What existed before the big bang? Something must have!

[danot]

Again, here the scales of distance are all awry. The change in distance between us here and us closer to the centre of the galaxy is small when compared to the distance between galaxies plus the speed would be too slow (relatively) speaking to produce the red shift ... as noted by HN a few posts ago.

 

Also, as has also been said previously (and acknowledged by you), this would not make things in all directions more distant.

Yes, I can see there are problems with it, especially considering that everything on the opposite side of the galaxy would be being pulled in our direction on it's way towards the hub.

 

There's also the issue concerning 'space expansion in relation to galaxy shrinkage'; it raises questions such as - why wouldn't blue shift be detected anywhere?, and if galaxies were shrinking at a rate relative to the speed of things moving away from us, then our own galaxy would have devoured itself by now.

 

Posted by jacksrake

Also, as I hinted in the post before this, these new star systems you refer to need (unless you are implying a continual series of mini big bangs) to be made from something. Where's that something coming from?

No I wasn't referring to mini big bangs. I was suggesting that new stars were being constantly formed in nebulae around the edge of galaxies.

[Lockjaw]

 

No I wasn't referring to mini big bangs. I was suggesting that new stars were being constantly formed in nebulae around the edge of galaxies.

 

Fair enough ... That, therefore, wouldn't cause a mass change.

[HarmOKnee]

But there's no necessity to believe 'nothing' created our universe either. 'Nothing' cannot exist, it cannot even be considered as being a possible cause since there is no purpose to 'nothing', yet we accept that prior to the big bang there was nothing. It's a deeply flawed concept.

 

Nothing does exist because Bastian stopped it

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neverending_Story

[flamingjimmy]

In essence, in order for something to exist, it must have a "place" ie it must exist somewhere, something can't exist nowhere, and it must have "a time", something can't exist outside of time. In essence, it must exist within space/time.

 

But that can't be true because the universe doesn't exist within space-time, the universe is space time. If what you are saying is true then the universe could not exist, or have I misunderstood?

[Cyclone]

If the universe is the bowl in your analogy, then you have to consider the substrate of the bowl itself since it seems to be getting larger.

 

The universe is not the space, it is the bowl.

[Cyclone]

That's a 3d image of a 4d affect of course, but I still say that the ball exists, even if the occupants of ball universe cannot perceive except as a space inside which they exist.

 

It's the same for us, space/time exists and has boundaries, because of our existing within it though we cannot perceive it as anything except the space in which we exist.

[Cyclone]

It doesn't, because it's topology is either closed or open in some way, we couldn't ever reach a point which we could identify as the edge.

If it's closed then you ultimately loop around back to where you started, the last I read though was some sort of funnel shape, opening out at the top. These are all 3d analogies to 4d shapes though, and it's quite difficult to get your head around it.

[artisan]

hmm I get what you mean, but i would still say that the universe does not have a physical boundary (in fact i am struggling to think of any theories that include an actual physical boundary to the universe - do you know one, cos i would be interested in reading it.)

 

If it had a boundary, that would not be the edge.

The existence of a boundary implies that something is beyond the boundary.

 

There is no edge as nothing exists there, as the Universe expands it is creating space and time as it expands.

In fact to call it nothing is a misnomer, as nothing implies the absence of something.

[adaline]

I have been reading on the latest theory surrounding the big bang, it goes like this:

The universe expands as it does now ... until it reaches a point after which it starts to collapse and when that stops it expands again, with a bang! (repeat? indefinitely?) I cant remember the details but this is based on the speed of light not being constant.

[Cyclone]

Story today that they've made more accurate measurements and we're heading for heat death, not big crunch.