What Happened Before the Big Bang?
Discussion
AA999 said:
qube_TA said:
This is true a theory can be proven wrong, however the speed limit of C is fairly robust, to go faster you'll need to cheat and use some kind of wormhole/multi-dimensional system but it gets all a bit Star Trek.
Sorry to be pedantic but should that be to get from 'a' to 'b' in a shorter time span, rather than actually going 'faster' than the speed of light?There's a universal speed limit that nothing can go faster than. Due to the reasoning behind E=MC^2 something travelling will have two components related to its energy. One that's what you and I would call "kinetic energy" - that is the energy used to move the thing. The other is the energy associated with it having mass (your E=MC^2).
Whatever energy it has as you're trying to it this speed limit will be split between the acceleration and the mass. Eventually the thing just gets heavier as you approach the speed limit.
Radio waves (of which light is one type) have no mass luckily. So all the energy can be used for moving through space. At C.
Evolved said:
It's all mind bending stuff when you actually try to comprehend what is and has been. Almost wish I had a time machine to either go back or forward to see what the answer is but then that opens another can of worms in itself, is time travel even possible?
Unfortunately in our life time we will probably never know and that in itself is a depressing look into how short our time on earth is in the grand scheme of things!
I'm sorry but this annoys me in this forum. When did you become the authority on the accrued human knowledge of time travel?Unfortunately in our life time we will probably never know and that in itself is a depressing look into how short our time on earth is in the grand scheme of things!
YOU mightn't know whether or not someone can travel back in time, but I do. So do MANY other people. In this lifetime. With a very high degree of certainty. In fact there are lots of great popular science books out there which will help you with this. E=MC^2 has already been mentioned, I think I am correct in saying Brian Cox's (and his colleague who's name I forget) Book "why E=MC^2" deals with this about two chapters in.
This isn't aimed at you specifically, but there's a real tendency around forums of non-scientists discussing science to conclude that because they do not know the answer, that none exists. Or it is somehow ethereal and subject to constant change to make any conclusions worthless, or even beyond the grasps of man. None of which is actually true.
Prof Prolapse said:
Evolved said:
It's all mind bending stuff when you actually try to comprehend what is and has been. Almost wish I had a time machine to either go back or forward to see what the answer is but then that opens another can of worms in itself, is time travel even possible?
Unfortunately in our life time we will probably never know and that in itself is a depressing look into how short our time on earth is in the grand scheme of things!
I'm sorry but this annoys me in this forum. When did you become the authority on the accrued human knowledge of time travel?Unfortunately in our life time we will probably never know and that in itself is a depressing look into how short our time on earth is in the grand scheme of things!
YOU mightn't know whether or not someone can travel back in time, but I do. So do MANY other people. In this lifetime. With a very high degree of certainty. In fact there are lots of great popular science books out there which will help you with this. E=MC^2 has already been mentioned, I think I am correct in saying Brian Cox's (and his colleague who's name I forget) Book "why E=MC^2" deals with this about two chapters in.
This isn't aimed at you specifically, but there's a real tendency around forums of non-scientists discussing science to conclude that because they do not know the answer, that none exists. Or it is somehow ethereal and subject to constant change to make any conclusions worthless, or even beyond the grasps of man. None of which is actually true.
I was hoping he'd read the book and learn about time travel and learn something.
After all it's quite a revelation when you realise that science actually has answered some of the biggest questions. We know all about the mind of god (or lack of it), our own minds and bodies, the origins of life, how and when our sun will die, how and when the universe will end, the grand theory of everything, and in the past couple of years we now have a bloody good idea of how it all began.
It is baffling to me, that so many people do not seek out enlightenment at least in some basic form.
After all it's quite a revelation when you realise that science actually has answered some of the biggest questions. We know all about the mind of god (or lack of it), our own minds and bodies, the origins of life, how and when our sun will die, how and when the universe will end, the grand theory of everything, and in the past couple of years we now have a bloody good idea of how it all began.
It is baffling to me, that so many people do not seek out enlightenment at least in some basic form.
Prof Prolapse said:
Hoofy read this;
I promise it's a well written book which doesn't put you to sleep, and it summarises the state of understanding very well.
You may however be dissapointed to learn that the answer to your specific question is pretty short... And is included in the title...
So is the link I posted bI promise it's a well written book which doesn't put you to sleep, and it summarises the state of understanding very well.
You may however be dissapointed to learn that the answer to your specific question is pretty short... And is included in the title...
ks then? 
Hoofy said:
So is the link I posted bks then?
I'm in work so can't look. I do note it was created in 2010, so at best it's probably using an understanding of the big bang based a few years earlier. A few big revelations have come to light in the past few years, I would credit Krauss and his team for this but I'm not an expert in the field and I could easily be over estimating his contribution. He does however have that rare gift in scientists that he can be engaging and make the science easy to understand for us layman (I'm a biologist by trade). That book specifically talks through the universe from it's beginning to it's end. It's quite a read.ks then? It being a Horizon episode however they do tend to simply round up some fringe scientist with interesting ideas rather than well tested ones which have a greater chance of being demonstrated experimentally. Because of the incremental nature of science and the lack of bold claims by scientists it doesn't make good television for the most part so they tend to jazz it up a bit because they tend to think we're all too stupid to be entertained by the reality. That and to the best of my knowledge the BBC doesn't employ any actual scientists on it's science team. They certainly never used to.
If you can't be arsed with the book a 40 minute clip will give you a good idea, here's Krauss;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cIbfbl8124
The guy is a great speaker, largely due to the spiritual aspect of all this, he does a lot of anti-religion debates which I enjoy on youtube.
budfox said:
I'm a fan of the suggestion that none of us is really here, we're just living out a simulation being run by the actual humans who preceded us by tens of thousands of years.
I think the simulation theory that you speak of has pretty much 'burnt all its fuel' amongst those who are paid to brainstorm these scenarios.Rather interestingly it's the only such scenario in which it's thought you might have a chance of being resurrected/rebooted.
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