somebody wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_quantum_gravity
> http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2005-11/

Now my brain hurts. Thanks loads. ;-)

Seriously, cool stuff. I wish I understood it all.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> What is it with the creationists who as "do you believe nothing came from
> something?"
> ...
> Now, if you believe the universe is closed (i.e., has enough matter that
> there's a bounded amount of space), then this means that all matter was
> squished into the minimum amount of space possible.


Whoa.  I've listened to a whole year of Astronomy Cast, and I thought that the
Big Bang *was* about the creation of matter. It is precisely not, as once
described by Cal Thomas, a scenario you seem to agree with, "the explosion of
an eternally existent cosmic egg."

Big Bang = Gen 1:1 = in the beginning, the cosmos [sic] was created.

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gregjohn wrote:
> Whoa.  I've listened to a whole year of Astronomy Cast, and I thought that the
> Big Bang *was* about the creation of matter. 

The big bang is postulated because everything is moving apart. If you 
reverse time, everything is moving back together again. Much like people 
knew what temperature was "absolute zero" long before they could get 
anywhere close to making it in the lab.

 > It is precisely not, as once
> described by Cal Thomas, a scenario you seem to agree with, "the explosion of
> an eternally existent cosmic egg."

You can have an explosion of an eternally existent cosmic egg without 
creating matter. Indeed, if it's eternally existent, that's precisely the 
point I'm making.

> Big Bang = Gen 1:1 

Well, no. That's exactly my point. In the beginning was *everything*.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> gregjohn wrote:
> > Whoa.  I've listened to a whole year of Astronomy Cast, and I thought that the
> > Big Bang *was* about the creation of matter. 

> The big bang is postulated because everything is moving apart. If you 
> reverse time, everything is moving back together again. Much like people 
> knew what temperature was "absolute zero" long before they could get 
> anywhere close to making it in the lab.

  Of course it's not just that simple, as many of the features of the
observed universe don't conform to a simplistic Big Bang. This has prompted
refinements of the theory, including the cosmic inflation, which theorizes
that there was a time shortly after the Big Bang when the universe inflated
at an exponential rate. (And no, this doesn't go against general relativity.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   Of course it's not just that simple, as many of the features of the
> observed universe don't conform to a simplistic Big Bang.

Certainly. And it turns out that there's a fair amount of heat-like energy 
left in a substance at absolute zero, simply due to quantum exclusion and 
such. My point was that "everything was all together" was the original 
motivation of the "big bang", and not "something from nothing."

If we knew what happened in the first 10^-43 seconds, maybe we'd know where 
everything came from, but there's no reason I know of, outside genesis, to 
think there was nothing before there was something.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> If we knew what happened in the first 10^-43 seconds, maybe we'd know where 
> everything came from, but there's no reason I know of, outside genesis, to 
> think there was nothing before there was something.

  It just brings the (maybe a bit philosophical) question: How is it possible
that everything has always existed?

  (Of course this question becomes very complicated even in the physics
sense, as the concept of time "before" the Big Bang becomes a bit complex.
It's impossible for us to tell what, if anything, was before the Big Bang,
including time itself. It's one of those impassable horizons in the universe.
If time didn't "exist" before the Big Bang, then exactly what is it that
happened?)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   It just brings the (maybe a bit philosophical) question: How is it possible
> that everything has always existed?

Why not? Is it possible everything will always exist from here on?

Scientifically, I can see a problem (i.e., there might be scientific 
evidence suggesting there actually was a beginning to "everything"), but 
philosophically?

> It's one of those impassable horizons in the universe.

Well, so far...

> If time didn't "exist" before the Big Bang, then exactly what is it that
> happened?)

That's why I'm wondering if time didn't run asymptotically slower, or 
faster, or something. :-)  It's certainly one way of resolving the 
conundrum, even if it's not scientifically correct.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>   It just brings the (maybe a bit philosophical) question: How is it possible
> that everything has always existed?
>
>   (Of course this question becomes very complicated even in the physics
> sense, as the concept of time "before" the Big Bang becomes a bit complex.
> It's impossible for us to tell what, if anything, was before the Big Bang,
> including time itself. It's one of those impassable horizons in the universe.
> If time didn't "exist" before the Big Bang, then exactly what is it that
> happened?)

Hm, I like the idea someone brought up some posts ago:

Looking at the state of matter and the universe close to the Big Bang, isn't it
quite remniscient of a black hole?

Now near the singularity of a black hole, time slows down and approaches
standstill, from an outside observer's point of view.

So if we go back in time to the Big Bang, aren't we in a sense going back
*infinitely* long in time, making the question of what was *before* it a moot
one?

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clipka wrote:
> Hm, I like the idea someone brought up some posts ago:

/me raises hand.

Altho, thinking on it more, I'm pretty sure you're going the wrong way. If 
time slows down near the black hole, and *you* are near the black hole, 
everything else will seem to speed up. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Altho, thinking on it more, I'm pretty sure you're going the wrong way. If
> time slows down near the black hole, and *you* are near the black hole,
> everything else will seem to speed up. :-)

Yeah, but for "everything else" it will be like me slowing down, and nobody in
all the universe (or outside of it, for that matter) would be able to tell
which is the proper frame of reference.

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