Infinity and the big bang

[Sliver]

I'm way out of my depth here so might be talking complete rubbish and/or already a theory - but what if matter has to be able to [potentially] be observed? - that instead of the wave function collapsing inside a black hole when matter reaches a point of incoherence where it is no longer able for it to possibly be observed it essentially ends up anywhere - even possibly other universes due to the nature of as per the wave function.

EDIT: Though that should be measurable with its mass taking into account time dilation assuming gravity behaves similarly.

The truth is, according to Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, at the centre of every black hole is a singularity, a point at which all matter collapsing in ends up in an infinitely small space where density and gravity become infinite and space-time curves infinitely. The current laws of physics we have break down at this point and quantum effects then become important. Unfortunately, general relativity provides no basis for working out what happens next. The same problem crops up when trying to explain the big bang, which is thought to have started with a singularity. So in 2006, physicists applied loop quantum gravity to the birth of the universe. LQG combines general relativity with quantum mechanics and defines space-time as a web of indivisible chunks of about 10-35 metres in size. The team found that as they rewound time in an LQG universe, they reached the big bang, but no singularity – instead they crossed a quantum bridge into another, older, universe. This is the basis for the big bounce theory for the origins of our universe. It is also why I named this thread "Infinity and The Big Bang", because if string theory is correct then time stretches back infinitely and also has no end.

This is what I was hoping to explain to dowie earlier in the thread, be he's so arrogant he wouldn't read my links and just asserted I was incorrect and that he was right. The truth is, String Theory may be a model that turns out to be a theory of everything which I find very exciting. It's a work in progress and we may not get the answers in our lifetime, but maybe we will. It's something I'd like to understand fully before I croak.

 

[Rroff]

Albert Einstein ran into a roadblock at around that point and I think would have benefited massively from some of the concepts we understand today just in terms of alternative perspectives to work at the problems from that he probably would never have been able to imagine despite his capabilities.

I'm not that happy with a lot of the current approaches towards these problems as many seem to try and find contrived solutions so as to avoid controversial points, etc.

 

[dowie]

This is what I was hoping to explain to dowie earlier in the thread, be he's so arrogant he wouldn't read my links and just asserted I was incorrect and that he was right. The truth is, String Theory may be a model that turns out to be a theory of everything which I find very exciting. It's a work in progress and we may not get the answers in our lifetime, but maybe we will. It's something I'd like to understand fully before I croak.

You were incorrect, I've read the magazine article btw.. but I was making a straightforward point which wasn't about the article but about your assertion, which was incorrect. It looks like DP pointed this out to you too earlier in the thread too, I'm not being arrogant nor was I trying to be rude, I am wondering if you perhaps didn't understand as your reply basically ignored what I'd said and just told me to go read a link... which if anything was perhaps a bit arrogant on your part.

 

[D.P.]

There are an infinite amount of real number between 0 and 1. The infinite sequence starts at 0 and ends at 1, with very precise start and end points.
There are also an infinite amount of real values between 1 and 2. And the set of real numbers between 0 and 2 is therefore bigger than between 0 and 1, in fact it is likely twice as big.

The thing with infinity is there are infinitely many different values for infinity.


To get in to even more detail, Cantor showed that there are more infinite real numbers between 0 and 1 than there are in the infinite set of natural numbers.

 

[DampDog]

For me this is where it all starts to get flaky. We appear to be reaching the point where what we can actually measure or observe is nearing it's limit with our present technology. We are now in the hands of the theorist and mathematicians who champion various models. Look at the Higgs Boson, I think it was in the mid 60's that it's existence was first suspected. To actually verify it's existence it has taken almost another 60 years and billions of ££s. The smaller the particle the bigger the machine we need to see them because of the energies involved. We might not have the money or the will to go much further.

As of yet "Dark energy" and "Dark matter" are best guesses to explain what we have observed. It could be a million miles away from the truth. It may be that 95% of the universe that is mad of, may be a fraction of a % of something else that we've not begun to comprehend.

 

[DampDog]

Interesting little article on "The Cosmic dawn." and the emergence of the first starts. It looks like it may push back the estimates for first-light in the universe to just 180million years after the Big-bang. Those stars would in turn be responsible for seeding the universe with the elements.
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment]

 

[Sliver]

Interesting little article on "The Cosmic dawn." and the emergence of the first starts. It looks like it may push back the estimates for first-light in the universe to just 180million years after the Big-bang. Those stars would in turn be responsible for seeding the universe with the elements.
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment]

That link isn't working for me. It just goes to the BBC website and says 'Page not found'.

 

[DampDog]

That link isn't working for me. It just goes to the BBC website and says 'Page not found'.

I should have said. I put the link in brackets to stop hot-linking. Just delete the [] at each end. Sorry.

 

[Glacius]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment

Should work now

 

[Sliver]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment

Should work now

Thanks.

Yeah, a very interesting article. Hopefully with the launch of the JWT (James Web telescope) and the SQA (square kilometer array), we'll see even further back.

Most exciting part of the article for me was this:

One exciting explanation for this is if the hydrogen atoms in the early cosmos had some direct interaction with so-called "dark matter".
This unseen "stuff" is postulated to exist because of the way its gravitational influence is seen to affect the rotation of galaxies. But its substance is unknown because no other type of interaction has yet been observed.
The Murchison observation may be the first hint that such interactions are possible and the news therefore is likely to galvanise efforts to make the first detections of dark matter particles.
One exciting explanation for this is if the hydrogen atoms in the early cosmos had some direct interaction with so-called "dark matter".
This unseen "stuff" is postulated to exist because of the way its gravitational influence is seen to affect the rotation of galaxies. But its substance is unknown because no other type of interaction has yet been observed.
The Murchison observation may be the first hint that such interactions are possible and the news therefore is likely to galvanise efforts to make the first detections of dark matter particles.

If we want a unified theory of everything then we must understand what dark matter and dark energy are and how they interact with each other and the matter we can see.

 

[lunar]

Dark energy is reponsible for the expanding Universe at an accelerating rate.
There are four fundamental forces in nature. Perhaps, Dark energy could be associated with a yet unknown force, which has been elusive.

 

[Sliver]

Dark energy is reponsible for the expanding Universe at an accelerating rate.

Yeah, and that seems to be all we know about it. We need to know a lot more to fully understand why it's only interaction with the matter we can see appears to be gravitational. It really is mysterious.

 

[w11tho]

There are also an infinite amount of real values between 1 and 2. And the set of real numbers between 0 and 2 is therefore bigger than between 0 and 1, in fact it is likely twice as big.

This isn’t actually true - the interval (0,1) contains the same number of elements as the interval (0,2). This can be seen by considering the bijection f(x)=2x between the two intervals.

 

[Sliver]

I'm rubbish at maths. I had to look up bijection and after reading the definition and a Wiki page on it, I'm still unclear how it works. However, is there any reason why there can't be an infinite number of points between 0 and 1?

 

[dowie]

This isn’t actually true - the interval (0,1) contains the same number of elements as the interval (0,2). This can be seen by considering the bijection f(x)=2x between the two intervals.

^^^ this is true

though DP was correct to point out that there are more real numbers between 0 and 1 than there are natural numbers between 0 and infinity

I'm rubbish at maths. I had to look up bijection and after reading the definition and a Wiki page on it, I'm still unclear how it works.

think of it as a mapping between two sets that uniquely maps every element one set to every element of the other

for another (perhaps easier to visualise) example consider the set of all integers (-infinity to +infinity) and the set of natural numbers (from 0 to +infinity) (granted sometimes the set of natural numbers is taken to be from 1 to infinity but whateva..)

you can map them as follows:

0 -1  1 -2  2 -3  3 -4  4 -5  5...
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10...

essentially for every integer greater than or equal to 0 just multiply by 2, for every negative integer just multiply by -2 and subtract 1

that mapping is both "one to one" because each member of the set of integers maps can only map to at most one member of the set of natural numbers

and "onto" in that each member of the set of natural numbers is mapped, by at least one member of the set of integers

a "one to one" mapping is also referred to as being "injective" and an "onto" mapping is referred to as being "surjective", if both are true then the mapping is "bijective"

However, is there any reason why there can't be an infinite number of points between 0 and 1?

Because are an infinite number of points between 0 and 1. Perhaps just think of rational numbers with a finite decimal representation if you like... there are an infinite number of them too between 0 and 1 *, and for any rational number you can think of you can always go back another decimal place.

*(this is another example of infinite sets of a different size (cardinality) - the set of rational numbers between 0 and 1 is infinite but is also smaller than the set of real numbers between 0 and 1)

 

[Spook187]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNjMV9EjIfo

 

[garsands]

Due to Stephen Hawking reading this thread he has made a YouTube video a few days ago explaining that nothing was before the Big Bang.

 

[dowie]

But there *must* have been something before the Big Bang, the OP said so... because infinity or something.

(I'm not going to claim anything either way as frankly I've got no idea... maybe a cyclic model is the answer or maybe there was nothing before)

 

[DampDog]

But there *must* have been something before the Big Bang, the OP said so... because infinity or something.

(I'm not going to claim anything either way as frankly I've got no idea... maybe a cyclic model is the answer or maybe there was nothing before)

The thing is we're wired to live in a world driven by causality. "A" leads to "B" leads to "C." What if it doesn't work like that and "A" leads to "B" leads to "A" so there's never a beginning or an end? or even "A" is "B" it's simply a state change in a chaotic system. It may be that that this wonderful term "dark energy" that we've invented is simply an external effect from something outside our ability to see. Maybe another universe pulling ours towards it or even something akin to the layers of an onion, pulling the next universe behind it. I can't say that I'm embarrassed that I haven't got a clue, neither have our greatest minds it's pretty much all guess work. You can't even call much of it theory as we simply have no idea how to test it.

It's all mind-blowingly interesting.

This is worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry_pILPr7B8

 

[sigma]

Due to Stephen Hawking reading this thread he has made a YouTube video a few days ago explaining that nothing was before the Big Bang.

I still can't quite grasp it... imaginary time?

How can all of this matter spring to life from literally nothing?