The beginning?

[cee-dee]

OK, so "They" say "everything" began with the Big Bang.

Fair enough, it was quite something and happened faster than the blink of an eye?

"They" also say nothing can travel faster than light?

If that's so, how can "They" view light which "began" shortly after the Big Bang?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19728375

We are "here", they're viewing light from a heck of a long way away, such light will have taken billions of years to get here even at approximately 186,000 miles per second.

So how did we get out "here", so far from that light when it was Starlight so long ago?

OK, were we able to get to the source of that light in an instant, we'd find it was probably no longer there but we are billions of miles from where that light was so how come the matter from which our Solar System was formed got sooooo far away from the Stars they're no "seeing"?

[cee-dee]

Laws of Physics? Hey, we're getting too technical for a lighthearted discussion?

Doesn't the Law of the Conservation of Energy more or less state that mass can't be created or destroyed and although it may be altered and changed into different types of particles, in the process, the mass of the reactants must equal the mass of the products?

[upthecreekyetagain]

Something along those lines and of course if the sum of everything in the universe is zero then the idea that the universe came from nothing would not break any of those laws - in fact if the sum is zero then to comply with those laws the universe must have stared as nothing.

[cee-dee]

You can't have it both ways, if Mass can't be created or destroyed, how could the Universe have started as nothing?

[upthecreekyetagain]

The law of conservation of mass doesn't say that mass can't be created nor destroyed.  It states that the mass in an isolated system will remain constant over time.

We know by demonstration that mass can be destroyed and converted into energy and vice versa so by inference you get the law of the conservation of energy.

So if the total of the mass and the energy in the universe totals zero then it must have started as nothing.

[cee-dee]

You've made an assuption that the total of the mass and energy  in the Universe totals zero. Just assuming it doesn't make it so.

Anyway, the Universe itself is an isolated, closed system. It's very creation makes it self contained and all within isolated.

[upthecreekyetagain]

A conditional statement, not an assumption 🙂

I'm not clever enough to be able to substantiate such a statement but there are many scientists who make such a claim.

Maybe I am being too parochial by suggesting that the universe started from nothing 😮

If it did start from something then that just poses the question, where did that something come from?

If that something came from something else then where did that come from and so on.

At some point something has to have come from nothing.

[Anonymous]

hi chaps, mass is a weight of the amount of matter.

matter can be destroyed with the ballance being energy output.

1grm of matter mixed with 1grm of antimatter will annihilate each other with energy being the ballance. energy could be heat, light or the energy could be used to annhiolate more matter.

[kreemeemunkee]

The laws of physics do dictate that no energy etc comes free.

In the 1960s the GE Company experimented with all sorts of electric motors hoping to create more energy than they consumed, but it was found to be impossible.

[upthecreekyetagain]

If the result of combining matter with anti-matter is ONLY positive energy then you have created something out of nothing.

Incidentally weight is the effect of gravity on mass.

Mass is a measure of the inertia of an object.

An object with a mass of 1 ton would have a weight of 1 ton on the surface of the Earth but a much lower weight on the surface of the moon.

However the force required to accelerate the mass of 1 ton to 1mph would be the same whether it be on the Earth, the Moon or in space.

[kreemeemunkee]

So in that case, anti matter is scientifically accepted to be "nothing".?

[upthecreekyetagain]

No - equal amounts of matter and anti-matter equals nothing.

[kreemeemunkee]

So, where does the matter that was something ..go, where does it  end up?

[upthecreekyetagain]

That's like asking what happens to the sound when you have a single tone of a specific frequency coming from one speaker meeting the same frequency sound from another speaker but half an oscillation different - they cancel each other out.

You can see the same effect with light, a particle that behaves like a wave.

[cee-dee]

Hmmmmm, now then, how about we mix the Laws of Physics with the Laws of Motion?

What do you say about "An object, when propelled by a force will continue in the direction of that force until acted upon by another force" ?? (OK, I've re-written it a bit but it's easier when less "technical"?)

So what was the force that "propelled" everything? Oh, you want the word "expanding" used instead? Play on then?

Now, we're told the Universe is expanding at a faster rate and it's claimed that some force is causing this?

How about the "resistance" exerted on the moving bodies is becoming less rather than some unknown force is causing the speed-up?

Now within our own atmosphere, we know that eventually an object slows down after being propelled by an initial force and it was thought that moving things (Stars, galaxies et al) would also slow down eventually.

To "explain" the surprising speed-up, "they" have hypothesised a few things to account for it (the increase in speed).

Who says that whatever was "contained" in the seemingly empty space (which wasn't there !!!)  is getting less and less the further the Universe "expands" (there's that word) allowing the Universe and it's contents to pick up speed?

It's OK for some to hypothesise and invent things to "make" the Standard Model "fit" so why can't I chuck a few hypotheticals in to the mix?

[kreemeemunkee]

I cannot answer the questions as they are beyond me.

With that said, i'm not on my own as even the best scientific minds cannot provide these answers.

It really makes us ask if it is possible for us to ever totally understand how the universe was created.

I envy all of the future generations who will at some point enjoy a better understanding of these things as it is very clear that as a species we are at the very start of the scientific age.

[cee-dee]

Where's UTCYA?

You know we have Dark matter, Dark Force and Dark Energy?

Well, now we have Dark Fluid. Did you know?

[upthecreekyetagain]

Nope :^O

[cee-dee]

OK, now taking everything that's been said, how do you react to the comment by Christian Boehmer a lecturer at University College London when speaking about the Dark things:-

"Frankly speaking, these are just fancy words we use to name something we do not understand."

[upthecreekyetagain]

Makes perfect sense to me.

There are lots of cases in the history of the sciences where the observed situation doesn't fit the accepted mathematical model and an explanation has to be put forward which involves theorising about something not yet observed or in some cases changing the accepted mathematical model.

Pluto is an example of the former, Einsteins theories of relativity the latter.

[cee-dee]

Ah, but............... people have a nasty habit of trotting out the theory as a fact, when it's not.

They're "searching" for the Higgs Boson but what for? Why call it the God particle?

I would guess the particle might exist but such things beg further questions. Like........

Just where are these magic particles supposed to have come from? Created in the Big Bang eh? OK, what caused the bang and where did that lot come from?

To theorise about things being created from "nothing" makes that all seem less likely than......

The Universe as we know it is only part of The Greater Universe which has no beginning and no end and has existed for ever. "Our" Big Bang was just one of many over the eons of time (time and space which has also existed for ever).

What caused that bang was.... all the Black holes in our Universe eventually consumed each other until everything is in one enormous Black Hole. The immense pressure (gravity) and heat eventually creates "The Big Bang" and off we jolly well go (again).

Is that theory any more outlandish than everything being created from nothing?