Question about the Big Bang theory?

Question

I know the idea behind the theory, but what was there before the universe started?

Answer 1

So many people, especially some cosmologists, talk so glibly about things before the Big Bang. The whole idea of the big bang is that it was The Beginning. There was nothing before. There wasn't even a "before."

So we are left with a very unpleasant conundrum. How can something come from nothing? I sympathize with the guy who chucks it all for a steady state Universe. That has been infinite for eternity. But the problem here is just as great. How can something not have a beginning? I think we just have to resign ourselves to the fact that anything having to do with the limits of the Universe, by its very nature, is unfathomable. It can never be known, because in order to do so, it has to be considered as part of something, and it isn't.

I wish scientists would stop coming up with these esoteric, imaginary, multi-dimensional cosmologies just so they can say something caused the Big Bang. Duh, so what caused the thing before? You haven't escaped the paradox. You can't live with it. But live with it you must, so do it honestly.

Answer 2

Good question. The answer is that we don't have a clue--and may never be able to learn anything about what was before the big bang.

Why is complicated--you really need mathematics to describe it. But in English it (more or less) is this: The universe started as what astronomers have labeled a "cosmic egg." That's jsut al abel--it refers to the total mass of the universe-to-be when it was concentrated at a single point at the isntant of the big bang.

What we do know about that is that under the extreme conditions that existed, the normal laws of the universe break down. So does matter and energy-- there is mass--but in a state that isn't matter, ergy, or anything else that we can even describe (even with the best mathematics we have).

Now--here's the problem with knowing about the time before the big bang: for us to know anything, we would have to have some information that survived the big bang itself. But-because all matter, energy, etc. have been reduced to the state I described, any information--which would have to have matter or enrgy to carry it) would be destroyed.

We can't even be sure that the term "before" has any meaning in this situation--the laws of the univers with respect to time also break down.

Is there any way around this problem? (That is, will there ever be a way to learn something about "before" the big bang). We don't know. As things stand, however, based on our current understanding of physics, there is no way --even in principle--to get any information whatsoever abot the "befor"--we can't even know if there was a "before."

Answer 3

They say everything was in nothing. I can't believe in this theory for logical reasons. I think this theory is as accurate as string theory. Lets just keep adding impossibilities until nothing happens. No, I adhere to the steady state theory and the red shift is caused by all the mass on the other side of the observed object. The closer the object is, the less red it is. That's not to say the red shift does not exist for bodies moving away. It's just to say I don't think the universe is expanding at all.

Answer 4

Incomprehensible nothingness.

Since, (at least in theory, no way of knowing for sure..) time and space, and the laws of the universe did not exist before the Big Bang, nothing existed. No really. It actually was "nothing."

Stephen Hawking jokingly said, that this question was akin to asking "what is north of the North Pole?"

~W.O.M.B.A.T.

Answer 5

There was no "time" before the big bang. Time is a product of the universe and since the universe didn't exist time didn't either.

Answer 6

nothing. most people dont know theory in depth enough and dont know that the big bang was (accoridng to the theory) the start of space and time. so there was no before at all. and if there had been there would be no space so no matter.

Answer 7

there is no definite theory for this but it is widely accepted that there were two helium atoms in the universe before the big bang and then the fusion and fission of these two atoms caused the universe to exist.

Answer 8

i will pose this question here and again in the open forum. how large can any object in space get before it collapses? if there was a big bang?!? this must have been an enormous object. can anything get that big? how big was the object that created are super massive black hole in our solar system? and could it have been the "big bang" that started are solar system - but not the universe?

Answer 9

They don't know the principle flaw behind the Big Bang theory.

Answer 10

GOD,

Stay Safe,
Bulldog