Cosmogenesis .

[unbeliever]

I'm interested in what the forum thinks on the matter of how the universe started.

I've listed all the options I'm aware of that are reasonably popular.

I've left an "other" just in case...

 

I'd be grateful if those voting other could enlighten me.

Edited May 1, 2016 by unbeliever

[Anna B]

I had to vote 'other' because the truth is, nobody knows. I certainly don't. Even scientists, who know more than the rest of us put together, can't agree.

 

It could be any one of those options.

[sutty27]

I'm interested in what the forum thinks on the matter of how the universe started.

I've listed all the options I'm aware of that are reasonably popular.

I've left an "other" just in case...

 

I'd be grateful if those voting other could enlighten me.

 

I am of the opinion that it didn't start and will never end, but the tiny bit that we live in and can see expanded from a very hot very dense part of an already existing universe and it will one day cool and die.

[unedited]

Simulation theory ftw, although I voted always here, always will be. It might look like a big bang, but that doesn't make much sense really. Personally, all my expertise in watching telly and reading the internet tells me it'll turn out to be recursive and generally stable somehow, but in a way that makes it look like space is expanding. Like the horizon turned out not to be the edge of the planet.

[cgksheff]

My understanding is that "big bang" and "always been here" are not mutually exclusive.

[sutty27]

My understanding is that "big bang" and "always been here" are not mutually exclusive.

 

I don't see how the big bang could happen unless its always been here, something form nothing I don't get, but something from a vacuum I do get, and the vacuum with everything it contains is the universe. So I would say that its of infinite size and contains infinite areas of space like the one we can see.

[I1L2T3]

I had to say other. Whatever the universe came from is still there but our universe was created in a big bang triggered by something that already existed.

[sutty27]

I had to say other. Whatever the universe came from is still there but our universe was created in a big bang triggered by something that already existed.

 

I always thought the universe was everything that exists, the totality of all matter, energy, and space, if so then what we see isn't the universe it is just part of the universe.

[biotechpete]

As I understand it, under Einsteinian physics, time is not absolute. It could be a byproduct of the expansion of mass from the big bang which created space-time. So really it's a moot question because our perspective on the universe makes it look as though time has direction, but it might not, and therefore the concept of the universe having a beginning might not be real.

[unbeliever]

As I understand it, under Einsteinian physics, time is not absolute. It could be a byproduct of the expansion of mass from the big bang which created space-time. So really it's a moot question because our perspective on the universe makes it look as though time has direction, but it might not, and therefore the concept of the universe having a beginning might not be real.

 

I'm aware. But this does not invalidate the question.

 

---------- Post added 02-05-2016 at 12:27 ----------

 

The leading hypothesis for the cause of cosmogenesis in physics is probably that it arises from a large fluctuation in vacuum energy. The original idea dates back to at least 1973, but has only recently become popular.

 

Fluctuations in vacuum energy occur within the universe all the time. A pair of particles with all properties (charge, energy, mass etc) cancelling each other out is briefly born and then dies as the 2 particles cancel each other out.

 

A key prediction of this hypothesis is that the total energy of the whole universe should add up to zero. The hypothesis has gained popularity since 1998 when "dark energy" was effectively discovered as a result of observations of type 1a supernovae showing that the rate of expansion of the universe has increased with time. This dark energy brings the estimates of the total energy of the universe down to close to and consistent with zero. Without dark energy, it was nowhere near.

 

 

I mention this partly because I think it helps inform the debate in of itself, but also to try and convince you that cosmogenesis is susceptible to investigation using the scientific method.

You may have been told that questions about before the big bang are somehow meaningless or unanswerable. This is only partially true.

No kind of telescope: optical, radio, neutrino, gravitational etc; can in any way "see" before the big bang. However that does not mean that there are not a lot of facts which can be gathered which I suspect will ultimately reduce the number of plausible scenarios to one.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_universe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_expansion_of_the_universe

Edited May 2, 2016 by unbeliever