First, I want to make it clear I am not trying to discredit anything, I'm just trying to understand the physics of it. I'm watching this thing on Science Channel and one of the scientists says the laws of physics allow for something to come out of nothing; he is talking about the Big Bang. My question is, how does this apply to the Big Bang when before the Big Bang the laws of physics (or physical laws of the universe) didn't exist? If there is nothing there are no physical laws yet so what do the laws of physics have to do with it? Could someone with more education on physics and thermodynamics please help clarify this? Again, I'm not trying to make an argument against the Big Bang, I'm just trying to get more about the theory.
2011-03-20T11:26:24Z
Hans, I am not talking about before they were discovered. I'm not that stupid. The laws of physics are traits of the universe. If the universe doesn't exist the laws don't exist.
eri2011-03-20T11:23:45Z
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It's certainly true that the laws of physics might be unique to our universe. They might not apply outside of it, where whatever caused the big bang came from. The scientist was merely saying that even if we assume the laws of physics are the same everywhere, and that nothing caused the big bang and it simply happened, that happens in our universe as well - despite what most people think, not everything has a cause. Physics at the quantum level can be very strange and non-intuitive.
You are asking a very pertinent question since today's physics produces values that shoot off into infinity when we reach densities and temperatures as we expect would exist in the first tiniest portion of the first second. This alone demonstrates physics fails as you suspect.
However, science is constantly seeking answers to questions, so speculations are the first step in helping us advance science. But are there more universes out there? If so, must we violate the objective-based scientific framework and claim they do exist even though no definitive experiment might ever be found to test the various hypotheses? I hope not.
It is almost amusing to explore deep into the world of the almost infinitely small and suddenly pop-out from these depths to announce there must be many universes. It sounds like hubris. But, again, this is what scientists do when they are hot on the trail of illusive answers to extremely difficult questions. They certainly could be right, but I do regret that some take liberty with the use of "theory" when testability can not be demonstrated.
That's good you're not trying to make an argument against the Big Bang, because there aren't any good arguments against the Big Bang. Basically, scientists never thought that the Universe came from nothing, they just didn't have any way of looking "outside" our Universe. They do now though, and a number of workable theories are being tested about the origin of the Big Bang. Basically our Universe, and possibly an infinite number of other Universes, are a natural and inevitable result of stuff going on in the "reality" that underlies our Universe. A reality that has many more dimensions than ours, has always been here, and always will. And the laws of OUR universe are peculiar to it alone, they don't apply outside our universe.
well i thing the scientist said something which he didn't mean, and probably the statement is wrong. because the laws of physics as we know it were created just after the bid bang ( which was rather a rapid expansion), because no one has done any substantial work on the singularity, and it would be wrong to say that singularity had the properties of the universe. And even Einstein's theory of relativity is based on the postulate that all laws of physics are same for all inertial frames of reference and doesn't say anything about a situation where singularity is involved.
Well: " before the Big Bang the laws of physics (or physical laws of the universe) didn't exist" is precisely it. Those 'Laws' , as we usually state them, apply to our Universe as it does exist. Even in our Universe, at the quantum level, "virtual particle pairs" (wiki it), do appear and disappear, and thus 'something from nothing' is a common occurrence.