Questions About Time Before the Big Bang

[HMS]

Does this question have an answer? Does the beginning of time coincide with the Big Bang? Is it appropriate to ask what happened before the Big Bang?

I have read that the events prior to BB do not influence those after it. Does it mean that nothing happened before the BB? Or does it mean that events did occur but that they are useless for the discussions about our universe? If yes, what happened before the BB? Or does it mean that human mind cannot comprehend what happened before BB?

I am new to this forum. Sorry if I am being too naive or if I have not worded my questions properly but I am curious to understand this. Could you provide links where this topic is discussed? Thanks in advance.

 

[Dr.Brain]

Oh Yes! Time began at 2:30 p.m exactly 222222543344 years back ...

Just Joking.

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See time is a man-made concept as far as my view is concerned.After analysing science since 10 years , I have come to this conclusion.Time is something that we seek for when we want to remember the past ,present and the future.

I will post more in this same post.

 

[mathman]

To answer HMS: Current theory is able to describe what happened after the big bang. So far how the big bang came about and whether there is any meaning to "before" the big bang is unknown and perhaps unknowable. There is lots of speculation, but it is just that.

 

[saltydog]

Speculation:

When I look outside of my window I see very much a non-linear world complete with all the trappings we normally associate with non-linearity: sensitive dependence, bifurcation, chaos, and catastrophe. The last one is particularly interesting. Many phenomena in nature are not continuous but rather exhibit abruptness, discontinuity, and qualitative change. This is most easily explained in terms of "the straw that breaks the camel's back: The system flows smoothly as a parameter is changed, but then at some point, it abruptly changes. An avalanche, an extinction, a stock market crash, many more examples. We say the system exhibits a "bifurcation".

Imagine pushing a vase along the top of a desk. You push it, it moves a little. Push some more, it move some more. Eventually at the edge of the desk, you need push it ever so little and it's state changes from a nice vase to a shattered one on the floor: Two qualitatively different states separated by a "bifurcation point", the edge of the desk and traversed by a trajectory from desk to floor. That process, passing through the bifurcation point to another state is called "catastrophe".

Not just the vase, but so much of the world is like this. It leads me to suspect that the Universe originated likewise as a catastrophe: A pre-existence, somehow pushed past it bifurcation point. The trajectory we follow, from pre-existence to final state, like the vase, is exhibited in that which we call time.

 

[Phobos]

Welcome to Physics Forums, HMS!
Obviously you asked a simple, yet confusing question.

Does this question have an answer? Does the beginning of time coincide with the Big Bang? Is it appropriate to ask what happened before the Big Bang?

The mainstream theory is that Time, as we know it, started with the Big Bang. So, in that sense, "before" the Big Bang has no meaning. (Stephen Hawking posed a similar question...'what is north of the north pole?')

But, perhaps the universe is even more complex then that. There are many scientific speculations/hypotheses about what caused the Big Bang (suggesting a timeline "before" the Big Bang in some form). Unfortunately, that information may not accessible to us, so we're left to speculate.

String Theory (M-Theory) provides one example of a popular scientific attempt to explain the cause of the Big Bang. There are others.

I have read that the events prior to BB do not influence those after it. Does it mean that nothing happened before the BB? Or does it mean that events did occur but that they are useless for the discussions about our universe? If yes, what happened before the BB? Or does it mean that human mind cannot comprehend what happened before BB?

Right now it seems that there is no known influence. If that is true, and there was something "before", then we may never learn about it. The universe was essentially rebooted. Perhaps there was no 'before' at all. But there is some research going on to try & detect any such influence (e.g., distribution of matter & energy in the early universe).

I am new to this forum. Sorry if I am being too naive or if I have not worded my questions properly but I am curious to understand this.

No worries. People of all levels who are interested in science-based discussions are welcome here.

 

[Phobos]

See time is a man-made concept as far as my view is concerned...Time is something that we seek for when we want to remember the past ,present and the future.

Seems to be a self-contradictory statement (if time does not exist, then there is no past/present/future). Also seems to contradict the evidence that time can change based on its interaction with space (Time Dilation).

But I'd prefer to keep a "Does Time Exist" debate in a separate topic so as not to get off-track on HMS's questions.

 

[Thor]

Does this question have an answer? Does the beginning of time coincide with the Big Bang? Is it appropriate to ask what happened before the Big Bang?

I have read that the events prior to BB do not influence those after it. Does it mean that nothing happened before the BB? Or does it mean that events did occur but that they are useless for the discussions about our universe? If yes, what happened before the BB? Or does it mean that human mind cannot comprehend what happened before BB?

I am new to this forum. Sorry if I am being too naive or if I have not worded my questions properly but I am curious to understand this. Could you provide links where this topic is discussed? Thanks in advance.

Why would you presume time had a beginning?
Really - I'm interested to know your reasoning, I'm not being facetious.

 

[Thor]

How was the Universe created? When did it begin?

Conventional wisdom has concluded the Universe must have come from somewhere, and the idea that it was ushered into being by some primordial nascent event appeals seductively to human intuition. The very process of thought is governed by the rules cause and effect, so scholars instinctively presume that an instance of "creation" must explain the physical presence of the cosmos.

The existence of ‘Nothing’ ostensibly requires no justification, so most popular theories of Universal origin begin with a primal void. At the beginning of time a transformation must have taken place and the material manifestation of the cosmos resulted. But is the phenomenon of "being" the result of a process. Is it the product of cause and effect?

How do you explain the existence of the Universe?

Contemporary cosmologists espouse a Theory of Singularity - or Big Bang - which envisions a Universe cast from the bowels of a spontaneous cosmic eruption. Most organized religions believe an omnipotent deity gave birth to the infinite cosmos. But any premise of "creation" would require the pre-existence of a spawning force - the very presence of which would violate the original contention that nothing existed. And if all which exists was created, then whatever sired the Universe must, too, have been created by some predecessor which, in turn, must have been predated by a limitless procession of ancestry. The endless cycle of chicken-and-the-egg redundancy which results from any cause and effect approach to the enigma of existence implies no logical beginning.

Supernatural versions of creation sidestep the issue of redundancy with the assertion that whatever created the Universe was not subject to the laws of nature and could freely breach the rules of reality. Of course, when the laws of nature are discarded anything is possible, even the absurd. To claim exemption from the laws of nature is to refute the validity of every canon of rational argument.

The process of change is always explained in terms of cause and effect - action and reaction. Conditions or states of being change during the process of cause and effect. But existence is not a state of being, it is the phenomenon of being, itself. Before something can change, before something can act or be acted upon it must first exist. And if being is required in order for change to occur then cause and effect is a function of existence. This is, of course, the antithesis of the premise that existence is a function of cause and effect - the product of "creation".

Theory of Reciprocity

 

[Loren Booda]

It began at all points in space.

 

[Mike2]

How do you explain the existence of the Universe?

Contemporary cosmologists espouse a Theory of Singularity - or Big Bang - which envisions a Universe cast from the bowels of a spontaneous cosmic eruption. Most organized religions believe an omnipotent deity gave birth to the infinite cosmos. But any premise of "creation" would require the pre-existence of a spawning force - the very presence of which would violate the original contention that nothing existed. And if all which exists was created, then whatever sired the Universe must, too, have been created by some predecessor which, in turn, must have been predated by a limitless procession of ancestry. The endless cycle of chicken-and-the-egg redundancy which results from any cause and effect approach to the enigma of existence implies no logical beginning.

Supernatural versions of creation sidestep the issue of redundancy with the assertion that whatever created the Universe was not subject to the laws of nature and could freely breach the rules of reality. Of course, when the laws of nature are discarded anything is possible, even the absurd. To claim exemption from the laws of nature is to refute the validity of every canon of rational argument.

God might be recognized as the logic that maintains the logical consistency of all facts. This idea is conveyed by scientist whey they say things like, "God does not play dice with the universe". As such you are asking how God created the universe, and you suggest that cause and effect preclude a beginning of time. However, logic does allow for an effect without a cause. For a conclusion can be true when the premise is false. Thus the universe could have come from nothing. And the fact that it consistently continues to exist proves that there is a Logical Consistency that is responsible for its existence and maintains its structure.

Inflation assumes that the universe expanded very rapidly from a singularity. Now if it is primarily the first nature of spacetime to expand, then the more spacetime expands, the faster the whole thing grows. So the universe as a whole grows at an exponential rate. This also implies that it started from a singularity in the infinite past since zero (or the singularity) is equal to the number to the power of negative infinity. This original near singularity that consisted of only one very slowly growing manifold of reality is the only unique thing existing from eternity past. As the only existing thing, it represent truth distinquish from false which is non-existence. This could also fulfill the expectation of a creative force/being/premise responsible for the creation of the universe, existing from everlasting to everlasting, who maintains and uphold the integrity of the truth.

 

[turbo]

It is permissable and proper to ask "when did time begin" and "how did time begin" and even "why did time begin". If all the answers involve the argument "because God did it" we have left the realm of science and need go no further. We are firmly in the realm of faith and religion and have no means by which to falsify those assertions (non-falsifiable assertions are not scientifically viable concepts).

 

[Chronos]

Hi HMS, and welcome! Here is a nice and relevant lecture by Stephen Hawking:
http://www.ralentz.com/old/astro/hawking-1.html

 

[HMS]

Thank you all for those wonderful responses and references. It will take some time for me to go through and understand these, but this discussion has put things in perspective for further reading.

Why would you presume time had a beginning?

Not having read much on physics and astronomy, I could not think that time could have existed without a beginning. But now, I need to stretch my imagination to understand that time might have existed forever.

The universe was essentially rebooted.

Since I am more at ease with computers than with abstract physics concepts, this statement makes a lot of sense to me in realising the futility of trying to understand events "before" BB.

 

[saltydog]

Hi HMS, and welcome! Here is a nice and relevant lecture by Stephen Hawking:
http://www.ralentz.com/old/astro/hawking-1.html

Thanks Chronos. I found these two statements interesting:

What is it that breathes fire into the equations, and makes a universe for them to govern?

Why does the universe bother to exist?

I know, that's for the Philosophy forum. They've probably already addressed them both.

 

[Thor]

God might be recognized as the logic that maintains the logical consistency of all facts. This idea is conveyed by scientist whey they say things like, "God does not play dice with the universe". As such you are asking how God created the universe, and you suggest that cause and effect preclude a beginning of time. However, logic does allow for an effect without a cause. For a conclusion can be true when the premise is false. Thus the universe could have come from nothing. And the fact that it consistently continues to exist proves that there is a Logical Consistency that is responsible for its existence and maintains its structure.

Inflation assumes that the universe expanded very rapidly from a singularity. Now if it is primarily the first nature of spacetime to expand, then the more spacetime expands, the faster the whole thing grows. So the universe as a whole grows at an exponential rate. This also implies that it started from a singularity in the infinite past since zero (or the singularity) is equal to the number to the power of negative infinity. This original near singularity that consisted of only one very slowly growing manifold of reality is the only unique thing existing from eternity past. As the only existing thing, it represent truth distinquish from false which is non-existence. This could also fulfill the expectation of a creative force/being/premise responsible for the creation of the universe, existing from everlasting to everlasting, who maintains and uphold the integrity of the truth.

Supernatural versions of creation sidestep the issue of redundancy with the assertion that whatever created the Universe was not subject to the laws of nature and could freely breach the rules of reality. Of course, when the laws of nature are discarded anything is possible, even the absurd. To claim exemption from the laws of nature is to refute the validity of every canon of rational argument.

 

[Phobos]

Why would you presume time had a beginning?

That is from the mainstream scientific theory.

Theory of Reciprocity

If you want to discuss a personal theory, please start a new topic (you can link to it from this one if you want) and we can discuss it in the Theory Development forum.

thanks

 

[lby]

I think--
our time starts long after the time the universe outside our universe starts.
we don't know the answer ,but "man" in the outside universe may know.

 

[Phobos]

what outside universe?

 

[Enos]

Things would be much easier if time didn't even begin at all.

 

[cDimino]

Isn't there a theory that claims the universe has been crunching and banging for all eternity, with time being a circular? There isn't a beginning point to a loop, and perhap time is like this as well.

Things would be much easier if time didn't even begin at all.

I for one am particularly fond of time. Without it I just don't know where I'd be!

 

[Pengwuino]

I want to just die already and find the truth about this god vs. not god thing.

I'd probably get bored of the explanation however and play undead xbox.

 

[Enos]

I personally say time is like the uncertianty principle. It just makes measuring things much easier without knowing every position and velocity of every particle. Imagine trying to explain gas by mapping out the positions and velocity of the molecules.

 

[Spin_Network]

Does this question have an answer? Does the beginning of time coincide with the Big Bang? Is it appropriate to ask what happened before the Big Bang?

I have read that the events prior to BB do not influence those after it. Does it mean that nothing happened before the BB? Or does it mean that events did occur but that they are useless for the discussions about our universe? If yes, what happened before the BB? Or does it mean that human mind cannot comprehend what happened before BB?

I am new to this forum. Sorry if I am being too naive or if I have not worded my questions properly but I am curious to understand this. Could you provide links where this topic is discussed? Thanks in advance.

From the Big-Bang perspective, Lightspeed and the Photon are the fundamental quantity that is used to relay Time from one frame to another, Time can be viewed as having the same starting point as Light.

Time started the moment the Universe Lights got switched on, which incedently co-incided with the Fusion of light with Space, thus Spacetime separated from Quantum Fluctuations (non time dependant), into a constant factor for relaying dynamical motions of Area/Volume/Distance interactions, or specifically communication of energy in 3-D spacetime.

 

[Lucretius]

I had some strange idea come to my mind regarding time and the Fluctuation Theorem. Could the universe, at it's infintesimally small size around the Big Bang, have been in a state where there was no notion of time simply because the probability of entropy decrease was the same as entropy increase? Could time have come into existence when the symmetry between these probabilities was thrown off?

 

[Danger]

"Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once."
I can't even remember who originally said that, but I love it. If you accept that space-time is a multidimensional entity, then all aspects of it must logically have arisen at the same time. That means that time and space both sprang from the BB. Since all physical laws and constants are arbitrary values resultant of the BB, it would make no sense to try and extrapolate prior conditions. If we are indeed in an 'oscillating' universe (Big Bang, Big Crunch, Big Bang again), all information will be destroyed when the universe collapses, just as it was in the one before ours.

 

[Garth]

From the Big-Bang perspective, Lightspeed and the Photon are the fundamental quantity that is used to relay Time from one frame to another, Time can be viewed as having the same starting point as Light.

If you use a photon to measure time you have to realize that photons are infinitely blue shifted as you back track to the BB. Therefore, by their time measurement, the BB is translated back into the inifinte past and the universe becomes eternal.

Also photons expand with the universe ,
$$\lambda=\lambda_0\frac{R(t)}{R(t_0)}$$
therefore if in addition if you also use the wavelength of a photon to measure length then the universe becomes static, there is no expansion as measured by that 'photon ruler'.

This is the Jordan conformal frame of Self Creation Cosmology.

Garth

 

[Loren Booda]

"Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once."

Woody Allen?

 

[Danger]

Woody Allen?

Could be; I think that I saw it on a button or T-shirt, and the original sources are never cited on those. In any event, it's one of those little phrases that says a lot more than it first appears. The 'wormhole aliens' in 'Deep Space Nine' were one of the few things in any Trek series that really irritated me, because the concept was that everything does happen at once with no cause/effect relationship but we perceive it as sequential because of our brains being restricted to 4 dimensions. It was pretty much essential to the entire baseline of the show, but I'm sure that they could have come up with something else as a starting point. Anybody who laughs at a movie being run backward knows that there has to be some logical linearity to events. Relativistic time dilation is weird enough to non-physicists, without getting into something that isn't even theoretically possible.

 

[Spin_Network]

If you use a photon to measure time you have to realize that photons are infinitely blue shifted as you back track to the BB. Therefore, by their time measurement, the BB is translated back into the inifinte past and the universe becomes eternal.

Also photons expand with the universe ,
$$\lambda=\lambda_0\frac{R(t)}{R(t_0)}$$
therefore if in addition if you also use the wavelength of a photon to measure length then the universe becomes static, there is no expansion as measured by that 'photon ruler'.

This is the Jordan conformal frame of Self Creation Cosmology.

Garth

Technically, you can derive a backwards wavefunction to two volume's of Energy, an Anti-Matter and Matter two particle 'only' location. This would be the limit of Big-Bang derived 'Time', and there are no Photons prior to these two energies interacting, and by this I mean if you continue backwards to a single point, with just a SINGLE-PARTICLE, then this has no Photons, photons travel between Atoms, and thus, need at minimum at least TWO energies in order to transport to and from?

A Universe of just a single Atom/Point would not radiate, photons may have been 'slowed' by the density of matter and thus may have been 'contained' within a 'Gap' internal of Atoms, and therefore would not be interacting with Electrons due to the constraining energies, nevertheless Time+Space+Photons go hand in hand, the THREE Quantities are needed for the first movements of matter from one location to the next, take anyone of these away and you would not have any of the other Two, the three are as ONE!

 

[Garth]

But can we talk about matter in the earliest 'chronon', Planck time, when the temperatures were so hot that only 'energy' existed? At such a moment, when there could be no particle, how could you measure time, space or indeed 'temperature'? Do these terms lose their meaning?

"The first day of creation, who could act rationally on such a morning?" Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Garth

 

[cosmo_boy]

time

I have read most of the posts in this thread. What has been said is what we find in popular science books i.e., the birth of time coincides with the big bang.

As I know, so far Einstein's theory of relativity is the authentic theory of space and time. This theory clearly rejects the notion of absolute time. Every observer in the universe has its own time. In this situation I think
before talking the "birth of time" we should make sure whose time we are talking about.

In Newtonian framework there exist a universal time which flows by the same rate for all observers in the
universe. However, in Einstein's theory time is used
in some sense for the sake of observers. Let me quote some lines from Einstein's paper "On the Electrodynamics of moving bodies":

"If we wish to describe the motion of a material point, we give the values of its coordinates as a function of time. Now we must bear carefully in mind that a mathematical meaning of this kind has no physical meaning unless we are quite clear what we understand by "time".
We have to take into account that all our judgments in which time plays a part are always judgments of simultaneous events."

I think this makes clear that time does not have any independent meaning apart from the fact we use this notion for synchronizing clocks.

Our physical devices or clocks measure "time interval" not time; so it is irrelevant, where we put the "zero" of time. For the convention we put the zero of time at the
instant at which our classical theory of relativity breaks. It does not mean that something special happens at time "t=0". What I say is that the "big bang" exists in theories not in the universe.

Every physicist knows that the fundamental theory of the
universe must be "quantum" not "classical". So in this situation it is far better to wait for a "quantum theory
of gravity" in place of speculating about the origin of time. Moreover, string theories and loop quantum gravity already give us the hint that "big bang" was not a physical events.

Most of the people when think about time, they think about coordinate time. Which is a useless quantity in relativity because it is observer dependent.

 

[s3nn0c]

I don't agree. General relativity is not a quantum theory, you can't say that "nothing happens with time" at Big Bang just because the theory you use at this moment doesn't work in these specific conditions. Here you have an example, that it's quite possible to talk about emergance of time:

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9711051

What is more interesting, in that model time doesn't emerge in a kind of rapid phase transition, but we have a continuous process of emerging.

 

[Thor]

...In Newtonian framework there exist a universal time which flows by the same rate for all observers in the universe. However, in Einstein's theory time is used in some sense for the sake of observers. Let me quote some lines from Einstein's paper "On the Electrodynamics of moving bodies":

"If we wish to describe the motion of a material point, we give the values of its coordinates as a function of time. Now we must bear carefully in mind that a mathematical meaning of this kind has no physical meaning unless we are quite clear what we understand by "time". We have to take into account that all our judgments in which time plays a part are always judgments of simultaneous events."

I think this makes clear that time does not have any independent meaning apart from the fact we use this notion for synchronizing clocks.

Our physical devices or clocks measure "time interval" not time; so it is irrelevant, where we put the "zero" of time. For the convention we put the zero of time at the instant at which our classical theory of relativity breaks. It does not mean that something special happens at time "t=0".

APPLAUSE
If existence is the result of a process of cause and effect then there must exist a t=Ø, if not then there is no such point of origin. I fail to see why the default assumption is that existence is the result of a process.

What I say is that the "big bang" exists in theories not in the universe.

That being said, here on Earth, nuclear elements can be manipulated to reach critical mass and create enormous explosions. Stars which become exhausted collapse and spawn denotations of gigantic magnitude. These cosmic systems seem to be fairly common to the Universe as the attractive forces of gravity cycle into repulsive forces of critical mass. Why would it not be possible for galaxies or clusters of galaxies to do the same?

There is a lot of evidence some cosmic eruption took place in the infinitesimal portion of the cosmos we can detect with our technology. These are probably regular occurrences.

Did you mean to say that "big bang" occurred, but was not the origin of the existence of the Universe?

THoR
Theory of Reciprocity

 

[cosmo_boy]

APPLAUSE
If existence is the result of a process of cause and effect then there must exist a t=Ø, if not then there is no such point of origin.

Yes, existence is the result of a process of cause and effect, that is why there is some cause for the events
which take place at "t=0" also. Now you have two choices:
either use "-ve" time for the case of the the events happening at "t=0" ar shift the zero of time. So there is
such as absolute "t=0" moment.

I fail to see why the default assumption is that existence is the result of a process.

I did not get this.

That being said, here on Earth, nuclear elements can be manipulated to reach critical mass and create enormous explosions. Stars which become exhausted collapse and spawn denotations of gigantic magnitude. These cosmic systems seem to be fairly common to the Universe as the attractive forces of gravity cycle into repulsive forces of critical mass. Why would it not be possible for galaxies or clusters of galaxies to do the same?

This is one of commom misconception that people have about the big bang. They think it was an explosion like that of a bomb. Which is not true. One can check this with experts.

Did you mean to say that "big bang" occurred, but was not the origin of the existence of the Universe?

Yes, there was a time when the "universe" was very hot and dense as big bang theory predicts, leaving a short time interval around the singularity. Big bang was neither the orgin of "universe" nor the orgin of time.

Inflatioary theories predict that our universe emerged from a small "patch" of "false vacuum" and there are are
many such patches which can produce other universes.
Bottom line is "neither there is any absulute time, nor the birth of any absolute time".

 

[Garth]

Supernatural versions of creation sidestep the issue of redundancy with the assertion that whatever created the Universe was not subject to the laws of nature and could freely breach the rules of reality. Of course, when the laws of nature are discarded anything is possible, even the absurd. To claim exemption from the laws of nature is to refute the validity of every canon of rational argument.

I have read this thread carefully; where and who, in this thread, suggested that the 'God hypothesis' discarded the laws of nature? Or have I missed something...

Garth