Jimmy Higgins

We all know that there was no big "bang". We all know that it wasn't an explosion. Rather, the big bang was an expansion. I believe it is mainly thought that the big bang began to expand at some point, for reasons completely unknown.

I however, have an idea. One that actually plays to an atheist's angle. What if the universe didn't all of a sudden just start to expand. Rather, there was some medium that was compression the singularity in the first place. And at some point, this confinement ended. If I'm correct, they believe the universe may have expanded a great amount very very quickly in the beginning, and then the expansion rate slowed down. Almost as if, the confining pressure was left off at a point that let the universe expand greatly, a normal confining pressure still existed, however, the momentum of the expansion was too great and here we are today, still expanding, and perhaps accelerating the motion. Any takers?

Major Billy

I guess no one's had the heart to tell <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/hawking/universes/html/bang.html" target="_blank">Stephen Hawking</a>.

Shadowy Man

Go read up on the inflationary theory. Some people have already put a lot of thought into this. Try Alan Guth in particular.

Boro Nut

An explosion IS an expansion, nothing more. The fact that this is traditionally achieved using rapid oxidation of volatile chemicals is incidental. Compressed gasses make excellent explosives too.

It's true there was no bang because there was no space, or air for sound to travel through for you to hear it. But if the entire contents of the universe where spewing forth in that first trillionth of a second right next to your lughole, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be worried about how loud it was.


Boro Nut

[ December 06, 2002: Message edited by: Boro Nut ]</p>

Ut

Hey, it's the first Boro Nut post I saw that is actually serious.

eh

Shadowy Man has already mention inflation as a similar idea, but here is a link: <a href="http://www.biols.susx.ac.uk/home/John_Gribbin/cosmo.htm" target="_blank">http://www.biols.susx.ac.uk/home/John_Gribbin/cosmo.htm</a>

Keep in mind though, that even under inflation, the universe as a whole should be expanding. It then follows, that if you wind back the clock far enough, the universe itself should have a beginning.

But if take ideas such as the self reproducing universe seriously, then this need not be the case. If the laws of physics are different with each big bang, then who is the say spacetime as a whole must expand?

Shadowy Man

eh:

Not necessarily.

From the web page that you mentioned:
(emphasis mine)

DNAunion

DNAunion: It's not because it wasn't a violent oxidative chemical reaction that some people don't like calling the Big Bang an explosion. Their logic is more like the following.

Explosions spew stuff out into a preexisting space. But according to the standard model of the origin of our Universe (in which our Universe is all there is or ever was: no preexisting space or time), the Universe did not begin by spewing stuff out into a preexisting, surrounding space as an explosion does; it was the Universe itself - all of it - that suddenly expanded.

Friar Bellows

I don't understand inflation or primordial quantum fluctuation. Too complicated for my tiny brain. I'm having enough trouble thinking of spacetime as a four-dimensional pseudo-Riemannian manifold that on the large scale can be foliated into maximally symmetric spacelike slices. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> In fact, I have barely begun to think of it in that way, because I'm still struggling to master such basic concepts as tangent vector, tensor, metric, parallel transport, geodesic, connection tensor, Riemann curvature tensor, and stress-energy tensor. How people understand such complicated subjects as inflation and loop quantum gravity and (heaven forbid!) string theory is beyond me. Hats off to you if you can do that.

strubenuff

Doesn't inflation just better explain obeserved facts about our universe by saying gravity almost won over in the beginning (ie, within the first few seconds of expasion it almost stopped and collapsed back on itself)?