The Big Bang & String Theory
 

Hi all

Does a more knowledgeable member here, have an explanation of the Big Bang and String Theory? Assume you're explaining to someone who has never studied science (it just makes it easier, not that I've never studied science [which I have]).

I just want to know. I have no intentions of creating a literal holy war over whether it's true or not. As a Christian, I believe in creation. However, I'd like to know the "other side"'s ideas too. Just check this one from XKCD out:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/string_theory.png

Thanks!

I'd really recommend the History Channel's "The Universe". It's explained in quite some detail (for a popular science program).

It's a bit tricky to explain in a few simple words. But the basic theory is that because everything[*] is moving away from each other at some point in time everything must have started at a single point. Think of a balloon, with a marker put some dots on the balloon. Now blow up the balloon. You'll notice that each dot moves further and further away from every other dot. That's the idea behind the expansion of the universe.

[*] other galaxies. The notable exception being the Andromeda galaxy. That one is hurtling towards us and will probably collide with the milky-way galaxy (our galaxy) in a couple of million years.

I'd suggest looking at the writings of Dr. Michio Kaku for a gentle popular introduction. He also frequently appears on the aforementioned "The Universe" program.

Note that Kaku is a true believer in sting theory and that acceptance of the theory is nowhere near unanimous, largely due to the difficulty of making experimentally verifiable predictions.

Hyperspace is a good place to start.

For alternative viewpoints, maybe Lee Smolin's Three Roads to Quantum Gravity is a good followup.

Oh.. And of course wikipedia! I can spend hours reading up on this stuff.

As a side note, for the Christians amongst us (I'm atheist). God still "fits" in the big bang theory.
Since nobody has any idea how, why or where the big bang started this might be a nice spot for God to fill in the gap ;)

I'm sure Fr. George Lemaître, the proposer of what eventually became know as the Big Bang theory, would agree with you. ;)

It's actually a pretty fascinating story.

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

String theory, I had to look it up again to be able to explain it, somewhat :D

In short it's a theory that tries to merge quantum mechanics and general relativity. The aim is to come up with a single theory that tries to explain how the fundamental forces of nature (electromagnetism, gravity, strong and weak nuclear forces) and matter link together. The ultimate theory that would explain everything.

A funny way to look at it would be the ultimate question for which the earth was designed by Deep thought in the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy :D

Here's some recent new about the possibility of conducting a "test" to see if string theory fits.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0901091938.htm

There is no inherent contradiction between belief in the Christian God and in Scientific explanations of creation and life on earth. For instance, neither the Catholic nor the Anglican Church sees evolution or astrophysics as incompatible with faith. The Old Testament is purely for context!

"Which is more God-like? Building the universe piece by piece, creating the earth, each animal, and putting them all into place;
Or: setting off the universe from a spark that builds itself, and from which all life then arises?"

Sounds like Richard Dawkins!

Either way, I don't have "The Universe" that was recommended here. Neither Discovery or History, etc. because I'm out in the country without a satellite dish.

Thanks for replying! I'll see if I can hunt down The Universe or similar stuff.

http://qgf.in/tWSmDQ

"A short history of time" is pretty good. I don't think it would go over your head.

I might also point out that creationism, Christianity and the big bang aren't actually mutually exclusive. In fact, the theory was originally put together by Georges Lamaître, who was a renowned mathematician and physicist (knew Einstein) and a Catholic priest. It's rumored that he proposed big bang theory because it sounded like another way to explain "creating something from nothing" which while not technically true, would certainly be what it might have looked like to Moses (or whomever wrote Genesis.)

I find it fascinating because he was willing to take his personal beliefs and put them to the test of math and science. Remember, math and science are not so much a theory of belief as they are a method of discovery. No true scientist should ever think that they "know" anything, rather they use factually based assumptions to (hopefully) create further understanding. The purpose of which is prediction of how reality should act (like the motion of a projectile via calculus and macro physics). Science is frequently wrong, but that's okay, because being wrong just means you get another chance to discover. And let me tell you, discovery is a lot of fun :).

Not trying to create a firestorm, and you're certainly allowed to believe whatever you want. Just thought you might be curious to know about the impetus of the Big Bang Theory (and decided to throw on some of my personally feelings on science...)

It's probably not allowed here so I won't point where, but I downloaded all 4 seasons (working on season 5 now) as torrents. I have no cable, antenna or satellite.

@Jay Carr: The Big Bang and creation are actually mutex. http://creation.com/secular-scientis...t-the-big-bang

Some still believe they can be 'fit' together, but logically, going down the chain of implications, it actually doesn't fit.

Anyway, thanks for telling me, SirDice, about that. I'll look somewhere for it.

@renaultsoftware -- I think that's going to depend on an individuals interpretation and understanding of the Bible. I can see how your particular interpretation would preclude Big Bang theory though. Which, again, is fine.

If creationists reject the big bang theory because it conflicts with the time line established by Ussher I wouldn't take scientific questioning of the big bang as proof of the creationist model. The alternative theory of plasma cosmology asserts that the universe is infinitely old rather than the 6000 or so years supposed by creationism.

Plasma cosmology has been debunked by the big bang theory. The big bang theory is able to explain quite a lot of things plasma cosmology simply can't.

And going with the big bang the universe is about 13.7 billion years old (give or take a few million). Heck, the earth itself is about 4.6 billion years old.

It's so easy to say "billion" -- does anyone realize how long that is??

When dealing with anything related to the universe the numbers are just mind boggling. Very, very hard to imagine at some point.

Our nearest neighbor star (Alpha Centauri) is about 4 lightyear away. One lightyear is 9460730472580.8 Km or 5878630000000 miles. Using an 'ordinary' rocket it would take about 87000 years to get there.

The nearest galaxy is 2.5 million lightyears away, my calculator just errors trying to convert that to Km or miles :eek:

I also think we are somewhat limited by our physical existence in that we are constrained within a 3D world and of course light itself. The universal with its higher dimensions surely have things that exists that we are unable to perceive or imagine.

The expansion of the universe is exciting enough. But I have always asked myself, "What is it expanding into?" Is the universe losing entropy and if so, the expansion requires work and is exchanging energy with something else. If not, then may be it's expanding into free territory.

Of course, I don't know the answer but it's fun to thing about some times.

Ah, you're right to think about it! Wormholes sound cool. I could show up in your living room right now with a wormhole. (It's called a virus. :p)

There was an article in QuébecSciences about the feasibility of Santa's delivery, in quantum physics. He'd be killed by all the G force!

I still don't quite get the continually expanding universe. It makes sense that the universe was expanding early in its life, but what is it doing now? If all that we can see is what was in the past (and the further out we see, the further in the past it gets), how would we even be able to determine what it is doing now? Sure we can see what the universe was doing 10 billion years ago, but for all we know it could be crashing in right now.

I think it's a matter of momentum that makes us think it's still expanding (at the moment). That being said, there's the very distinct possibility that our understanding of Macro physics is out of whack. I'm told we understand physics on a "medium" level (if you will). We understand the movement of planets, comets, stars, etc. But we don't understand much below the size of an atom, or much beyond the size of a galaxy. Things just get...weird.

Hence string theory, which is supposed to be the "super theory" that brings the macro and the micro into play. I think this hypothesis remains to be proven...but we can always hope. Then we can all grab a wormhole and visit renaultsoftware at his house as he has proposed.

Yep, all the old Ford Meteors, Plymouth Satellites, et al. will have somewhere to go. :)

Good point, we are saying that the universe is expanding as we view it from the past because of course as you have mentioned, we don't know the exact state of the universe as it is right now. This is what I mean when I say we are limited by 3D space and light. Outer space is definitely beyond 3D because they say that if you were on another galaxy at the edge of the universe, then the milky way would be on the edge of the universe and you would appear to be at the center of the universe and the milky way would be expanding away from you at a very high rate of speed.

I suppose that if you could travel forward in time, then you would be able to take these measurements at various points in the future and know what the exact nature of space is today but I haven't figured out that one yet. Maybe instead of traveling in worm holes at the moment, I would suggest that we create worm holes to look at and gauge various parts of the universe as it may be today. Wouldn't this be a really cool way of seeing the universe?

In addition, the fact that some of these galaxies are traveling so fast means we quite possibly may never be able to catch up to them in the conventional sense since the most distance ones are traveling at a very high rate of speed close to the speed of light. So a worm hole is practical in this case.

This stuff is crazy! :) My head spins just thinking of it all.

To get a little crazier renaultssoftware, if we were on the edge of the universe in another galaxy looking back at the milky way, then of course you would be looking back in time 13 billions years ago and of course you would not observe the Sun, Earth and the entire solar system because it wouldn't exist from that perspective -light hasn't travel that distance from the sun yet. In order to observe our solar system you would have to be within 4.6 billion light years from it. This means that it's quite likely that other galaxies and Solar systems have been created which we can not observe simply because they are too young for their light to have reached us. Maybe this is part of the dark matter that is unaccounted for but I don't know. But I do know that we are not capable of observing everything at once because of this limitation of light.

*drops on floor dead*

Well, I just hope that whoever is blowing up this cosmic space-time ballon doesn't decide to make funny animals out of it.

That would be a good Star Trek show. "We have explored the universe's bounds, and we must report they are in the shape of an elephant."

...or better yet, "the universe is in the shape of the number 42".

"Whoops, we've ripped the fabric." "Hey wait, my wife can sew." "No, Scotty."

Either way, I'd like to know something about the Big Bang: how does something explode from nothing?

Just curious does creationism have an explanation for the visibility of stars more than 6000 light years away?

How about 10,000 year old trees?

The same way that earthlings could stare up at the (spherical) sun & moon for centuries, and yet imagine believe that the Earth was flat.

On a related point, there was a documentary on the BBC about life in the Vatican recently.
It had an interview with the Papal Astronomer, who is a Jesuit priest and a graduate of MIT.

"Religion teaches me that God created the universe; Science teaches me how he did it."

This here book (https://store.creation.com/ca/produc...p?sku=10-2-164) refutes people with his view. That includes Hugh Ross.

A few good books to read: Alice in Quantum Land, Wizard of Quarks. They are both written by the same author, Robert Gilmore. They were the first books I read about Quantum Mechanics. Very approachable books to give you a good overview of the theories without the crazy difficult calculations.

I think the experiment which sparked my interest is the double-slit experiment. It is one of those wikis that I had to read...then re-read many times until I could even attempt at wrapping my head around the experiment. Basically it "proves" that light is both a particle and a wave. I think this experiment actually produced more questions than answers...but it's a very interesting read.

Personally I don't think light is that special. IMO since it defines our existence we simply cannot comprehend beyond light.

What about fire? Where's that from? :confused:

Yeah I think the key here is comprehension. My gut feeling about string theory and quantum phenomena is that it is a convenient theory to work by until we understand what is really going on. While it works mathematically to help us work beyond our current level of comprehension the underlying theories seem a bit fruit-loopy.

Magnets! How do they work? :mad:

Gravity, how does that work! :eek: I'm told the two are closely related.

@renaultSoftware -- Fire is pretty simple, it has to do with chemical reactions. To put it simply (because I only know how to put it simply): Two atoms fuse together and the process lets off a large amount of energy. The first result of this energy is heat (like from a camp fire.) The second result of the fusing is that all of the electrons involved in the bonding process jump up a level in their respective orbits, and then suddenly jump back down. This process releases photons, which are the wave/particles that make up light. Thus, we get heat and light from some chemical reactions (like wood burning) which makes what we commonly refer to as "fire".

As I'm disconvering while reading "Alice in Quantum Land" (thanks fat elvis), photons and quantum's are apparently the same thing. That's a bit mind blowing, isn't it? They have a short summary of the story here.

Gravity? Magnets? Simple...they use THE FORCE

:D

and back to light...WTF is up with the constancy of it's speed?

e.g. you're in a car traveling 5,000 mph AWAY from a flashlight. If you measure the speed of the light from the flashlight it will measure the same as if you're traveling TOWARDS the source!!!

Conventional thinking would be that if you're moving towards the source of light at 5,000 MPH...the speed of the light particles would be the speed of light PLUS to the speed you're traveling (c + 5000).

So, our current scientific views of light are that it's both a particle and a wave...always travels at the same speed...obeys some "ether" in the universe that we cannot detect/measure/comprehend...and it has an "infinite mass" :rolleyes: This is why I think light is only special to us, and these oddities are simply a byproduct of our limited knowledge.

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move."

Also, the answer is 42. That is all.

:):):)

Yes. When I was in school I asked the science teacher this question. We'd done the three states of matter (plasma hadn't been invented/discovered in 1962). Solid, liquid, gas. "Q: So what's a flame?" "A: A region of intense ionization". I'm still confused!

Yes it does, it has many. Remember Moses lived to be 900 years old?


The problem I have with all these modern physics theories it seems sometimes they are just trying too hard to be cutting edge, or so abstract but on purpose. I picked up copy of the Elegant Universe a few years back and read it. Me not having any degrees or major schooling in sciences was still able to follow it for the most part. It made sense and I understood it.

Then I go out and buy a collection of Hawking's Essays. Which have to be translated to me.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/g..._universe.html

Is a great video and it is based on deep space telescope pictures. I think that the 1 thing these physicists can agree on, is that there is only 1 reality. That the universe does what it does, and that is how it works. However, a lot of them cannot agree on how it works.

Here you are: http://qgf.in/2HN1uf

While there may be a great explanation renaultsssoftware, I'm afraid that link isn't it. He's kind of selectively using parts of general relativity to justify his argument, and then just ignoring some of the more salient features of it. He's kind of made a start on something...but not really finished it.

All of that being said, I'm not a big fan of the whole concept of arguing creationism against big bang theory. The truth is that believing in strict biblical creationism is a faith based thing. If you think God created the universe in a certain way, then you just believe it, you don't need a reason other than "I believe God did it this way, it's my personal conviction." Personally I don't see an inherent contradiction in assuming that mans understanding of creation might pale in comparison to the understanding of an omnipotent deity (just a thought).

There's really no point in arguing about it. And if I'm honest, there's no harm in believing one way or the other. I don't think a firm understanding of how the Universe began is necessarily going to have a huge effect on how I treat my fellow humans (and all beings) tomorrow. And since that tends to be the central theme of most major religions, I don't see a point in arguing too much about peripheral concepts.

So, let's not get too off track by debating creationism v. big bang theory. I think the point of the thread is to deepen our understanding of big bang and string theory. And so far I've seen a lot of good explanations of the former, so...yeah, let's stick to the good stuff :).

Let's stick to the good stuff. Like what there was before the Big Bang.

I was discussing it with a classmate, and he said "Static electricity is natural. It's always been there."; insinuating that the Big Bang was caused by static electricity. I answered him with "The Big Bang created our universe and forces inside it; static electricity must've been 'created' at the same time as all the rest."

This very same classmate asked me about God: what was there before Him? The simple answer is: he created time, space and matter. He is therefore not bound by time, space and matter. We're confined to TS&M, therefore we don't understand how it all works.

It has been a while since I have studied cosmology and physics, but if I recall, the universe is theorized to have started with a single element, which later turned into several elements, which later they would combine and have reactions to one another, until all the elements reacted and caused the big bang which started the first expansion of the universe.

It has been a while so I could be off.

Sure… I guess I'll wait until I get to the "real" high school.

Origin of Life. That's interesting. Apparently, Miller-Urey type experiments can't make life, because that would only generate the hardware (e.g. the Windows box). It takes something to create the actual software, like Windows XP.

We can create self replicating DNA

http://io9.com/5543843/scientists-cr...self+replicate

This still requires intelligence, and we're intelligent. Chance - blind chance - is not intelligent.

But all we see are the chances that worked not the failed to proliferates...

Correct! Never mind Miller-Urey, because it didn't work.

I don't know that you can surmise anything from the testing of one hypothesis over the course of a week over 50 years ago. Run the experiment for another billion years and then come back to me :D.

The actual origin of life would require no intelligence, when you think about it. Panspermia -- where did the aliens come from? An explosion -- could put the motherboard, hard drive, etc. together, but not create the OS. And let's not forget the living cell is more complex than that!

What are you driving at?

So far this sounds like "argument from ignorance".

It's also my understanding that Miller-Urey did work. The goal was to examine the conditions thought to exist during early Earth and look for evidence of chemical evolution. At the time, several amino acids were found after one week. A recent re-examination found many more that hadn't been originally detected.

I don't know if this is what you were implying, but no one ever expected actual living or intelligent organisms to be found in the apparatus.

Amino acids are one part of the puzzle -- where's the DNA, RNA, enzymes, proteins? Proteins need DNA and DNA needs proteins -- it's chicken and egg all over again.

Speaking of chance. Think about the billions of galaxies, each with at least a billion stars. Some of those probably have planets. We're still talking about billions upon billions of planets. Even if there was a 0.00000000001% chance life started spontaneously it would still mean the universe is teaming with life.

Now try and "test" those chances in a laboratory. You'll have a bigger chance of winning the lottery, every day, for the rest of your life.

My concept is that the universe is a loop in the general shape of the infinity symbol. The cross sectional shape is triangular, with the galaxies being seen as points of light more dense toward one side of the triangle. There are infinite numbers of galaxies and the length of the loop is also infinite. Viewed from a distance, time could be seen slowly moving along the loop, looking to the eye somewhat like modulation of the light intensity. The Big Bang theory could be true, but since the length of the loop is already infinite, the universe isn't expanding.
I agree with SirDice, the universe is teeming with life.