Before the big bang?

[BlokBlok]

Before I watch this video or read this thread, should I smoke some pot?

 

[Deliguy]

this isn't the original article but it explains it well
The Big Bang - NASA Science

This and other cosmological problems could be solved, however, if there had been a very short period immediately after the Big Bang where the Universe experienced an incredible burst of expansion called "inflation." For this inflation to have taken place, the Universe at the time of the Big Bang must have been filled with an unstable form of energy whose nature is not yet known.

Sorta answers the original question. At least as far a they are theorizing right now.

 

[1nspire]

A penguin jumping.


Also as fast as the big bang theory came into existence from evidence gathered by hubble and the findings of red phase shift it's falling just as quickly the more the hubble finds uniformity among the light barrier (the hunt for the direction of the blast by finding concentrations of older galaxies and radiation vs sparsity on the opposite side). Imagine being a piece of shrapnel in the midst of a grenade blast and looking out as far as you can and trying to find what direction the blast originated from. The theory that the big bang happened within 18.9b years ago is already toast considering it was based on the likelihood that matter can't travel faster than light. If that was true then we would be able to see the big bang actually happening within our lightverse and the speed at which light travels. Our lightverse is 18.9b light years; thats where the number came from. Since we can't see it, then matter at one point did travel faster than light, or there was no singularity. Accepting the former a lot of astronomers are completely switching to the theory of inflation, others are accepting a common ground of the two theories, the rest aren't holding their breathes. Likewise, if you have any understanding of the big bang theory you'll know it's not the theory of the beginning of existence. It's defined as the theory of what happened immediately after the beginning of existence itself, not before existence, not existence, but after and beyond. So to say its obvious that there was nothing before the big bang is going against its own definition. Obviously there was something whether it was a singularity or some antimatter colliding. Something was there, and probably even something that created that. So on and so forth.
Sorry had to clear that up.

Holy shit Eli, I know you were in the upper echelon in terms of interwebs but this post has indeed impressed me. I will tell you truth, I have taken your affiliate network as a joke but I will definitely reconsider.

 

[-God-]

It's quite funny how someone started this thread, when last night I watched the first 2 episodes of "Wonders of the Universe" with Professor Brian Cox.

BBC - BBC Two Programmes - Wonders of the Universe
[Proxy up if you're interested, because it's brilliant.]

It made me wonder, in light of the latest religion "debate" thread, what kind of programmes (specifically on space and our origins) the U.S. channels make/get. I watched it talking about the beginnings and the expansion and entropy and red giants and all that shit and couldn't help being filled with awe.

 

[nickster]

He said that? My logic professor would say it all the time. I thought it was a common term. Credit to Hawkings.

More importantly, how about a big LOL for nickster who thinks he's smarter than Hawkings.

Sorry mate but I can think for myself and don't need to pass others quotes off to make my point.

My belief is that there was of course something before the big bang as I don't believe in gods, deities or creationism. Time in my mind is not about light (seeing something) its about existence and that the universe has always existed as it encompasses everything (maybe not the current physics view of the universe) and the big bang (if correct) only threw the constituents of the universe outwards but not the universe itself as it was already there as I believe even empty space (nothingness) is something. If you are to talk about nothing before the universe (as defined as infinite) then you have to believe that the universe was created at a single point from nothing and thus that there was a creator, which I don't believe.

I am not sure what Hawking meant when he talked about there being no time before the big bang, but I am pretty sure he meant perceptible time and not existence. I will make a point to look it up.

Anyway thats what I think.