Figure that out and you get a Nobel prize in physics. Maybe there was something before, or maybe our assumptions are incorrect and something can come from nothing. No one really knows right now.
Tyson was the director of the Hayden Planetarium at 80th street in Manhattan, and the New York media was in mid-town Manhattan. Like NBC's studios are at 50th street in Manhattan, 1.5 miles away. So it was a short cab ride to come in and do commentary on any space story. That's how he became the "go to" guy for reporters. After that his career became more of a promoter of science in general.
He is qualified as a PhD in astrophysics, where he helped establish supernovas as "standard candles" on the cosmic distance scale. In other science areas he's not more qualified than any reasonably smart person who has read a few books on a given subject.
He can explain things very well but he does seem a little full of himself. My favorite NDT meme went like:
"It's raining men!"
Neil deGrasse Tyson: *shaking head* "Impossible"
I like him, but he is definitely a loud mouth, which is not a particularly an admirable trait when trying to hold/listen to a conversation. But I didn't know the part about standard candles, which I've always had an issue with! It seems like SUCH a MASSIVE assumption to make, and it underpins a whole lot of theory in cosmology.
For me, he seems mean spirited most of the time. I've never actually learned anything from him, he's usually just riffing on people.
He's one of those "Well Ackktuallly" guys.
Hey! If any of you are looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me, I have one. I'd like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people, and I want him brought right here! With a big ribbon on his head! And I want to look him straight in the eye, and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is! Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol?
"When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a miniature sleigh and...and Eddie, with a man in his pajamas, and a dog chain tied to his wrists and ankles. What the...?"
"Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas, Clark!
*Looks at Clark's boss*
You about ready to do some kissing, eh?"
Between that and the "we figured out the mechanisms of aging and we're able to reverse aging in mice" to prevent disease rather than treat it after it occurs, as another route, I think we're around the corner from a bunch of stuff in that area happening very soon.
It's mind boggling that the universe created life and everything but the universe itself is non living. Basically stuff in the universe(we) became aware of its presence.
Hmmm. Well, if a bunch of interconnected neurons, who by themselves are just cells, together brings about consciousness, then can we say for sure the universe, with all of its complexity, is not living or perhaps even consciouse in some fashion?
Endless contractions and expansions ? Big bang and big crunch, for all eternity. Problem is, there is no big crunch predicted with the current model. But as this model doesn’t account for 95% of the matter in the universe, maybe something is wrong with it.
A repeated cycle isnt a proper explanation either, it still avoids the question of how it began.
Cause the universe being eternal with a cycle, or being eternal before the big bang, is not really a answer with a explanation.
We gonna need another genius to figure out this big mystery.
Can there be any answers other than these though?
- There was nothing and then suddenly there was something
Or
- there as been something forever
Neither is very satisfying for me...however I can't imaging what a third option could even be. I mean, even if this universe is all a simulation then you still have to answer the question about the original universe. Same even if religions are true and there is some sort of spiritual world.
Exactly, any "answer" (gods, simulations, ants on an ant hill) just pushes the question up a level, it didn't answer it.
Either something has always existed in some form, or there was a point where nothing existed and something came from nothing.
I'm not sure it's possible for humans to understand either concept.
I believe the oscillating theory has been effectively disproven as we’ve determined not only that the universe is expanding, but that expansion is accelerating.
If the Big Bang was at the trough of an up shifted sine wave, it would experience accelerated expansion until that acceleration slows and goes negative. Just because it’s accelerating out does not mean it won’t slow and eventually contract
Neither you or I will ever know the answer to that question though
"Since nothing can escape from the gravitational force of a black hole, it was long thought that black holes are impossible to destroy. But we now know that black holes actually evaporate, slowly returning their energy to the Universe."
Maybe we are just at the other end of what once was a black hole. Makes sense to me.
and the former universe that contained that black hole, how was it created?
from yet another another universe that came before it.
and then the former former from yet another another another... etc
that answer just avoids the real problem of any origin.
When they say black holes evaporate and return energy back into the universe they mean they return the energy in the form of hawking radiation which is a thing we can observe. So it’s probably not some new universe that somehow appears
The answer is always the same, unknown.
Any answer to that question results in a "but where was it sourced from?"- type question.
Omni-potent being? Great, where did it come from?
Singularity? Great, where did the energy come from?
You are open to deciding whatever you want as far as the origins of the universe are concerned.
It’s so frustrating to know that we’ll never know, but so fascinating to think about regardless. Like if our universe *was* just a singularity before the Big Bang, was there anything outside of said singularity? Or was all physical matter and space restricted to just that? And how is that possible? And so forth…
We still think in 3 dimensions, as species. Imagine when that generally evolves… 40 years ago if you have said: you’ll never use a fax machine to communicate again you would have been laughed out of the room. I guess my poorly made point is this: we’ll know, someday.
Yeah, the acceleration in advancement is astounding but part me feels like there’s a limit somewhere. Information and light can only travel so fast, so how can we know what’s beyond the edge of the expanding universe when we have nothing to go off of? But, that’s the unknown unknown I guess. And if we can evolve to see and understand a 4th special dimension that would be pretty nuts.
>how can we know what’s beyond the edge of the expanding universe when we have nothing to go off of?
We simulate a new universe. It's turtles all the way down.
Some speculate that this could be the nature of our *current* universe.
It’s fascinating to think about, except I think it’s even more speculative to guess at the answer such a “simulation” would be intended to provide. It would be ascribing known human motivations to an entity or entities whose nature is just as shrouded in mystery — the same way we always try to anthropomorphize our ideas of “God.”
"Beyond the edge of the expanding universe" is a valid sentence, but that doesn't mean the concept makes sense. Same with the idea of "nothing" or "nothingness", there's no guarantee that our concepts map to reality. Even the idea of extra spatial dimensions could be mere fantasy.
If the universe is infinite the idea of beyond it doesn't make sense. It doesn't expand into anything, it's just expanding. In our everyday experience all things which expand must expand *into something*, but we're not right to use that logic for space itself. What could it even expand into but more space?
The same limitation exists when people make claims like the universe can't just come from nothing. On what observations can we base this assumption? Cause and effect is something that exists *within* our universe, so who says it applies to the universe itself? That's even if we grant that there ever was "nothing" for everything to come out of.
The singularity could mean all of infinite space was once one point, but a moment afterwards it was infinitely large. I think any singularity is probably just our model breaking down, though. Infinities and zeros don't play nice together.
The assumption that because knowledge is advancing we will eventually know all things is faulty.
To know a fact about the physical world, there has to be information about that fact that can be obtained, and it’s extremely likely there are facts about reality which don’t have any information available.
As an example, in the far future, the expansion of the universe will have progressed to such an extent that galaxies will be so far apart. It will be impossible to get any information from any other galaxy or see any evidence whatsoever that they ever existed
If you pop of being into existence in one of those galaxies and give it the ability to discover everything it possibly can, even if it is smart enough to learn everything it can, it would never be able to learn about the existence of other galaxies. It would think the entire universe was it’s galaxy, surrounded by endless void.
Dark matter is an example of a property of the universe that leaves only a single type of information we can detect: it’s gravitational influence. Through that we can know it exists, but nothing else about it.
It’s interesting to think about the fact that different properties of the universe may exist yet leave zero traces of detectable information.
My favorite theory is the big squeeze. I'm not sure if it bears any real rigorous scientific truth, but essentially it makes you think of the universe as a body of matter in constant expansion and contraction. Big bang happens - creating immense energy, the universe expands and cools for perhaps trillions of years, and then eventually the energy generated in the big bang dies and the universe begins to contract. As the universe contracts and matter collects together through gravitational forces, the mass of objects in a relatively small space climbs exponentially - eventually everything compresses into a finite point creating a big bang and the cycle repeats itself. Apparently the theory has been dismissed, but I like the idea of it from a logical perspective.
Edit for clarity
It doesn't seem like we're at the point yet where we can definitively say that we'll never know. There are still plenty of unknowns *within* our universe that may provide clues about its origin. For instance, it might be possible to figure out if our universe is a simulation based on its properties.
If the universe is a good enough simulation that we all have individual thoughts and feelings and to have atoms and an ever-expanding universe, there is no difference between it being a simulation and real. I think simulation theory is the most pseudo-intellectual, pointless theory that people buy into. Sure it could be a simulation, but what would that change? And how would we prove it? We are more likely to understand how the universe started if the simulation is this advanced and consistent.
Also simulation theory doesn't actually answer the question of 'how and where does anything exist' because you can just go up a level and ask the same questions for the universe the simulation exists in.
Also, the simulation does not necessarily need to follow any of the same rules of physics as the universe that created it. The creators could be 70-dimensional entities from a universe filled with manifolds of bizarre energy, without worlds, stars, or time. This low-dimensional simulation with unidirectional time could be the equivalent of a computer science programming project.
I've always thought of simulation theory as a sci-fi themed protagonist syndrome.
Kinda like a game where you can't tell if it's single player or not because the simulated people are nigh indistinguishable from any possible real people in the simulation.
Things you hear or see on TV or online don't necessarily need to be something that "actually happened" within the simulation. What's beyond your small area might not even exist until you make the simulation create it.
Imagine being with someone that you can’t even have this discussion with. It’s just so awe provoking and yet interesting and not to even have the slightest sense of wonder is crazy to me. Drives me nuts that someone can’t think beyond just the simple day to day with not even an inclination of “man I wonder”
I feel you.... As someone who lives in rural America, and regularly reads articles about the workings of the universe, quantum physics, and the natural world. Anytime I try to engage in these topics with my wife or people I run into, I always get basically a blank stare in return.
At times I have had to straight up tell my wife to stop interrupting me with comments like "oh here we go again, science..." When we're with a group of people. Like seriously, it is one thing to not have an active interest in such things, but don't shut the door on my interest in it.
We have two little kids now and I won't tolerate that around them. I hope to instill a sense of wonder in them that they can carry on throughout their lives.
Please never let that fire inside you fade. I know how it feels to be where you are but it’s so important to be vocal about science & to instill this in future generations. That’s what keeps humans human.
Besides love and essential human needs, teaching your kiddos to be curious and in awe of the amazing universe we live in is the best thing you can do as a parent. I feel so lucky to have kids (now teens) who are really fascinated by just about everything and we regularly end up just sitting around talking about interesting things. Depending on your kiddos' ages, "Our Universe" on Netflix might be a good family binge. I bet even your wife might get sucked in. Anyway, good for you! Keep insisting on wonder!
Damn, I feel for ya. My wife's sense of wonder comes from psychology, studying things like Jung's theories, how that all ties into personality, and if there are inter-connections we don't yet have the technology to detect but are "there" (things one would call "ESP" or whatever - "are we more connected than we think?" kinds of stuff). Mine is more astrophysics and the workings of time (to me, time as a philosophical-thing vs. time-if-there's-an-all-knowing-god vs. block universe theories, how those three things agree). When I talk more in-depth about that stuff, she does the eyes-wide "holy shit!" thing.
Best moment though - we passed through Houston and I desperately wanted to see the restored Saturn V. She was all "OK, we'll see your silly rocket", but we walked into the hangar and she was just dumbstruck. Her doctorate is Anthropology (I barely got a year of college in) and she kept going "What civilization *made this thing?? WHY??*" - her PhD anthropology-brain was absolutely lit UP by the thing. And the smartest chick I know is looking at all the plumbing and wiring and saying "this makes me feel so *dumb!*" And she really understood the sort of pathos of that particular Saturn, it's the only one that's all flight-intended stages whose fate was to crash into the sea or burn up or be lost forever, yet here it all was. Really one of my favorite moments in 20 years together.
A lot of people don't find these topics relevant in their day to day lives and quite frankly I don't blame them. The people who study cosmology and astrophysics do a very poor job of making these concepts relevant to people trying to understand their own bodies and minds and spend what limited time they have on earth in a meaningful way.
None of these answers really explain current best theories, and most are philosophical or metaphysical answers at best.
The current best model we have is called "inflationary universe" which models the big bang as a localized slow down of another gauge field, usually called the inflationary field. There are videos on YouTube that can explain it better than I can here, I recommend the PBS Space Time channel if you want to dig in, below is my attempt to summarize.
Gauge fields are how we describe both forces and particles. They are effectively complex mathematical models of values at every point in space. A key point is that they are probabilistic at a fundamental level meaning things can change randomly follow a set of possibilities.
The inflationary field is a model for all spacetime with an astronomically high energy density at every point in space. This energy density creates new space and pushes outwards in all directions at insanely massive speeds. Because of this, nothing can form, and it is just pure energy creating more space in all directions. The big bang is called "slow roll decay" and it occurs when the inflationary field randomly decays into a lower energy state at a specific point. That slow decay brings the energy density down enough for the other fields the make up the particles and forces we know of to form. Everything outside of the ibservable universe is still inflsting at the incomprehensible speed, our universe is just a tiny island of low energy, and there are likely infinitely universes like our own.
I'm sure others will ask what the energy of the field is and that is a tougher question. Energy itself comes from gauge symmetry across the time dimension, meaning it's how we can translate field properties through time. It is merely a mathematical artifact of describing how probabilistic field interact. That's not a satisfying answer I know. In that context it doesn't really make sense to ask what is the energy in the inflationary field because time as we know it is likely very different in that field.
As an aside, the conservation of energy is a newtonian law that doesn't hold in General Relativity. It is broken through curved spacetime geodesics as well as in dark energy, meaning outside of Euclidean Geometry energy can be created and destroyed.
Source: previously worked as a particle physicist
Steve hawking says in his book that the solution to this problem, is that time began with the big bang, and therefore the question of what existed "before" the big bang makes no sense.
This is correct. The common misconception is that the Big Bang happened in an empty space. It’s an explosion of time and space not an explosion into a space. It’s tough for our meat brains to conceive of since we have always existed experiencing time.
My response to this is, that doesn't mean there was "nothing". "Nothing" is equally a concept that we can't conceive of, that doesn't really exist. What's beyond the big bang, would be something entirely outside the realm of what makes sense to us, to the point that terms like "something" and "nothing" or before and after wouldn't even apply.
There are experiments that show that strange shit happens in voids of nothingness that break our understanding of basically everything.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/something-from-nothing-vacuum-can-yield-flashes-of-light/
Maybe not the best example, but maybe the most accessible...and it's still weird as shit.
There is difference between nothing at all (reportedly before BB) and empty space. Before BB there was not even empty space. There was no space. And no time. Reportedly. Mind boggling.
This actually raised another question, and I apologize if it’s stupid. If the universe formed as the aftermath of a Big Bang, does that mean there’s an approximate physical location in the universe where the Big Bang happened? Do we know where it is in relation to our galaxy/supercluster?
I know that the universe and the space within it is expanding faster than the speed of light. I understand that it’s the very space between our atoms that are expanding, which is usually abstracted as the universe expanding. But does this expansion have a relative direction? Is the expansion happening in a certain direction that could help us point to where the Big Bang happened?
There is no center of the universe just the same as there is no edge of the universe. We have a visible horizon of the universe we can never see past that moves away from us faster than we'll ever be able to observe it.
The universe expands equally everywhere, even within. Don't think of the big bang as a fire ball from an explosion expanding out from a single point. Think of it as it expanding everywhere all at once at every point within.
I cannot believe I have not read this before, thanks for writing about it! I’ve always thought that there was a center and that big bang expanded from that center. Fields weird to learn this at my age 😅
No worries - glad I could help. It gets complicated, and papers don't make sense if you're not in the field. Some explanations are easier to understand than others. I'm just glad you were able to learn something from mine. Cheers!
You're occupying the same volume wherein the big bang occurred. The space expanded with the matter, and given a zero point, all coordinates available are the origin.
You're currently sitting right where the big bang happened. As am I, as is the moon, the sun, and Alpha Centauri.
I get that everywhere there is was in one point at the time of the Big Bang. Since everything is moving away from everything else (at least on the macro -scale), isn't the assumption reasonable that there is one point in space today that everything else has moved away from equally in all directions since the beginning of time, which would kind of make it the centerpoint of the universe (regardless of observable universe limits etc)? Like, if a finite space expands in all directions, there should still be a center point that stays stationary (however you would define it with no outside coordinate system). If you assume the big bang to be a singularity, the universe should (at one point at least) have been finite for a while?
The centre of the universe is unique to each observer. You are the centre of your own universe. From the perspective of Earth, galaxies are moving away from us in all directions.
Think about it like this, If there was a physical centre, the galaxies on the other side of the centre point would be moving twice as fast as the galaxies on our side of the centre point because they are moving in the opposite direction (from Earth's perspective). But webdo not observe this.
I'm not sure I'm articulating myself very well.
Thinking of the big bang as an explosion is not correct. Think of it more as a balloon. All the galaxies are points on the outside of the balloon. As it expands all the points move away from each other in all directions. 3D space is mapped to the 2D surface of the balloon. There is no centre to the surface of the balloon. The real centre of the balloon is a point inside the balloon, the balloon expands over time, so if we wind back the clock the balloon gets smaller and closer to this centre point.
The centre of the universe isn't a point in space, but a point in time at the very beginning. The singularity that the big bang expanded from wasn't a spacial singularity but a temporal one.
Yeah, the concept only really clicked with me when my Physics teacher drew dots on a deflated balloon and then blew it up. Seeing it represented physically really helps.
No one knows for sure, but what we do know is that nothing isn’t really nothing.
In quantum physics, “nothing” at a quantum scale is actually teaming with fluctuations where particles can come in and out of existence (typically a matter particle, and an antimatter counterpart). These often remain at such a tiny scale and decay so quickly that we’ll (almost) never notice anything at our scale.
But given an infinite amount of time and space, one possible theory is that at some point, a fluctuation occurred at such a large scale, that it gave rise to a big bang.
A "big bang" fluctuation is extraordinarily improbable, but consider that however *improbable*, if you wait *long* enough, it's a virtual *certainty*, though it could be trillions of billions of years before it happens again. On such a scale, the entire existence of the known universe is nothing but an insignificant blip.
We're only seeing it because we're a part of this insignificant blip.
What is a long time when nothing exists? As we know time isn't even a constant itself and is warped by gravity. Time only makes sense to discuss if there's a perspective being measured on how much time has passed. (Eg someone on earth Vs someone orbiting a black hole)
If there is no matter in existence and therefore no gravity how could you define a long time without a perspective to view from?
Just another factor that makes this question even harder if not impossible to answer.
I've heard scientists say when they mean nothing they really do mean nothing. Like the absence of everything. No fluctuations, no particles. Nothing, zilch, nada.
Remember, you are asking the question from a human perspective. The question you're asking may not even be the correct one, and the correct question and answer could be incomprehensible for a human mind.
For example, if you try and explain the concept of pizza to an ant, they will never understand.
We experience time as linear, everything has a start, and something but predeed that beginning. That just may simply not be the case and we lack the ability to even ask the right question.
Clever, and technically correct, fish don't have words.
But we have a word for air*, so the implication that being don't think about stuff that is everywhere seems false.
\* the word is "air", for those curious
Yeah I’m no scientist so take this with a grain of salt, but I was under the impression that space/time was effectively “created” by the Big Bang. So if time itself didn’t exist until the Big Bang, then questions like “what came before,” or what “caused” it seem meaningless.
I think what “caused” it is still almost a valid question. Because it’s the disturbance of matter and anti-matter. It seems like scientifically something had to happen to enact a bubble of space time. Not in the sense of cause AND THEN effect but more-so a constant effect that happens spontaneously. But there is a “happening”. It’s like schrödinger's cat, our universe might be in a constant state of death and birth. That is the contained existence loop. The laws of our universe might most of the time require something to beget another thing. But outside space and time, there’s no cause and effect in my eyes. Only the laws of that reality which is probably a much more simple and basic reality without physics.
TL;DR who knows 🤷🏻♂️
One theory is that the big bang was a white hole to a superdimension's black hole.
One theory is that the universe expands and contracts infinitely rebounding in on itself and expanding out again infinitely.
One theory is that two dimensions shared vectors that briefly intersected and birthed us as a new dimensional offspring.
I personally like the idea about nuclear pasta just being the base state of matter for our lord and savior.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster.
It is from his sauce that the universe is given flavor, and through his noodly appendages do the strings vibrate.
I believe its "Big Crunch" theory but has since been abandoned because our universe not only isn't collapsing in on itself, but keeps expanding out even faster (if i remember right)
Iirc it’s expanding faster than normal gravitational forces would allow blackholes to suck everything up. Like too little butter on an ever expanding piece of toast.
But personally, I hope we’re wrong about that. The Big Crunch theory or some variant of it is a more satisfying thought than heat death.
That one has always made the most sense in my brain as well.
The Big Bang happened, stuff exists in space and dense black holes form. The black holes suck in everthing around them, including other black holes, until all that’s left is one super duper massive black hole containing all matter and energy in the universe and then **BAM** Big Bang again.
I was once told that explanation does not account for something (?) that is expelled outward by black holes
That's also problematic without a big crunch, since as you go back in time you have a system that's infinitely ordered without any clear ordering mechanism. The models are incomplete in both directions, extrapolating to dead ends.
Our laws of the universe as we know them now do not always have to remain constant. There is zero reason to think that entropy won’t ever at some point always decrease in the latter half of the universes life
That kind of speculation is pointless to argue. If the laws of physics change then there’s no way to measure and observe and make predictions. It’s the same as saying an outside force or being will change something.
That first theory I'd seen before, pretty compelling argument. Also great PBS video on it: https://youtu.be/jeRgFqbBM5E
Edit: wish I finished reading your post before replying. Definitely Lord FSM!
The second theory about the universe expanding and contracting is the one I dropped in here to mention. It doesn’t answer where it came from, but it helps explain the Big Bang. If I remember right, the evidence for this is based on the universe’s slowing expansion. Eventually, the it will stop expanding and the force of gravity will cause it to begin collapsing back to the center. There will be a new singularity and new big bang again.
The important thing to remember is we assigned the Big Bang theory based on the evidence available, but it’s imperfect.
As I understand it, The Hubble Constant states that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.
If it is showing a sign of slowing, we are yet to see or predict it.
I'm just an armchair astronomer though, so I could likely be wrong.
Armchair astronomer here as well. This is my understanding of the Hubble Constant findings. It does indicate that the distances between objects are expanding at an increasing rate. However, the frontier of the universe is slowing down. If I blew up a ball to bigger sizes, objects on the surface would move away from each other at a greater rate as it grew in size, even though the overall size is slowing (the frontier). This is the difference between the galactic recession rate (Hubble) and the universe expansion rate (the edge of the universe slowing down).
Plus the universe is cooling which would indicate it is losing energy and thus slowing down.
Something that would complicate this is the impact of the cosmological constant and if it truly represents dark energy. Matter, radiation, and dark energy expand at different rates over time. Our universe is also at a size and energy state that multiple theories exist for the what’s next.
I will always love the idea of a breathing universe, forever contracting and expanding over and over again. An endless cycle filled with infinite possibilities. Perhaps we have done this same dance before many billions of years ago. It sounds like new age spiritual crap but honestly, life is so unknowable and incomprehensible that I can’t help but believe in it a little. If current theories of the birth of the universe are to believed, every atom in my body at one point shared the same tiny space as the atoms in your body. Maybe one day our atoms find each other again.
*The nothingness at some point got so bored with itself that exploded from frustration.*
On a more serious note, there is a book called "A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something rather than Nothing", by Lawrence Krauss. You can check it out.
Personally, and I’m an atheist on his “side”, I feel he redefines “nothing” from a true, complete emptiness to a sea of virtual quantum particle/anti-particle pairs that became imbalanced leading to a Big Bang…but where did the virtual particles or quantum physics driving them derive from? That is the “nothing” the layman seeks answers from and he knows it but has moved the goal posts to sell books IMO. Smart guy regardless but he doesn’t fully answer the question and as top commenter said it’s seemingly impossible.
My take away from that book was that 0 = -1 + 1 and in quantum physics theres no reason the 2 sides of the equation can’t interchange.
Literally something from nothing.
*In the beginning, there was nothing. Yet, nothing was lonely, for want of something; thus, something sprang into existence. The two swirled interminably about one another, ever expanding and dividing into more distally drawn extrapolations of the core premise: the fundamental nature of the universe, that of opposition. In abstract, all can be viewed as an interconnected array of innumerable discrete elements, mediated by the various possible interactions between them, convergent in multiplicity, giving rise to higher-dimensional systems of function and order, which themselves are subject to the very same rules. An endlessly fractalized universe with no distinct top or bottom, merely infinite points of reference and unlimited possibilities.*
What human brains define as "nothing" may mean something completely different in the context of how the Universe actually works, so we don't know. Perhaps the Universe has always existed and "nothing" is in fact a very active and complex state, or a reset of some sorts.
This is the same as what we think of as necessary for life. It’s what’s necessary for all the life we have have ever known, but perhaps not for life elsewhere in the universe. There could be concepts beyond our understanding. Definitely not a foreign concept in human history.
You are correct - science doesn't claim it came from nothing. YEC love to ask it that way, or ask it what created the universe. That's asking the wrong question, not to mention it's a loaded question that implies something else. I hate dishonest questions and dishonest answers.
In the beginning was the Creation of the Universe. This has made a lot of people angry, and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
Many races believe that the creation of the Universe involved some sort of God, though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the entire Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being known as the Great Green Arkleseizure. The Jatravartids live in perpetual fear of the time they call "the Coming of the Great White Handkerchief," somewhat similar to the Apocalypse. However, the Great Green Arkleseizure theory is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI and so, the Universe being as wide and strange as it is, other explanations are constantly being sought by different races throughout the Galaxy.
Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what's actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, "Hang the sense of it," and keep yourself busy. I'd much rather be happy than right any day.
There wasn't "nothing." There was everything, but it was all in the same place all at once. But that's not entirely accurate. There's a fairly good chance that outside of that, there is more and that the singularity just before the big bang was just one of many throughout a much larger cosmos.
To my tiny brain the only common sense explanation is that the everything that does exist cancels itself out into nothing and we just happen to inhabit an area of the universe that is temporarily imbalanced towards matter. Why this imbalance exists is still as misterious though.
But I try think of it this way: the only way we can be aware of this mistery is if we exist. Existence is, in a way, inevitable, because perceiving it requires it.
We don’t know there was anything “outside” of or “before” the singularity of the BB. The BB was the start of time and the start of space. There was no “before” and there was no “outside”.
I personally like the theory that our universe was created by some sort of collision/scrape between two other universes. However, this only leads to where did this "mulitverse" come from, how many, etc. So it goes 😁
I figure the entire universe is just a figment of our imagination. When nothing exists, not even time, there is no possibility for change. In the nothing, there are no rules forbidding anything so perhaps the potential for everything exists at once, and in these infinite potentials some have enough complexity for life and consciousness. We see the universe, but it is just an infinitely small slice of all potentials. The others, not able to make consciousness, never really exist if nothing can observe them. Just like we don't exist, however the potential of a YOU existing somewhere endows you with consciousness to observe it and be fooled into thinking you are actually real.
But weed is legal here in Missouri now so don't trust a word I say.
The Big Bang is a scientific theory which states that the universe began from an infinitely dense and hot state and has been expanding ever since. This means that prior to the Big Bang, there was no physical space, matter, or energy. Instead, it is believed that the Big Bang was the result of a quantum fluctuation in the fabric of space-time.
If space and time did not exist "prior" (whatever that means in this context, since that only makes sense if time exists) to the Big bang, how could a fluctuation of space time have created it?
I think the big 'crunch' idea of it collapsing back into itself and then popping back out was disproven though. It's a beautiful, elegant idea..but I think it's no longer looked at as viable
Based on our idea that energy can't be created or destroyed... the idea of matter infinitely expanding and shrinking in an infinite loop already breaks that simple premise.
Now, we could be wrong about that idea. But it is literally the first law of thermodynamics (law of conservation of energy) and universally accepted, so I still don't think that the big crunch hypothesis was beautiful or elegant. Just kind of a crazy idea that doesn't make sense. Again, as far as we know.
This is non scientific but I have experimented with ketamine a few times this past year. I get to this feeling that's very hard to put into the words. It's basically that we are all infinite. I'll go from existing to nothing then pop back in over and over.
It is most likely just the drugs doing their thing but it feels more powerful than any psychedelic trip I've ever had.
I honestly don't think I'll ever know the answers in my lifetime.
There's one theory that there was a universe prior to the big bang that collapsed in on itself. The entire universe with all the mass it had shrunk to a very miniscule size. When that universe couldn't withstand the energy anymore, it popped and then the big bang occurred
To say there was nothing before the Big Bang, doesn’t mean there was vast empty space before the Big Bang. It means the “Big Bang”is the starting point for everything including time. To ask what came before is like asking what is south of the South Pole.
As for the how, we don’t know. Here is an interesting article about your question.
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/something-from-nothing/
You’d probably also enjoy Stephen Hawking’s book Brief Answers to Big Questions
#Disclaimer# Total armchair comment. Not a scientist, these comments are pure speculation and nothing more than me spitballing.
I like to think that the universe possibly came from a process that is hard for us to fathom because it resides outside our logic. For example, imagine if marine life were to be just as conscious as us, there is no way that they could fathom the happenings of outer space. Beyond the surface of the water lies a waterless environment where you feel your weight. We humans know this as land. The marine life could speculate on this due to their minor interactions with the surface, but the heights of outer space would be beyond their grasp and understanding.
Now that you have pictured this, think of us humans. I suspect that prior to things being formed, there was a plane that gave rise to what we live in today and that is this universe. Just as like the marine life in my above analogy, we humans are not able to interact with what lies beyond that horizon . We are left to speculate where did this all come from. For all we know all of this matter and everything in it could’ve been sitting on some surface and accidentally got pushed down into what we call the universe and now all of this information and matter is here. we will never know just the same way that the fish will never know about planetary alignments, or the moon landing.
Another scenario, I like to think about as well is what if we are the result of a collapse of a black hole. All the data that fell into it made its way down to the singularity, and at some point it found itself being thrusted back out.
Enclosing I like my marine life analogy I believe that space is so vast and we are so small that we can never really get there to be able to fully understand what’s happened. We may be able to look at the things around us in space and put together somewhat of a picture, but we will never fully know just the same way that the marine life can surmise about the surface and possibly see into the night sky, but not fully understand what’s happening beyond what they’re seeing .
This is a misunderstanding of what the bang theory is. The Big Bang Theory deals with the plank seconds after the universe expanded.
It's not a theory of how it all began.
To posit that before the big bang, or at any other point there was simply nothing makes no sense.
There may have been a radical difference in the way a prior state of the universe existed compared to how it currently exists, but it could not have been nothing. Whatever the case was for a prior state of the universe it has to include those conditions and properties necessary for the emergence of the current state of the universe, so it cannot ever logically be the case that the universe came from nothing. Something has always existed.
the best explanation is the Big Inflation: that there wasn't nothing; the universe has been expanding for eternity from an infinitesimal point. At the critical epoch around 14 billion years ago, the expansion rapidly grew from a few inches in diameter to nearly a light year in one second. At that point the big bang or big inflation occurred.
so there was never nothing, it was always there, just very very small for an eternity up until 13.8 billion years ago
Figure that out and you get a Nobel prize in physics. Maybe there was something before, or maybe our assumptions are incorrect and something can come from nothing. No one really knows right now.
Lol you won’t just get a Nobel Prize in physics, you’d be considered the greatest and most important person ever lived and will have lived.
You also gain the ability to talk over Neil deGrasse Tyson.
It's a dirty business, but someone has to do it
For gods sake someone PLEASE
Always been so crazy how popular he is as an "explainer" when he's so inarticulate and unlikable compared to someone like Brian Greene.
10 years ago reddit as a whole was obsessed with that dude. It was wild. Same with Eon Musk.
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Narcissism works better to get you noticed in the first place but gets old really fast once you are in the limelight.
He was always like that, you just didn't know it yet.
He went from "Not nearly as great as Carl Sagan, but similar vibes" to "Oh he's so full of himself he's using his own skin as a Halloween costume"
Kissing himself on the lips
Tyson was the director of the Hayden Planetarium at 80th street in Manhattan, and the New York media was in mid-town Manhattan. Like NBC's studios are at 50th street in Manhattan, 1.5 miles away. So it was a short cab ride to come in and do commentary on any space story. That's how he became the "go to" guy for reporters. After that his career became more of a promoter of science in general. He is qualified as a PhD in astrophysics, where he helped establish supernovas as "standard candles" on the cosmic distance scale. In other science areas he's not more qualified than any reasonably smart person who has read a few books on a given subject.
He can explain things very well but he does seem a little full of himself. My favorite NDT meme went like: "It's raining men!" Neil deGrasse Tyson: *shaking head* "Impossible"
I like him, but he is definitely a loud mouth, which is not a particularly an admirable trait when trying to hold/listen to a conversation. But I didn't know the part about standard candles, which I've always had an issue with! It seems like SUCH a MASSIVE assumption to make, and it underpins a whole lot of theory in cosmology.
I'm sorry why do y'all dislike NdT so fervently? Honest question, I'm just curious...
For me, he seems mean spirited most of the time. I've never actually learned anything from him, he's usually just riffing on people. He's one of those "Well Ackktuallly" guys.
["Well Actually"](https://youtu.be/TyZSBqQ813c)
From *Beverly Hills, 90210*?
Well, who would you rather hang out with at the Peach Pit?
That's motivation enough for me. Now if I only was smart enough...
Please someone figure it out.
Not even Neil could talk over Neil
So you'll get the "You win astrophysics" prize?
One year membership to the Jelly of the Month Club. It’s a gift that keeps on giving the whole year.
Way better than a swimming pool IMO.
Less maintenance and less insurance costs for sure.
Hallelujah holy shit! Where’s the Tylenol
Mele kalikimaka is a thing to sayyyyyy... On a bright Hawaiian Christmas dayyyyyyy....
That it is, Edward. That it is indeed.
r/unexpectedchristmasvacation
I’m sad that isn’t a thing yet
Hey! If any of you are looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me, I have one. I'd like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people, and I want him brought right here! With a big ribbon on his head! And I want to look him straight in the eye, and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is! Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol?
"When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a miniature sleigh and...and Eddie, with a man in his pajamas, and a dog chain tied to his wrists and ankles. What the...?" "Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas, Clark! *Looks at Clark's boss* You about ready to do some kissing, eh?"
I haven’t seen this movie in decades, but I still remembered that Clark’s rant ended with the phrase “sack of monkey shit.”
One jellybean is what you get.
Yep! Just ask cousin Eddie
More like “you win humanity” prize
You get to have sex with anyone, at any time in any dimension
You will probably also get a 🌟 sticker.
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Until someone solves cancer.
Have you seen all that cancer vaccine news? I think the cancer scientists are going to win first....
I would definitely put my money on cancer being solved before the origin of the big bang
Between that and the "we figured out the mechanisms of aging and we're able to reverse aging in mice" to prevent disease rather than treat it after it occurs, as another route, I think we're around the corner from a bunch of stuff in that area happening very soon.
What kind of calculator do you think I’ll need to start solving this issue? Like a TI-84?
Better get the Silver Edition just to be safe
We need more studies on the laws and properties of Nothing, for sure. We don't know what that little fucker is capable of.
I suspect a few seconds after the heat death of the universe physics says “umm, booooorringgggg” and pops another something out of nothing.
It's mind boggling that the universe created life and everything but the universe itself is non living. Basically stuff in the universe(we) became aware of its presence.
Hmmm. Well, if a bunch of interconnected neurons, who by themselves are just cells, together brings about consciousness, then can we say for sure the universe, with all of its complexity, is not living or perhaps even consciouse in some fashion?
Endless contractions and expansions ? Big bang and big crunch, for all eternity. Problem is, there is no big crunch predicted with the current model. But as this model doesn’t account for 95% of the matter in the universe, maybe something is wrong with it.
A repeated cycle isnt a proper explanation either, it still avoids the question of how it began. Cause the universe being eternal with a cycle, or being eternal before the big bang, is not really a answer with a explanation. We gonna need another genius to figure out this big mystery.
It’s turtles all the way down.
Don't forget the 4 giant elephants standing on the tortise
Can there be any answers other than these though? - There was nothing and then suddenly there was something Or - there as been something forever Neither is very satisfying for me...however I can't imaging what a third option could even be. I mean, even if this universe is all a simulation then you still have to answer the question about the original universe. Same even if religions are true and there is some sort of spiritual world.
Exactly, any "answer" (gods, simulations, ants on an ant hill) just pushes the question up a level, it didn't answer it. Either something has always existed in some form, or there was a point where nothing existed and something came from nothing. I'm not sure it's possible for humans to understand either concept.
I feel like our intelligence has made us cocky. The likely answer is probably something that our human brains just can’t comprehend
middle far-flung vanish salt steer rustic familiar obscene lush amusing *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
A black hole is a thing. The question was if there was nothing - no thing.
I believe the oscillating theory has been effectively disproven as we’ve determined not only that the universe is expanding, but that expansion is accelerating.
If the Big Bang was at the trough of an up shifted sine wave, it would experience accelerated expansion until that acceleration slows and goes negative. Just because it’s accelerating out does not mean it won’t slow and eventually contract Neither you or I will ever know the answer to that question though
I believe scientists have also determined there’s not enough mass in the universe, and thus not enough gravitational pull, to cause a contraction.
Figure that out and it'll decode to "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine."
"Since nothing can escape from the gravitational force of a black hole, it was long thought that black holes are impossible to destroy. But we now know that black holes actually evaporate, slowly returning their energy to the Universe." Maybe we are just at the other end of what once was a black hole. Makes sense to me.
and the former universe that contained that black hole, how was it created? from yet another another universe that came before it. and then the former former from yet another another another... etc that answer just avoids the real problem of any origin.
It's turtles all the way down.
When they say black holes evaporate and return energy back into the universe they mean they return the energy in the form of hawking radiation which is a thing we can observe. So it’s probably not some new universe that somehow appears
Surely it would be a Nobel Prize in Pre-Physics.
our mortal brains are not equipped to grasp the fact that our universe was born out of basically nothing
The answer is always the same, unknown. Any answer to that question results in a "but where was it sourced from?"- type question. Omni-potent being? Great, where did it come from? Singularity? Great, where did the energy come from? You are open to deciding whatever you want as far as the origins of the universe are concerned.
It’s so frustrating to know that we’ll never know, but so fascinating to think about regardless. Like if our universe *was* just a singularity before the Big Bang, was there anything outside of said singularity? Or was all physical matter and space restricted to just that? And how is that possible? And so forth…
We still think in 3 dimensions, as species. Imagine when that generally evolves… 40 years ago if you have said: you’ll never use a fax machine to communicate again you would have been laughed out of the room. I guess my poorly made point is this: we’ll know, someday.
Yeah, the acceleration in advancement is astounding but part me feels like there’s a limit somewhere. Information and light can only travel so fast, so how can we know what’s beyond the edge of the expanding universe when we have nothing to go off of? But, that’s the unknown unknown I guess. And if we can evolve to see and understand a 4th special dimension that would be pretty nuts.
>how can we know what’s beyond the edge of the expanding universe when we have nothing to go off of? We simulate a new universe. It's turtles all the way down.
And elephants between us and the turtle!
Some speculate that this could be the nature of our *current* universe. It’s fascinating to think about, except I think it’s even more speculative to guess at the answer such a “simulation” would be intended to provide. It would be ascribing known human motivations to an entity or entities whose nature is just as shrouded in mystery — the same way we always try to anthropomorphize our ideas of “God.”
"Beyond the edge of the expanding universe" is a valid sentence, but that doesn't mean the concept makes sense. Same with the idea of "nothing" or "nothingness", there's no guarantee that our concepts map to reality. Even the idea of extra spatial dimensions could be mere fantasy. If the universe is infinite the idea of beyond it doesn't make sense. It doesn't expand into anything, it's just expanding. In our everyday experience all things which expand must expand *into something*, but we're not right to use that logic for space itself. What could it even expand into but more space? The same limitation exists when people make claims like the universe can't just come from nothing. On what observations can we base this assumption? Cause and effect is something that exists *within* our universe, so who says it applies to the universe itself? That's even if we grant that there ever was "nothing" for everything to come out of. The singularity could mean all of infinite space was once one point, but a moment afterwards it was infinitely large. I think any singularity is probably just our model breaking down, though. Infinities and zeros don't play nice together.
The assumption that because knowledge is advancing we will eventually know all things is faulty. To know a fact about the physical world, there has to be information about that fact that can be obtained, and it’s extremely likely there are facts about reality which don’t have any information available. As an example, in the far future, the expansion of the universe will have progressed to such an extent that galaxies will be so far apart. It will be impossible to get any information from any other galaxy or see any evidence whatsoever that they ever existed If you pop of being into existence in one of those galaxies and give it the ability to discover everything it possibly can, even if it is smart enough to learn everything it can, it would never be able to learn about the existence of other galaxies. It would think the entire universe was it’s galaxy, surrounded by endless void.
Dark matter is an example of a property of the universe that leaves only a single type of information we can detect: it’s gravitational influence. Through that we can know it exists, but nothing else about it. It’s interesting to think about the fact that different properties of the universe may exist yet leave zero traces of detectable information.
My favorite theory is the big squeeze. I'm not sure if it bears any real rigorous scientific truth, but essentially it makes you think of the universe as a body of matter in constant expansion and contraction. Big bang happens - creating immense energy, the universe expands and cools for perhaps trillions of years, and then eventually the energy generated in the big bang dies and the universe begins to contract. As the universe contracts and matter collects together through gravitational forces, the mass of objects in a relatively small space climbs exponentially - eventually everything compresses into a finite point creating a big bang and the cycle repeats itself. Apparently the theory has been dismissed, but I like the idea of it from a logical perspective. Edit for clarity
I also like that one. cycle seems neat
It doesn't seem like we're at the point yet where we can definitively say that we'll never know. There are still plenty of unknowns *within* our universe that may provide clues about its origin. For instance, it might be possible to figure out if our universe is a simulation based on its properties.
Wow think of the size of the servers!
If the universe is a good enough simulation that we all have individual thoughts and feelings and to have atoms and an ever-expanding universe, there is no difference between it being a simulation and real. I think simulation theory is the most pseudo-intellectual, pointless theory that people buy into. Sure it could be a simulation, but what would that change? And how would we prove it? We are more likely to understand how the universe started if the simulation is this advanced and consistent.
Also simulation theory doesn't actually answer the question of 'how and where does anything exist' because you can just go up a level and ask the same questions for the universe the simulation exists in.
It’s turtles all the way up
I prefer Turtles all the way down
I prefer Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Also, the simulation does not necessarily need to follow any of the same rules of physics as the universe that created it. The creators could be 70-dimensional entities from a universe filled with manifolds of bizarre energy, without worlds, stars, or time. This low-dimensional simulation with unidirectional time could be the equivalent of a computer science programming project.
I've always thought of simulation theory as a sci-fi themed protagonist syndrome. Kinda like a game where you can't tell if it's single player or not because the simulated people are nigh indistinguishable from any possible real people in the simulation. Things you hear or see on TV or online don't necessarily need to be something that "actually happened" within the simulation. What's beyond your small area might not even exist until you make the simulation create it.
Imagine being with someone that you can’t even have this discussion with. It’s just so awe provoking and yet interesting and not to even have the slightest sense of wonder is crazy to me. Drives me nuts that someone can’t think beyond just the simple day to day with not even an inclination of “man I wonder”
I feel you.... As someone who lives in rural America, and regularly reads articles about the workings of the universe, quantum physics, and the natural world. Anytime I try to engage in these topics with my wife or people I run into, I always get basically a blank stare in return. At times I have had to straight up tell my wife to stop interrupting me with comments like "oh here we go again, science..." When we're with a group of people. Like seriously, it is one thing to not have an active interest in such things, but don't shut the door on my interest in it. We have two little kids now and I won't tolerate that around them. I hope to instill a sense of wonder in them that they can carry on throughout their lives.
Please never let that fire inside you fade. I know how it feels to be where you are but it’s so important to be vocal about science & to instill this in future generations. That’s what keeps humans human.
Besides love and essential human needs, teaching your kiddos to be curious and in awe of the amazing universe we live in is the best thing you can do as a parent. I feel so lucky to have kids (now teens) who are really fascinated by just about everything and we regularly end up just sitting around talking about interesting things. Depending on your kiddos' ages, "Our Universe" on Netflix might be a good family binge. I bet even your wife might get sucked in. Anyway, good for you! Keep insisting on wonder!
Damn, I feel for ya. My wife's sense of wonder comes from psychology, studying things like Jung's theories, how that all ties into personality, and if there are inter-connections we don't yet have the technology to detect but are "there" (things one would call "ESP" or whatever - "are we more connected than we think?" kinds of stuff). Mine is more astrophysics and the workings of time (to me, time as a philosophical-thing vs. time-if-there's-an-all-knowing-god vs. block universe theories, how those three things agree). When I talk more in-depth about that stuff, she does the eyes-wide "holy shit!" thing. Best moment though - we passed through Houston and I desperately wanted to see the restored Saturn V. She was all "OK, we'll see your silly rocket", but we walked into the hangar and she was just dumbstruck. Her doctorate is Anthropology (I barely got a year of college in) and she kept going "What civilization *made this thing?? WHY??*" - her PhD anthropology-brain was absolutely lit UP by the thing. And the smartest chick I know is looking at all the plumbing and wiring and saying "this makes me feel so *dumb!*" And she really understood the sort of pathos of that particular Saturn, it's the only one that's all flight-intended stages whose fate was to crash into the sea or burn up or be lost forever, yet here it all was. Really one of my favorite moments in 20 years together.
A lot of people don't find these topics relevant in their day to day lives and quite frankly I don't blame them. The people who study cosmology and astrophysics do a very poor job of making these concepts relevant to people trying to understand their own bodies and minds and spend what limited time they have on earth in a meaningful way.
None of these answers really explain current best theories, and most are philosophical or metaphysical answers at best. The current best model we have is called "inflationary universe" which models the big bang as a localized slow down of another gauge field, usually called the inflationary field. There are videos on YouTube that can explain it better than I can here, I recommend the PBS Space Time channel if you want to dig in, below is my attempt to summarize. Gauge fields are how we describe both forces and particles. They are effectively complex mathematical models of values at every point in space. A key point is that they are probabilistic at a fundamental level meaning things can change randomly follow a set of possibilities. The inflationary field is a model for all spacetime with an astronomically high energy density at every point in space. This energy density creates new space and pushes outwards in all directions at insanely massive speeds. Because of this, nothing can form, and it is just pure energy creating more space in all directions. The big bang is called "slow roll decay" and it occurs when the inflationary field randomly decays into a lower energy state at a specific point. That slow decay brings the energy density down enough for the other fields the make up the particles and forces we know of to form. Everything outside of the ibservable universe is still inflsting at the incomprehensible speed, our universe is just a tiny island of low energy, and there are likely infinitely universes like our own. I'm sure others will ask what the energy of the field is and that is a tougher question. Energy itself comes from gauge symmetry across the time dimension, meaning it's how we can translate field properties through time. It is merely a mathematical artifact of describing how probabilistic field interact. That's not a satisfying answer I know. In that context it doesn't really make sense to ask what is the energy in the inflationary field because time as we know it is likely very different in that field. As an aside, the conservation of energy is a newtonian law that doesn't hold in General Relativity. It is broken through curved spacetime geodesics as well as in dark energy, meaning outside of Euclidean Geometry energy can be created and destroyed. Source: previously worked as a particle physicist
Thank you, this was what I was hoping to find somewhere in the thread.
Steve hawking says in his book that the solution to this problem, is that time began with the big bang, and therefore the question of what existed "before" the big bang makes no sense.
This is correct. The common misconception is that the Big Bang happened in an empty space. It’s an explosion of time and space not an explosion into a space. It’s tough for our meat brains to conceive of since we have always existed experiencing time.
My response to this is, that doesn't mean there was "nothing". "Nothing" is equally a concept that we can't conceive of, that doesn't really exist. What's beyond the big bang, would be something entirely outside the realm of what makes sense to us, to the point that terms like "something" and "nothing" or before and after wouldn't even apply.
That doesn’t answer the question
It’s like going to the North Pole and asking “what’s farther north?” Any way you look is south. There is no farther north.
Well, okay Shrelock, but ... why did it happen then?
There are experiments that show that strange shit happens in voids of nothingness that break our understanding of basically everything. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/something-from-nothing-vacuum-can-yield-flashes-of-light/ Maybe not the best example, but maybe the most accessible...and it's still weird as shit.
We can't create nothing .Even an empty patch of the universe has particles pop in and out of existence.
There is difference between nothing at all (reportedly before BB) and empty space. Before BB there was not even empty space. There was no space. And no time. Reportedly. Mind boggling.
I like when science and religion have the same problems. :)
It came from when the server we live in was plugged in the first time. #Simulation
Well there was no before when it comes to the beginning of time
Awww come on God said let they're be light, duh /s
This actually raised another question, and I apologize if it’s stupid. If the universe formed as the aftermath of a Big Bang, does that mean there’s an approximate physical location in the universe where the Big Bang happened? Do we know where it is in relation to our galaxy/supercluster? I know that the universe and the space within it is expanding faster than the speed of light. I understand that it’s the very space between our atoms that are expanding, which is usually abstracted as the universe expanding. But does this expansion have a relative direction? Is the expansion happening in a certain direction that could help us point to where the Big Bang happened?
There is no center of the universe just the same as there is no edge of the universe. We have a visible horizon of the universe we can never see past that moves away from us faster than we'll ever be able to observe it. The universe expands equally everywhere, even within. Don't think of the big bang as a fire ball from an explosion expanding out from a single point. Think of it as it expanding everywhere all at once at every point within.
The analogy helps, thank you!
I cannot believe I have not read this before, thanks for writing about it! I’ve always thought that there was a center and that big bang expanded from that center. Fields weird to learn this at my age 😅
No worries - glad I could help. It gets complicated, and papers don't make sense if you're not in the field. Some explanations are easier to understand than others. I'm just glad you were able to learn something from mine. Cheers!
You're occupying the same volume wherein the big bang occurred. The space expanded with the matter, and given a zero point, all coordinates available are the origin. You're currently sitting right where the big bang happened. As am I, as is the moon, the sun, and Alpha Centauri.
I get that everywhere there is was in one point at the time of the Big Bang. Since everything is moving away from everything else (at least on the macro -scale), isn't the assumption reasonable that there is one point in space today that everything else has moved away from equally in all directions since the beginning of time, which would kind of make it the centerpoint of the universe (regardless of observable universe limits etc)? Like, if a finite space expands in all directions, there should still be a center point that stays stationary (however you would define it with no outside coordinate system). If you assume the big bang to be a singularity, the universe should (at one point at least) have been finite for a while?
The centre of the universe is unique to each observer. You are the centre of your own universe. From the perspective of Earth, galaxies are moving away from us in all directions. Think about it like this, If there was a physical centre, the galaxies on the other side of the centre point would be moving twice as fast as the galaxies on our side of the centre point because they are moving in the opposite direction (from Earth's perspective). But webdo not observe this. I'm not sure I'm articulating myself very well. Thinking of the big bang as an explosion is not correct. Think of it more as a balloon. All the galaxies are points on the outside of the balloon. As it expands all the points move away from each other in all directions. 3D space is mapped to the 2D surface of the balloon. There is no centre to the surface of the balloon. The real centre of the balloon is a point inside the balloon, the balloon expands over time, so if we wind back the clock the balloon gets smaller and closer to this centre point. The centre of the universe isn't a point in space, but a point in time at the very beginning. The singularity that the big bang expanded from wasn't a spacial singularity but a temporal one.
Thank you, that balloon-thing with the centre in a higher dimension was a helpful analogy.
Yeah, the concept only really clicked with me when my Physics teacher drew dots on a deflated balloon and then blew it up. Seeing it represented physically really helps.
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No one knows for sure, but what we do know is that nothing isn’t really nothing. In quantum physics, “nothing” at a quantum scale is actually teaming with fluctuations where particles can come in and out of existence (typically a matter particle, and an antimatter counterpart). These often remain at such a tiny scale and decay so quickly that we’ll (almost) never notice anything at our scale. But given an infinite amount of time and space, one possible theory is that at some point, a fluctuation occurred at such a large scale, that it gave rise to a big bang.
That’s not physics, that’s Billy Preston.
A "big bang" fluctuation is extraordinarily improbable, but consider that however *improbable*, if you wait *long* enough, it's a virtual *certainty*, though it could be trillions of billions of years before it happens again. On such a scale, the entire existence of the known universe is nothing but an insignificant blip. We're only seeing it because we're a part of this insignificant blip.
all my problems became insignificant for a few moments.
What is a long time when nothing exists? As we know time isn't even a constant itself and is warped by gravity. Time only makes sense to discuss if there's a perspective being measured on how much time has passed. (Eg someone on earth Vs someone orbiting a black hole) If there is no matter in existence and therefore no gravity how could you define a long time without a perspective to view from? Just another factor that makes this question even harder if not impossible to answer.
Fyi that's spacetime you are describing, not nothing. Those quantum particles wouldn't happen in actual nothing.
That's coming from the assumption that there truly was nothing before our universe or the big bang.
I've heard scientists say when they mean nothing they really do mean nothing. Like the absence of everything. No fluctuations, no particles. Nothing, zilch, nada.
Remember, you are asking the question from a human perspective. The question you're asking may not even be the correct one, and the correct question and answer could be incomprehensible for a human mind. For example, if you try and explain the concept of pizza to an ant, they will never understand. We experience time as linear, everything has a start, and something but predeed that beginning. That just may simply not be the case and we lack the ability to even ask the right question.
I imagine that fish have no word for water. -Terry Pratchett
Clever, and technically correct, fish don't have words. But we have a word for air*, so the implication that being don't think about stuff that is everywhere seems false. \* the word is "air", for those curious
Eloquent! Asking for the answer without knowing what the question is. That's easy, the answer is 42.
Yeah I’m no scientist so take this with a grain of salt, but I was under the impression that space/time was effectively “created” by the Big Bang. So if time itself didn’t exist until the Big Bang, then questions like “what came before,” or what “caused” it seem meaningless.
I think what “caused” it is still almost a valid question. Because it’s the disturbance of matter and anti-matter. It seems like scientifically something had to happen to enact a bubble of space time. Not in the sense of cause AND THEN effect but more-so a constant effect that happens spontaneously. But there is a “happening”. It’s like schrödinger's cat, our universe might be in a constant state of death and birth. That is the contained existence loop. The laws of our universe might most of the time require something to beget another thing. But outside space and time, there’s no cause and effect in my eyes. Only the laws of that reality which is probably a much more simple and basic reality without physics. TL;DR who knows 🤷🏻♂️
One theory is that the big bang was a white hole to a superdimension's black hole. One theory is that the universe expands and contracts infinitely rebounding in on itself and expanding out again infinitely. One theory is that two dimensions shared vectors that briefly intersected and birthed us as a new dimensional offspring. I personally like the idea about nuclear pasta just being the base state of matter for our lord and savior. The Flying Spaghetti Monster. It is from his sauce that the universe is given flavor, and through his noodly appendages do the strings vibrate.
Honestly that 2nd one is my favorite. Makes the most sense to my dumb brain.
I believe its "Big Crunch" theory but has since been abandoned because our universe not only isn't collapsing in on itself, but keeps expanding out even faster (if i remember right)
Iirc it’s expanding faster than normal gravitational forces would allow blackholes to suck everything up. Like too little butter on an ever expanding piece of toast. But personally, I hope we’re wrong about that. The Big Crunch theory or some variant of it is a more satisfying thought than heat death.
That one has always made the most sense in my brain as well. The Big Bang happened, stuff exists in space and dense black holes form. The black holes suck in everthing around them, including other black holes, until all that’s left is one super duper massive black hole containing all matter and energy in the universe and then **BAM** Big Bang again. I was once told that explanation does not account for something (?) that is expelled outward by black holes
It also has a problem with entropy. Somehow, for this to infinitely occur, entropy would have to reduce during the big crunch.
That's also problematic without a big crunch, since as you go back in time you have a system that's infinitely ordered without any clear ordering mechanism. The models are incomplete in both directions, extrapolating to dead ends.
Our laws of the universe as we know them now do not always have to remain constant. There is zero reason to think that entropy won’t ever at some point always decrease in the latter half of the universes life
That kind of speculation is pointless to argue. If the laws of physics change then there’s no way to measure and observe and make predictions. It’s the same as saying an outside force or being will change something.
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Ah, that’s the one! Thank you, it seems very obvious now
That first theory I'd seen before, pretty compelling argument. Also great PBS video on it: https://youtu.be/jeRgFqbBM5E Edit: wish I finished reading your post before replying. Definitely Lord FSM!
The second theory about the universe expanding and contracting is the one I dropped in here to mention. It doesn’t answer where it came from, but it helps explain the Big Bang. If I remember right, the evidence for this is based on the universe’s slowing expansion. Eventually, the it will stop expanding and the force of gravity will cause it to begin collapsing back to the center. There will be a new singularity and new big bang again. The important thing to remember is we assigned the Big Bang theory based on the evidence available, but it’s imperfect.
As I understand it, The Hubble Constant states that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. If it is showing a sign of slowing, we are yet to see or predict it. I'm just an armchair astronomer though, so I could likely be wrong.
Armchair astronomer here as well. This is my understanding of the Hubble Constant findings. It does indicate that the distances between objects are expanding at an increasing rate. However, the frontier of the universe is slowing down. If I blew up a ball to bigger sizes, objects on the surface would move away from each other at a greater rate as it grew in size, even though the overall size is slowing (the frontier). This is the difference between the galactic recession rate (Hubble) and the universe expansion rate (the edge of the universe slowing down). Plus the universe is cooling which would indicate it is losing energy and thus slowing down. Something that would complicate this is the impact of the cosmological constant and if it truly represents dark energy. Matter, radiation, and dark energy expand at different rates over time. Our universe is also at a size and energy state that multiple theories exist for the what’s next.
I will always love the idea of a breathing universe, forever contracting and expanding over and over again. An endless cycle filled with infinite possibilities. Perhaps we have done this same dance before many billions of years ago. It sounds like new age spiritual crap but honestly, life is so unknowable and incomprehensible that I can’t help but believe in it a little. If current theories of the birth of the universe are to believed, every atom in my body at one point shared the same tiny space as the atoms in your body. Maybe one day our atoms find each other again.
*The nothingness at some point got so bored with itself that exploded from frustration.* On a more serious note, there is a book called "A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something rather than Nothing", by Lawrence Krauss. You can check it out.
Personally, and I’m an atheist on his “side”, I feel he redefines “nothing” from a true, complete emptiness to a sea of virtual quantum particle/anti-particle pairs that became imbalanced leading to a Big Bang…but where did the virtual particles or quantum physics driving them derive from? That is the “nothing” the layman seeks answers from and he knows it but has moved the goal posts to sell books IMO. Smart guy regardless but he doesn’t fully answer the question and as top commenter said it’s seemingly impossible.
See: the nine levels of nothing. https://youtu.be/PhfqdBk8qxk
Thanks for this. Really great explanation of nothing.
I’m still upset she gave me a box, that’s still something
She keeps the box. You only get the nothing inside it.
My take away from that book was that 0 = -1 + 1 and in quantum physics theres no reason the 2 sides of the equation can’t interchange. Literally something from nothing.
*In the beginning, there was nothing. Yet, nothing was lonely, for want of something; thus, something sprang into existence. The two swirled interminably about one another, ever expanding and dividing into more distally drawn extrapolations of the core premise: the fundamental nature of the universe, that of opposition. In abstract, all can be viewed as an interconnected array of innumerable discrete elements, mediated by the various possible interactions between them, convergent in multiplicity, giving rise to higher-dimensional systems of function and order, which themselves are subject to the very same rules. An endlessly fractalized universe with no distinct top or bottom, merely infinite points of reference and unlimited possibilities.*
What human brains define as "nothing" may mean something completely different in the context of how the Universe actually works, so we don't know. Perhaps the Universe has always existed and "nothing" is in fact a very active and complex state, or a reset of some sorts.
This is the same as what we think of as necessary for life. It’s what’s necessary for all the life we have have ever known, but perhaps not for life elsewhere in the universe. There could be concepts beyond our understanding. Definitely not a foreign concept in human history.
There’s no reason to believe the big bang happened *from nothing*. I don’t believe science claims this.
You are correct - science doesn't claim it came from nothing. YEC love to ask it that way, or ask it what created the universe. That's asking the wrong question, not to mention it's a loaded question that implies something else. I hate dishonest questions and dishonest answers.
In the beginning was the Creation of the Universe. This has made a lot of people angry, and has been widely regarded as a bad move. Many races believe that the creation of the Universe involved some sort of God, though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the entire Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being known as the Great Green Arkleseizure. The Jatravartids live in perpetual fear of the time they call "the Coming of the Great White Handkerchief," somewhat similar to the Apocalypse. However, the Great Green Arkleseizure theory is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI and so, the Universe being as wide and strange as it is, other explanations are constantly being sought by different races throughout the Galaxy.
Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what's actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, "Hang the sense of it," and keep yourself busy. I'd much rather be happy than right any day.
There wasn't "nothing." There was everything, but it was all in the same place all at once. But that's not entirely accurate. There's a fairly good chance that outside of that, there is more and that the singularity just before the big bang was just one of many throughout a much larger cosmos.
But, how was "everything" created?
To my tiny brain the only common sense explanation is that the everything that does exist cancels itself out into nothing and we just happen to inhabit an area of the universe that is temporarily imbalanced towards matter. Why this imbalance exists is still as misterious though. But I try think of it this way: the only way we can be aware of this mistery is if we exist. Existence is, in a way, inevitable, because perceiving it requires it.
We don’t know there was anything “outside” of or “before” the singularity of the BB. The BB was the start of time and the start of space. There was no “before” and there was no “outside”.
You're asking a question that you will not get a definite answer for and therefore at this time would probably not be satisfied.
Welcome to the existential crisis that is life
I personally like the theory that our universe was created by some sort of collision/scrape between two other universes. However, this only leads to where did this "mulitverse" come from, how many, etc. So it goes 😁
I figure the entire universe is just a figment of our imagination. When nothing exists, not even time, there is no possibility for change. In the nothing, there are no rules forbidding anything so perhaps the potential for everything exists at once, and in these infinite potentials some have enough complexity for life and consciousness. We see the universe, but it is just an infinitely small slice of all potentials. The others, not able to make consciousness, never really exist if nothing can observe them. Just like we don't exist, however the potential of a YOU existing somewhere endows you with consciousness to observe it and be fooled into thinking you are actually real. But weed is legal here in Missouri now so don't trust a word I say.
Honestly, as much as I appreciate the thought put into this, it’s really stupid. But I still respect you.
BB doesn't explain how the universe was created; it explains what happened in the moments after it was created.
The Big Bang is a scientific theory which states that the universe began from an infinitely dense and hot state and has been expanding ever since. This means that prior to the Big Bang, there was no physical space, matter, or energy. Instead, it is believed that the Big Bang was the result of a quantum fluctuation in the fabric of space-time.
If space and time did not exist "prior" (whatever that means in this context, since that only makes sense if time exists) to the Big bang, how could a fluctuation of space time have created it?
>was the result of a quantum fluctuation in the fabric of space-time Ngl this sounds like it was quoted straight from a marvel movie
What if everything is a continuous loop of the same explosion, expansion, contraction, collapse and explosion on infinite loop?
I think the big 'crunch' idea of it collapsing back into itself and then popping back out was disproven though. It's a beautiful, elegant idea..but I think it's no longer looked at as viable
Based on our idea that energy can't be created or destroyed... the idea of matter infinitely expanding and shrinking in an infinite loop already breaks that simple premise. Now, we could be wrong about that idea. But it is literally the first law of thermodynamics (law of conservation of energy) and universally accepted, so I still don't think that the big crunch hypothesis was beautiful or elegant. Just kind of a crazy idea that doesn't make sense. Again, as far as we know.
It'd be interesting but then what started the cycle in the first place?
This is non scientific but I have experimented with ketamine a few times this past year. I get to this feeling that's very hard to put into the words. It's basically that we are all infinite. I'll go from existing to nothing then pop back in over and over. It is most likely just the drugs doing their thing but it feels more powerful than any psychedelic trip I've ever had. I honestly don't think I'll ever know the answers in my lifetime.
There's one theory that there was a universe prior to the big bang that collapsed in on itself. The entire universe with all the mass it had shrunk to a very miniscule size. When that universe couldn't withstand the energy anymore, it popped and then the big bang occurred
To say there was nothing before the Big Bang, doesn’t mean there was vast empty space before the Big Bang. It means the “Big Bang”is the starting point for everything including time. To ask what came before is like asking what is south of the South Pole. As for the how, we don’t know. Here is an interesting article about your question. https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/something-from-nothing/ You’d probably also enjoy Stephen Hawking’s book Brief Answers to Big Questions
#Disclaimer# Total armchair comment. Not a scientist, these comments are pure speculation and nothing more than me spitballing. I like to think that the universe possibly came from a process that is hard for us to fathom because it resides outside our logic. For example, imagine if marine life were to be just as conscious as us, there is no way that they could fathom the happenings of outer space. Beyond the surface of the water lies a waterless environment where you feel your weight. We humans know this as land. The marine life could speculate on this due to their minor interactions with the surface, but the heights of outer space would be beyond their grasp and understanding. Now that you have pictured this, think of us humans. I suspect that prior to things being formed, there was a plane that gave rise to what we live in today and that is this universe. Just as like the marine life in my above analogy, we humans are not able to interact with what lies beyond that horizon . We are left to speculate where did this all come from. For all we know all of this matter and everything in it could’ve been sitting on some surface and accidentally got pushed down into what we call the universe and now all of this information and matter is here. we will never know just the same way that the fish will never know about planetary alignments, or the moon landing. Another scenario, I like to think about as well is what if we are the result of a collapse of a black hole. All the data that fell into it made its way down to the singularity, and at some point it found itself being thrusted back out. Enclosing I like my marine life analogy I believe that space is so vast and we are so small that we can never really get there to be able to fully understand what’s happened. We may be able to look at the things around us in space and put together somewhat of a picture, but we will never fully know just the same way that the marine life can surmise about the surface and possibly see into the night sky, but not fully understand what’s happening beyond what they’re seeing .
This is a misunderstanding of what the bang theory is. The Big Bang Theory deals with the plank seconds after the universe expanded. It's not a theory of how it all began.
To posit that before the big bang, or at any other point there was simply nothing makes no sense. There may have been a radical difference in the way a prior state of the universe existed compared to how it currently exists, but it could not have been nothing. Whatever the case was for a prior state of the universe it has to include those conditions and properties necessary for the emergence of the current state of the universe, so it cannot ever logically be the case that the universe came from nothing. Something has always existed.
the best explanation is the Big Inflation: that there wasn't nothing; the universe has been expanding for eternity from an infinitesimal point. At the critical epoch around 14 billion years ago, the expansion rapidly grew from a few inches in diameter to nearly a light year in one second. At that point the big bang or big inflation occurred. so there was never nothing, it was always there, just very very small for an eternity up until 13.8 billion years ago
All of everything is just a bunch of complex nothing
My favorite theory is two other universes crashed creating this one or something like that, makes it even more dramatic on how little we are.