Did the Big Bang really happen? - Science Forum

Addict Joined: Aug 04, 2005 Posts: 69

Well without having read the whole string, I would like to share a few pieces of clarifying information. Don't get mad at me if they have already been noted (I'll read the entire forum soon.)

Someone earlier posted that photons have gravity (I believe it was Frankenstein.) Photons themselves do not have gravity because they do not have mass. However, photons can be bent by the strongest force in the universe gravity. Recent experiments by a professor in Pennsylvania have shown that photons can be turned into massed particles for extremely short distances, check the physorg forums from a couple of weeks ago.

My semi-educated view of the Big Bang.

If there were a singularity at the beginning of the Universe we would not be able to apply modern understanding of basic physics too it because they laws of physics at that time would have been unified in one force. At t=0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000001ms all that would change and we would probably be under 2 forces (of the 4 we currently know to exist.) At some point we would see the effects of EM separate from other forces. When this occurs this get hairy, we start getting additional dimensional data that causes things to change direction and expand at different rates (making the idea of a spherical or even uniform universe most likely wrong.)

Anyone who uses current cosmic background radiation data to determine whether the big bang is true once and for all is an imbocile. We simply can't make that assumption. We can only say if our current hypothesis is supported or not by the current data.

As for whether there is a creator. Why is it that so many scientists, though they know the mathematical probabilities, refuse to believe in a higher power, expecially considering all the empirical evidence from religious texts, and instead believe they are sane in believing that the universe formed and isn't cooling off or heating up (having to do with how fast the universe is expanding), and that the earth was created at just the right distance and at just the right angle of tilt, (need I really go on?) by chance?

I for one believe there is a God, and through study of religion you can find out what religion teaches the most truth and is constantly searching for the truth vs. those that have been relying on their own understanding and doctrine and rituals to guide them (even though they know them to be wrong and write about how wrong they are in their own encyclopedias).

New User Joined: Aug 03, 2005 Posts: 1

If I am correct surveys/maps of the known universe show huge filiments containing superclusters of superclusters (of superclusters) that stretch for many many light years. The question is how in the 10-20 billion years since the big bang, could such structures have formed? Seems like a lot of matter to have to have congealed from pure energy in the very beginning to what it has become now. Wouldn't the current theory would even have trouble explaining the huge voids that seem to be on the 'edges' of these long super-galactic filiments?

Now I'll set back and let all of you experts go at it. Down boy, down!

RE

Apprentice Joined: Aug 03, 2005 Posts: 10 Location: U.S.

Addict Joined: Aug 04, 2005 Posts: 69

I don't deny your reasoning that because there are trillions of stars that then there could also perhaps be billions of planets, and in all those billions of planets that one could have formed at just the right distance with the right angle of tilt and rotation to support life. Now on top of all that is it reasonable to believe that evolution also occured beginning with a mixtures of gases and liquids (that we can't even prove existed on earth) and a lightening strike (that more than likely would have started a massive fire not cellular life) and that the amino acids that were created by said lightning strike could manage to congeal themselves into a single cellular organism that then began mutating until it formed multicellular organisms capable of creating such thought patterns?

I do believe that science is an incredibly cool thing to study, and attempt to understand. Unfortunately many scientists try to use science to explain away God having set the rules of existence and having had a hand in the physical creation of life.

Interstingly, on top of that which I'm sure I'll receive much berating, string theory supports the idea that there is about 10^65 times as much energy in the universe as we currently believe to exist in all the known matter and anti-matter, thus bringing up theories of dark matter. Not sure how to think about dark matter but as far as science goes have they taken into account (using 13.9 billion years as the age of the universe) that in 13.9 billion years there is a lot of energy pent up in light waves out there that just hasn't found its mark thus traveling through dark space.

What was the topic of this forum, again?

Addict Joined: Aug 04, 2005 Posts: 69

Oh, one more thing about the trillions of planets. If you believe that evolution happened hear then, that would mean that there should be billions more planets out there that are capable of sustainig life, but would not have any because evolution did not by chance happen there.

Apprentice Joined: Jul 16, 2005 Posts: 13

Addict Joined: Aug 04, 2005 Posts: 69

You are correct. EM is stronger and weak nuclear is stronger and strong nuclear is strongest. My wording was improper. As far as I know only gravity truly affects everything on the cosmic scale (i.e. how planets and stars interact) thus making it arguably stronger than the others when only concerned with the motion of celestial bodies.

Addict Joined: Aug 04, 2005 Posts: 69

Oh and light is bent by gravity only around such things as black holes where space time is distorted. And then light isn't really bent it is space that is being bent and light is traveling the straightest path through bent space. Do some reading about gravitational lensing to learn more.

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

Apprentice Joined: Jul 16, 2005 Posts: 13

Ah yes, that makes sense. It's not the photon that's directly affected, it's the 'medium' by which it travels (of course, light doesn't require a medium to travel, but you get what I mean Smile

)

Yeah gravitational lensing is a very useful tool for astronomers. Only problem, though, is that it doesn't occur everywhere, only in galactic clusters.

You're right about the forces. Although electrostatic force is stronger it doesn't really affect much more than charged particles. For anything as big as a (neutrally charged) gravity becomes the strongest.

Mentor Joined: Jun 21, 2005 Posts: 94

Apprentice Joined: Aug 03, 2005 Posts: 10 Location: U.S.

Actually, the bolt of lightning is theoretical, and I would have to agree with you completely when it comes to the formation of life. Like I said before, I believe in God also.

Addict Joined: Aug 04, 2005 Posts: 69

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/961102.html

Maybe this site will help all of you arguing about whether light has mass. Make sure to read all the way to the bottom. The author makes a couple of really good points. What research she is pointing to at the end I am unaware of but I shall endeavor to learn more

Mentor Joined: Jun 21, 2005 Posts: 94

Moderator Joined: Jun 21, 2005 Posts: 279

Rest mass for light isn't even zero. Light can never be brought to rest. Rest *mass* doesn't apply!!!

Addict Joined: Aug 04, 2005 Posts: 69

Whatever you are calling virtual mass is just that, Virtual. My assumption (being a physicist and not knowing exactly what you are calling virtual mass) is that you are trying to say that the energy contained in a photon, which is just the name given to a light wave to explain it's particle nature, if it were turned into matter via e=(vm)c^2 considerations would have a virtual mass (vm). However we all know that we simply can't take energy of that sort and create mass.

At super colliders we aren't colliding photons, we are colliding elementary particles such as electronss and neutrons at ultra high speed. The added kinetic energy input may be absorbed during the collision to form particles of mass higher than the two colliding particles, but it is not light waves colliding to form a massed particle.

Don't kid yourself into believing that light has any sort of manipulatable mass. Light is not directly affected by gravity. Instead it is described as space time being bent and light traveling the straightest possible path through space time.

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