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What's the best country to live in? (pg. 8)
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| DrummeRaver86 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Galapidate
I'm not saying that I believe in Big Bang (which I don't), but I'd like to know how scientists explain that it happened. |
Some can't, that's what I'm saying. The Big Bang theory held for a while, but then some started to question it, and it became less and less credible. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by DrummeRaver86
Lots of people are starting to believe less and less in the Big Bang theory. You have to think...if that was the beginning of space and time, what was there before? therefore, who put it all there? Ergo, there is a creator. |
Well there are lots of explanations. The big bang is still the generally accepted theory to explain the origins of the universe as we know it since the cosmic microwave background (the isotropic nature of temperature in the universe) is the best indicator of this. As for what happened to originate it, there are numerous explanations. One such explanation is that if the universe is a closed universe, the unniverse may be undergoing neverending cycles of crunch/big bang scenarios such as a rubberband would undergo. Another feasible explanation is that time is circular. Remember how we thought that the Earth was flat from our perceptions until it was discovered that it was round? This concept was completely alien orginially due to the lack of understanding of gravity. Now we percieve the universe as being three dimensional, that the Earth is some point in an enormous box or sphere ... however, scientfic discoveries have led to some beliefs that the universe itself is curved. Curved in such a way that imagine us as sitting on the surface of the Earth and that what stars and galaxies we see are only fractions of what is out there because the universe is curved in a similar manner that the Earth is curved. Now as difficult as this is to comprehend, there has been theories that time itself is curved. From our perspective time appears to be linear ... going from past to future. However, what if time is circular? We know now that space and time are no longer absolutes in the sense of what we used to think. I'm definetely the wrong person to be asking about this because I only have two years of college physics. I have a hard time trying to understand the concepts of the books I read much less the rationale justifying the reasoning. But at any rate, if you're looking for interesting reads I would start at the Stephen Hawking level and start working your way up to more comlex readings. |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
Hm, the circular time proposal is quite interesting. I never thought about it before. Anyway, the big bang theory has more and more holes in it, the biggest being that the universe's rate of expansion is accelerating. I'd say inflation theory is more close to the truth. Although about what happened before, we can only speculate. That is if before ever existed.
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Well since none of you would have oxygen, I would tend to agree. At any rate if I was dictator over myself my first order of business would be to open teen nudie camps.
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And would you be the only guard? ;) |
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| Dj_Irish |
Ah astronomics. I've always been fascinated by that. Even took a course at my university about astronomics.
And about non-linear time. I think I read in one of Hawkings books that if you could travel in imaginary time (which would be somehwat equivalent to imaginary numbers in the numeric system) you could basically travel through black holes without getting utterly destroyed. You see, imaginary time does not have a beginning nor end (like a circle) and hence, does not break down with the rest of the phsyical laws in the singularity of a black hole. :D
Anyways, I'm a firm darwinist and do definetly think the big bang theory holds some legitamacy. At least according to what's observable from our point in the universe. Occrider described it much better though. |
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| Dj_Irish |
| quote: | Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0
Hm, the circular time proposal is quite interesting. I never thought about it before. Anyway, the big bang theory has more and more holes in it, the biggest being that the universe's rate of expansion is accelerating. I'd say inflation theory is more close to the truth. |
But does the inflation theory exclude a big bang beginning? |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0
Hm, the circular time proposal is quite interesting. I never thought about it before. Anyway, the big bang theory has more and more holes in it, the biggest being that the universe's rate of expansion is accelerating. I'd say inflation theory is more close to the truth. Although about what happened before, we can only speculate. That is if before ever existed.
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It's true all indicators are pointing towards an inflationary universe, however, we can hardly claim to know for certain that that inflationary trend will continue forever when we don't even know WHAT the majority of the mass in the universe is, dark matter. I attended a college lecture, I forget who gave the lecture, where the lecturer spoke of an intriguing concept. Essentially, what should be the case is that following the big bang, the velocity of the universe should decrease up to a certain point, and depending upon whether critical mass is achieved or not, either reverse in velocity or continue on unabated at a constant velocity. So essentially gravity should either reverse the velocity of the universe to cause a big crunch or brake it such that a constant velocity is attained in an ever expanding universe.
Now all that we know, however, what some research was indicating (research into standard candles or something like that), was that the acceleration of the universe had plateaued, began decreasing, then started increasing again! So our universe is not only expanding but is expanding at an increasing rate. Baffled at how this might be, one theory is that dark matter, despite having mass, is repulsive and is causing the universe to expand even further. But that in itself can't explain an increasing acceleration. So another theory is that as the universe expands, like a rubberband, more dark matter is created which adds to the rate of expansion.
So you may think that I'm contradicting myself when I even mention a big crunch. The interesting part that the lecturer stated is that we really have no clue as to the properties of dark matter. Therefore we don't understand its repulsive properties at all. So one fascinating scenario that he depicted is what if dark matter had alternating properties? What if at a certain critical mass/energy state/whatever dark matter became an attractive force rather than a repulsive force ... magnets do it all the time, the Earth's poles switch every couple million or billion years or whatever. Anyway this is all very very very hypothetical. But for humans to say for certain how the universe works is like a prisoner in jail their entire life trying to figure out how the world works by looking out their jail window.
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And would you be the only guard? ;) |
I would take my job very seriously. |
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| DrummeRaver86 |
We started a great topic...
The thing that really intrigues me is what "place" does the universe expand into? If the universe that we know is the only one, where does it go? Is space really there without stars, galaxies, etc? |
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| Dj_Irish |
| quote: | Originally posted by DrummeRaver86
We started a great topic...
The thing that really intrigues me is what "place" does the universe expand into? If the universe that we know is the only one, where does it go? Is space really there without stars, galaxies, etc? |
Well, that's probably something the human mind can't comprehend. Although I do think we'll try alot.
The thing is, according to some, is that our minds is built up by the laws of this universe. Things like 3 dimensional space, time (4th dimension?), the laws of physics etc. The outside of the universe, if that's a correct description of it, probably won't consist of any of that, hence making all the tools we use to grasp and explain and what we see around us useless. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by DrummeRaver86
We started a great topic...
The thing that really intrigues me is what "place" does the universe expand into? If the universe that we know is the only one, where does it go? Is space really there without stars, galaxies, etc? |
Here's my understanding. Space is finite. Therefore as the universe grows, stars, galaxies, etc. are not expanding into already existing space ... space itself is expanding and the distance between 2 points in space grow farther apart accordingly. Think of the universe as a deflated balloon. Now think of 2 points in that deflated balloon. As you start blowing up the balloon, space expands. Now if you keep those two points in the deflated balloon relative to the expanding balloon, those points grow farther apart and expand with space. As for what's outside the balloon ... :conf: |
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| DrummeRaver86 |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Here's my understanding. Space is finite. Therefore as the universe grows, stars, galaxies, etc. are not expanding into already existing space ... space itself is expanding and the distance between 2 points in space grow farther apart accordingly. Think of the universe as a deflated balloon. Now think of 2 points in that deflated balloon. As you start blowing up the balloon, space expands. Now if you keep those two points in the deflated balloon relative to the expanding balloon, those points grow farther apart and expand with space. As for what's outside the balloon ... :conf: |
And as soon as the universe can "strech" no more, it explodes. Right? |
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| Galapidate |
| Actually scientists think that when the universe expands to its maximum, it will cave-in or shrink on itself. |
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| DrummeRaver86 |
| yeah, but wouldn't there need to be some sort of reaction that leads to a deflation? like when you pop a whole in baloon, depending on the whole and the force of the popper, the balloon could just deflate or explode. |
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