Big Bang (and other questions)

[sillyworm]

I still cannot wrap my mind around how the Universe was created from ONE singularity.The question,for me,remains.What came BEFORE the Big Bang? What formed this singularity? I am also curious about the rotations of Galaxies.Why do they spin? Do the Supermassive(all types) black holes, residing at their centers,cause or are the main reason for the rotation? I am excited about what we will learn when the James Web Space Telescope is successfully operating!

[Chris Peterson]

I still cannot wrap my mind around how the Universe was created from ONE singularity.The question,for me,remains.What came BEFORE the Big Bang?

The question may be meaningless, given that time itself was created by the Big Bang. Without time, what does "before" even mean?

What formed this singularity?

Why did anything need to form it? We don't know that effects require causes.

I am also curious about the rotations of Galaxies.Why do they spin?

Because the particles that created them had angular momentum, and angular momentum is conserved. As it is vanishingly unlikely that the net angular momentum of all the particles would be exactly zero, every condensed body in the Universe exhibits some degree of spin.

Do the Supermassive(all types) black holes, residing at their centers,cause or are the main reason for the rotation?

No to both. In most cases, the central black holes have only a small impact on the large scale rotational dynamics of galaxies.

[bystander]

I still cannot wrap my mind around how the Universe was created from ONE singularity.The question,for me,remains.What came BEFORE the Big Bang? What formed this singularity? ...

There is no before. According to the ΛCDM model of the Big Bang, spacetime began at t=0. Even the singularity is questionable. Attempts to extrapolate back to conditions before the end of the Planck epoch using methods based on general relativity are indeterminate.

[sillyworm]

I still cannot wrap my mind around how the Universe was created from ONE singularity.The question,for me,remains.What came BEFORE the Big Bang? What formed this singularity? ...

"There is no before. According to the ΛCDM model of the Big Bang, spacetime began at t=0. Even the singularity is questionable. Attempts to extrapolate back to conditions before the end of the Planck epoch using methods based on general relativity are indeterminate."

So it has been said. I ,for one,do not believe this.

[Chris Peterson]

I still cannot wrap my mind around how the Universe was created from ONE singularity.The question,for me,remains.What came BEFORE the Big Bang? What formed this singularity? ...

"There is no before. According to the ΛCDM model of the Big Bang, spacetime began at t=0. Even the singularity is questionable. Attempts to extrapolate back to conditions before the end of the Planck epoch using methods based on general relativity are indeterminate."

So it has been said. I ,for one,do not believe this.

It is silly and irrational not to believe something for no other reason than because it conflicts with your biases. We're talking about a model well supported by evidence and ideas that have been well thought out. Unless you can objectively support an alternative, you're out of place in any science forum.

[sillyworm]

"There is no before. According to the ΛCDM model of the Big Bang, spacetime began at t=0. Even the singularity is questionable. Attempts to extrapolate back to conditions before the end of the Planck epoch using methods based on general relativity are indeterminate."

So it has been said. I ,for one,do not believe this.

It is silly and irrational not to believe something for no other reason than because it conflicts with your biases. We're talking about a model well supported by evidence and ideas that have been well thought out. Unless you can objectively support an alternative, you're out of place in any science forum.

Is not the search for answers spawned by asking an improbable or unpopular question? I'm sure I'm not the only person that has felt this way....models or not.Not trying to be arrogant at all.....There are tons of unanswered questions concerning "SPACE" Physics ....why couldn't we be wrong about The Big Bang?

[Chris Peterson]

So it has been said. I ,for one,do not believe this.

It is silly and irrational not to believe something for no other reason than because it conflicts with your biases. We're talking about a model well supported by evidence and ideas that have been well thought out. Unless you can objectively support an alternative, you're out of place in any science forum.

Is not the search for answers spawned by asking an improbable or unpopular question? I'm sure I'm not the only person that has felt this way....models or not.Not trying to be arrogant at all.....There are tons of unanswered questions concerning "SPACE" Physics ....why couldn't we be wrong about The Big Bang?

Nobody has suggested there is anything wrong with asking questions. Nobody has argued that the Big Bang might not be wrong.

What is irrational is refusing to believe a well supported theory for no apparent reason. Unless you are an expert in cosmology yourself, you should consider the consensus view (and the consensus is quite strong in this case) the most likely answer.

[sillyworm]

I still cannot wrap my mind around how the Universe was created from ONE singularity.The question,for me,remains.What came BEFORE the Big Bang?

The question may be meaningless, given that time itself was created by the Big Bang. Without time, what does "before" even mean?

What formed this singularity?

Why did anything need to form it? We don't know that effects require causes.

I am also curious about the rotations of Galaxies.Why do they spin?

Because the particles that created them had angular momentum, and angular momentum is conserved. As it is vanishingly unlikely that the net angular momentum of all the particles would be exactly zero, every condensed body in the Universe exhibits some degree of spin.

Do the Supermassive(all types) black holes, residing at their centers,cause or are the main reason for the rotation?

No to both. In most cases, the central black holes have only a small impact on the large scale rotational dynamics of galaxies.

Thank You,Chris. I guess I could have asked....HOW did THE Singularity(that spawned the BIG BANG) come to be.And YES...I can't get my mind around Infinite space or time either!

[sillyworm]

It is silly and irrational not to believe something for no other reason than because it conflicts with your biases. We're talking about a model well supported by evidence and ideas that have been well thought out. Unless you can objectively support an alternative, you're out of place in any science forum.

Is not the search for answers spawned by asking an improbable or unpopular question? I'm sure I'm not the only person that has felt this way....models or not.Not trying to be arrogant at all.....There are tons of unanswered questions concerning "SPACE" Physics ....why couldn't we be wrong about The Big Bang?

Nobody has suggested there is anything wrong with asking questions. Nobody has argued that the Big Bang might not be wrong.

What is irrational is refusing to believe a well supported theory for no apparent reason. Unless you are an expert in cosmology yourself, you should consider the consensus view (and the consensus is quite strong in this case) the most likely answer.

I agree....I should have stated...."I'm having concerns with.or..I feel that it might be something different". I never intended that my short & curt reply meant that I did not respect or admire or not believe that it could "most likely" be true. I do respect the phrase "most likely".

[Chris Peterson]

Is not the search for answers spawned by asking an improbable or unpopular question? I'm sure I'm not the only person that has felt this way....models or not.Not trying to be arrogant at all.....There are tons of unanswered questions concerning "SPACE" Physics ....why couldn't we be wrong about The Big Bang?

Nobody has suggested there is anything wrong with asking questions. Nobody has argued that the Big Bang might not be wrong.

What is irrational is refusing to believe a well supported theory for no apparent reason. Unless you are an expert in cosmology yourself, you should consider the consensus view (and the consensus is quite strong in this case) the most likely answer.

I agree....I should have stated...."I'm having concerns with.or..I feel that it might be something different". I never intended that my short & curt reply meant that I did not respect or admire or not believe that it could "most likely" be true. I do respect the phrase "most likely".

Fair enough. Skepticism is an essential quality of scientists. But it's important not to confuse being skeptical with believing that all possible answers have equal weight.

[sillyworm]

I do apologize,for once again,bringing up questions that don't specifically apply to the daily APOD.I've just recently become interested in the mysteries of our Universe.My initial questions are associated with the Big Bang(Here I go again).Chris has pointed out to me that the general(and expert) consensus IS...that time BEGAN at that point.Myself..and having no valid Astronomy knowledge...imagine that..the Universe must(?) be expanding into something(?) What is it expanding into? Has it been decided that nothing exists outside the expanding Universe(at least the one we know of)? I do realize that questions like this are categorized under "Theories". I do realize that Astronomy is based on Mathematics.

[Chris Peterson]

I do apologize,for once again,bringing up questions that don't specifically apply to the daily APOD.I've just recently become interested in the mysteries of our Universe.My initial questions are associated with the Big Bang(Here I go again).Chris has pointed out to me that the general(and expert) consensus IS...that time BEGAN at that point.Myself..and having no valid Astronomy knowledge...imagine that..the Universe must(?) be expanding into something(?) What is it expanding into? Has it been decided that nothing exists outside the expanding Universe(at least the one we know of)? I do realize that questions like this are categorized under "Theories". I do realize that Astronomy is based on Mathematics.

IMO one of the first steps we need to take (and it's often difficult) in learning many areas of physics is to put aside our intuitive understanding of nature. Cosmology, relativity, quantum mechanics... these things appear to operate in ways that simply don't match up with what our senses evolved to detect or our brains to analyze. In those realms, we can have no time, we can have no space (but which isn't simply empty space), we can have an expanding universe which expands into nothing at all, we can have matter and energy able to move between two locations without ever being present between those places. It's a weird universe when viewed from the standpoint of our intuitive expectations (which is why we need to defer to math and simply accept the weirdness).

[Markus Schwarz]

I still cannot wrap my mind around how the Universe was created from ONE singularity.The question,for me,remains.What came BEFORE the Big Bang? What formed this singularity?

These questions are actively researched by experts. But no satisfactory answer has been found yet. Maybe it helps to highlight how cosmologist came to the conclusion that there was a singularity. First, we have plenty of observations from which we know the current matter distribution in the universe. Second, we have Einstein's general theory of relativity, well supported by experimental evidence, that describes how the universe (matter, space, and time) evolves. We know the initial condition and the equations of motion, and we are thus in a position to "calculate backwards" what the universe was like at earlier times. It was through the effort of many theoretical physicists (Hawing amongst them) that we now have the following answer: about 13.8 billion years ago the size of the universe was zero, which means that the 'mass' density was infinite. This infinite mass density leads to infinite curvature of space and time, which is the singularity you mentioned. It is interpreted as the beginning of time and space. Thus, there would be no time or space before that. But that is not the end of the story.

Singularities occur in other branches of physics as well. A less spectacular example is the formation of a drop of water from a valve. Hydrodynamics is a branch of physics that describes the behavior of fluids. Water is assumed to be a smooth substance without any granularity. Under this assumption hydrodynamics also predicts a singularity (infinite density) just when the drop is about to fall off. In the real world there is no singularity because when the neck of the droplet of water is small enough, you have to take into account that water is made of individual molecules. The water molecules do not obey the laws of hydrodynamics. When you take this into account, you find that there is no singularity.

It might be similar with the Big Bang singularity. Many cosmologists believe that the occurrence of a singularity implies that we haven't found the right laws of nature yet, that describe the universe 13,8 billion years ago. Different theories are being pursuit, such as string theory and loop quantum gravity. But none has given an answer yet. Only once we found an acceptable theory can we answer if something existed "before" the Big Bang.

[sillyworm]

Thanks Markus & Chris.Thankfully...Pondering the mysteries Of Physics & Science & Mathematics are of equal enjoyment to amateurs & advanced "Professionals".

[sillyworm]

Mentioning that the singularity was composed of infinite density helped me to start looking at it differently.