- #36
ThomasT
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You can only extrapolate back to a certain interval in time. During that time, our universe was denser, hotter, and its radius was increasing. So far, that fits the criteria for the word, explosion.Hurkyl said:The big bang started with high temperatures ...
The Big Bang defines a certain interval in time. There was, as far as anyone can know, a beginning to our universe. So, as far as we can be concerned, at some time in the past there was a humongous release of energy manifested as an expanding, superdense primordial fireball. Notice I put fireball in italics.Hurkyl said:... and I'm not sure in what sense one could say that energy has been released...
NASA release 98-75, May 6, 1998:
" A recently detected cosmic gamma ray burst released a
hundred times more energy than previously theorized, making it the
most powerful explosion since the creation of the universe in the
Big Bang."
I'm not exactly saying that. We can't say what the universe is propagating through, or what precipitated it, or what medium or media existed before it -- just that it's behavior resembles the aftermath of an explosion. That there was a great deal of thermal energy involved is a feature of every account of the various Big Bang scenerios that I've read. And insofar as there are quantities of kinetic and thermal energy involved it follows that there was an energy potential which preceded them.Hurkyl said:You describe an event where some buildup of potential energy was converted into thermal energy, which subsequently propagated through space. Neither of these features resemble the big bang theory.
Here's a quote from the first Big Bang guy:
"The evolution of the world can be compared to a display of fireworks that has just ended; some few red wisps, ashes and smoke. Standing on a cooled cinder, we see the slow fading of the suns, and we try to recall the vanishing brilliance of the origin of the worlds." Lemaitre
The Big Bang satisfies the criteria for the term, explosion. One reason for calling it an explosion is that explosions have certain salient features that might prove to be heuristically rich in developing models of the origin and evolution of our universe. Not to mention that you can study explosions in laboratories.Hurkyl said:How about... 'the big bang'?