God-angry atheists.

In the 1930s some astronomers noticed that the galaxies they observed were showing a "red shift" in the observed light which they believed to be similar to the Doppler effect of acoustics. This was interpreted to mean that the galaxies were all moving away from us and so were all moving apart apart from each other. This idea of general expansion , indicated in value by the Hubble constant ( which keeps changing) was logically extrapolated backwards to the primal starting point and the new paradigm of the Big Kaflooie was the result.
Where is that starting point ? Nobody knows.
Ask the white-frocked Doctors of Smart about that vital and basic point of origin, the point described as the origin of all that stuff which then evolved to become people and they will start talking about a balloon. Ask them about God and divine creation they will say that their god is whatever they have not yet discovered all by themselves, thank you..

Answer 6

At this point, you have two options for the answer to your question. The easy way is to turn to theology for the answers to the questions that science leaves dangling. The hard way is you can spend the rest of your life working on figuring out the answer to that question. You may or may not get an answer, but maybe someone will pick your work up after your dead and figure something out.

As far as solid answers that science can provide, none. So many scientists opt for the theology answers when it comes to answering the question "What was there before the big bang?"

Honestly the Big Bang Theory itself is based on a fairly logical conclusion of evidence and observation which show that all of the observed universe is expanding from a central point. Most of this research was done by Einstein and Hubble. But without rewinding the clock, we just dont know any more.

Answer 7

Well actually there was something before the big bang -- a lot of mass compressed into an incredibly small space, which, when the bang banged, expanded into the universe you see today.

I don't agree that this is some evidence of god though. The fact that no one can account for god's creation or existence doesn't asnswer the question. The mere existence of raw energy (matter can come from energy) is as rational (and perhaps more so) than thinking that a god created all matter out of nothing and that this god came out of nothing as well.

Answer 8

Uh, yeah, the problem with your rejection of reason, evidence, and science is that you want to postulate an all-powerful, all-knowing being out of nothingness.

If "somebody" had to create the universe, then who created the somebody?

Instead, what really happened is that increasing complexity developed, over a really long time, from simplicity.

There was an unstable singularity. No, I don't know why, but at least it's an explanation that makes sense, as far as it goes.

Believing in a viscious "all loving" Sky Bully does not.

As far as the explanation you start with, you've left out some steps. At first, there was mostly hydrogen (which is still true, hydrogen is almost everything in the universe).

That coalesced into stars. Heavier elements resulted from the processes going on in stars, and in their collapse.

Those heavier elements (released in the explosions of stars) then coalesced into bodies, that is to say, planets and other "rock-based" objects.

Before rejecting the science as nonsensical, you might have a go at actually understanding what scientists say.

Of course this isn't as easy as making up stupid theories, and then pointing out how stupid your stupid theories are.

It would take the application of intelligence, and a willingness to understand.

Apparently, these are things you aren't interested in.

Answer 9

because the big bang didn't happen. God created it. isn't it much more rational to believe someone created the universe than to think it happend by chance? if a wood pile exploads, do you get a pile of splinters or a mansion? you get a pile of splinters. someone has to build the mansion. just like someone, God, built (created) the universe

Answer 10

Our universe emerged from the collapse of a previous universe.

The big bang was not an explosion. It was an expansion. There's a big difference.