>>14344
>without there being any actual proof except for blue-redshift values.

There's also the cosmic background radiation.

you are giving spatial position and concept of time too much importance. they are just dimensions(you even consider time a purely mental construct in the theory o holographic universe),a framework in which energy is distributed. you can think about our universe as a branch of n-dimensional fractal universe. in this context big bang is just a expansion of existing energy(mass) in a certain configuration in certain limited dimensions. but that doesn't make big bang less important: its like when you build your own home, the fact that it was made from greater whole, and exist in a very limited sense(considering time and dimensions for example) it is still important to you.

>Just to elaborate a bit; let us say that there were coordinates of the big bang. These would surely be time = 0 and the spatial xyz's also = 0.
>Now, here's the problem. This indicates that these coordinates already existed before the Big Bang
It depends on how you make your statement. You could say that by definition of space-time, the Big Bang happened at (0,0,0,0). That wouldn't lead to circularity.
It's kind of like saying "all positive numbers are >= 0". Whether or not there are numbers that are not positive doesn't affect your definition of "positive".

>This would indicate that [coordinates] were not created BY the BB, but rather simultaneously.
Coordinates don't actually exist as physical objects any more than prime numbers do.

Imagine that it was possible to determine the exact moment the Big Bang took place and make a clock that displays that value in seconds. The clock wouldn't work by tapping into the fabric of reality and reading its value from a literal Cartesian time axis.

Coordinate systems are abstract things we made up to make handling vector data easier. Since we made them up, we can define them to be whatever we want. At the moment, it just makes sense to have the space-time coordinate system's origin at the Big Bang.

>>14347
>At the moment, it just makes sense to have the space-time coordinate system's origin at the Big Bang.

There's a problem with that concept. At the moment of the BB, space itself was compressed into that point. So if you were to go through the universe and call every point that was within the scope of the BB's point of occurrence "origin", every single point in the universe would be labeled "origin".

>>14351
So what's the problem? If you have a bag with one red ball, is it false to say "every ball in this bag is red"?

>>14352

The problem is, it's useless for a system of coordinates. Saying the point of occurrence of the big bang is spatially 0x, 0y, and 0z is meaningless because that describes every point in the universe.

>>14353
>Saying the point of occurrence of the big bang is spatially 0x, 0y, and 0z is meaningless because that describes every point in the universe.
Not quite, you're reading it in an absolute sense rather than a relative one.

It's like an ice-cube on a plate. When it melts, any given particle of water isn't measured at 0x0y because it was the ice-cube to begin with. We'd (arguably) measure its position at AxBy relative to the cube because it has moved from the zero point origin.

If we took your logic, space, doesn't exist. It's all a singularity no matter the expansion. Hell, neither does time if you want to add the 4th into it.

>>14354
>If we took your logic, space, doesn't exist

Not at all. It has nothing to do with the structure of space, just our measuring of it. e9fba6 was saying that a system of universal spatial coordinates could have its zero point at the location of the big bang, but every point is the location of the big bang.

This is, of course, entirely aside from the uselessness of calling the big bang a temporal zero point as well, because the exact time since the big bang will literally be different depending on your position of observation.

>>14353
It's meaningless in space only. Time isn't completely compressed at the Big Bang. I was talking about a hypothetical space-time coordinate system.

>>14355
>This is, of course, entirely aside from the uselessness of calling the big bang a temporal zero point as well, because the exact time since the big bang will literally be different depending on your position of observation.
I'm not aware of this, but let's pretend that it's true. It would only mean that your position on the time axis changes with your changes of position on the spatial axes.

I should say that I'm not saying such a coordinate system could be actually defined. It was merely an argument made to point out the flaws in OP's reasoning. Mainly that coordinates are physical, and not purely abstract, objects.

Okay, show me where the universe's single origin point is. Provide concrete evidence as to where (0,0,0) is at this moment in time. (Assuming of course that there even is such a thing as a single simultaneous moment in time throughout the universe, which it is a demonstrated scientific fact there cannot be.) Bonus points if you can demonstrate which way the actual, physical x, y, and z axes are oriented.

>>14357
You're not even reading my replies anymore, are you? Have fun arguing by yourself.

>>14358
So I take it then, that despite claiming that coordinates have an actual presence in the universe, you cannot actually tell us even a theoretical way in which we might establish the universe's real zero point or axes?

>>14359
Zero Point - (if the universe is expanding) find the direction of expansion and go the opposite direction. If you want a 3d location you'll need several discreet points in space from which to measure and intercept (and no, mars and uranus aren't discreet, we're talking other galaxies here). There will be a shit load of problems with lensing and such but the theory is sound.

you're all forgetting that it's space that expands, not the matter in the space. that means a coordinate system mapped to space will expand with space, but only if time passes.

time is the integral of space. trying to find "where the big bang was" at any other point in time is like trying to find the y intercept of a tangent line. you can do it, but it's not going to be on the curve and it won't give you any accurate or useful information about the curve.

>>14360

The universe is expanding in ALL directions. No matter what point you are observing from in the universe, it will appear to be expanding away from you.

So what is the opposite of all directions?

hydrogen atom attached to 2 oxygen atoms
we call this molecule "H20"

we typically think of it as what's in clouds, and what's in the ocean

if there's enough of it to be obvious we call it a drop

if there's enough of it to be visible in gaseous form we call it steam

if it's there but sparse enough we just call it "air" - including it in an amorphous lump of other particles


it's the same molecule... that exists in amounts of varying intensity

there are thresh-holds of detection built into the human brain somewhat on this matter...

sometimes we also call it moisture I suppose


categorization does this

in short, at an absolute scale of things compared to the "past" expansion is in all directions, but to an extent one might consider it to be expanding in "no directions"

however if one were to assume one or the other absolutely one runs into the trouble of getting the wrong idea and line of thought for the former idea

and simply not having a clue why matter/objects is disintegrating/changing at various intervals for the latter


at least, using the language I've seen in this thread

I should clarify that I mean....

"it expands in no directions" - relative to itself...

a circle twice the size of itself 5 minutes ago is still... a circle

in real life however we do not have the ability to create "entities that just create new matter outta nothing to keep expanding"

a fundamental shift in how the matter operates will occur at some point in space due to this stuff most likely


as for the categorization statements I made

at what point does "ocean" not become ocean?

at what point does it merely become a sea?

and so on so on... categorization is a method of breaking things down to see the pattern more easily

one should be able to address the breakdown in categorization in order to find new ways of categorizing to move forwards

metaphor is existent precisely for this - because concepts are generally not made out of thin air, but "ready-made" or already communicated to individuals over a lifetime

the universe provides us the patterns already, sometimes separating the "noise" from the intended communication is important

that's why fiction exists

>>14369
>The universe is expanding in ALL directions. No matter what point you are observing from in the universe, it will appear to be expanding away from you.
That's true, however the rate of expansion is not equal for every vector. The greatest rate of expansion will actually be at 90 degrees to the line of origin. This is assuming the universe is expanding and doing so in a uniform manner.

>>14377

Okay, let's say we have a sphere that has expanded from a point. The two-dimensional critters living on the surface of this sphere propose to establish an x/y coordinate system on their two-dimensional continuum, and declare the sphere's origin point to be the zero point of the system.

Are you beginning to see the problem here?

OP claiming ID here.
>>14377
thank you for making sense.
>>14372
Well, very poetic and all, but it doesn't answer my question.
>>14360
Indeed. A very observant answer, and one that I have thought of myself as well. Now, let us recompress the universe, and everything that it has, back to this point. We now have an infinetely small POINT that contains everything.
There it is. For that point to be able to expand, it had to have a position. Position implies somewhere. No space implies no somewhere.
For people who hold dear to the multiverse theory, apply this same thinking to the manifold, cause, if you want or not, if you say that it has always been there, the multiverse is God, and therefore implies religion.
Although I am a critical thinker, I cannot find flaws in a religious theory of creation. Not to be confused with creationism, of course.

>>it had to have a position

yes, but not one that's in the 3rd dimension.

>>14526
>For that point to be able to expand, it had to have a position.
Why? You can't just throw statements like that around. Give some kind of explanation. Why can't something have size (or null size) without being in a specific location?

>>14546
>Why can't something have size (or null size) without being in a specific location?

Especially prior to the existence of such a thing as "location".

How about you first consider that your concept relies on what you know about this place we are in and your observation of it, in other places these things may not be relied upon to be similar. Then we look at the theory that if all things in this place originated at a single point that point would contain the entire mass of everything however newer things are created later due to interactions between things that started there. If we look at this in detail and try to consider what existed before this point and where things came from the only conclusion is that the starting blocks for this place came from another place as things do not dissapear they just change from one thing into another, therefore there existed before this place either another place or this place was created from itself, either it is constantly collapsing and recreating itself or it is a seepage from outside where there exists some other thing which we can not measure because we are created inside the place which now exists and can only evaluate this place based on the evidence provided. You are never going to know until you get outside this place and look back onto it. Now go get some sleep.

>>14590

Actually, things do appear from nowhere. They do it all the time. Normally they simply annihilate immediately, but under certain circumstances, they can persist. Such as when they happen to appear precisely at the event horizon of a black hole, and the antiparticle is just close enough to to fall in but the particle is just far enough to escape, so they are separated and fail to annihilate.

>>14590
I didn't ask for a philosophical explanation of existence. There's enough of those and they can be readily found. I asked for a logical justification of the statement
>For that point to be able to expand, it had to have a position.
and its unspoken implications:
1. If it exists, it has location.
2. There's a universe surrounding this universe.

The origin may have been a strange thing that had different properties to what we expect. If the origin existed as a physical item then it has to have been floating on or in something even for a milisecond before it blew up to create this place but it must have been created from something or be inside another thing. Very interesting. It is then a matter of quantum foams and waves in an energy mass that existed before this universe was created or the reignition of the matter from a previous version of this one so our construct of time and ideas of how objects behave is then called into question. We do not know and can not ever know because we exisit inside the place that was created and if one day we manage to replicate the event we will wipe out this place and the one we made will take it's place so no humans will be left to measure and document it and come here to tell you. Very interesting thinking about it have a beer on me.

>>14597
>If the origin existed as a physical item then it has to have been floating on or in something even for a milisecond before it blew up to create this place but it must have been created from something or be inside another thing.
That's not explaining, that's repeating. You're repeating what you said before. I'm asking you to explain why this has to be true.

>The origin may have been a strange thing that had different properties to what we expect.
>our construct of time and ideas of how objects behave is then called into question.
So you understand this but still insist that location is an intrinsic property of existence? How can you possibly reconcile these two positions?

>We do not know and can not ever know because we exisit inside the place that was created and if one day we manage to replicate the event we will wipe out this place and the one we made will take it's place so no humans will be left to measure and document it and come here to tell you.
You misunderstand me. I didn't ask for physical evidence. Your statement was "X has to be true". No statement about the physical world can be proven true through physical evidence, so I couldn't have thought that you had any. No, your phrasing implies that you started from a minimal set of self-evident axioms (e.g. "the universe exists", "if something is somewhere, it's not elsewhere", stuff like that) and through a series of valid deductions came to the conclusion that if X was false, it would contradict said axioms.

So, did you? Or are you simply saying that it's true because you just can't comprehend a counterexample?

>>There's a universe surrounding this universe.

i already said. there is a universe surrounding this universe. but it's not surrounding it 3 dimensionally. a circle can have the same diameter and circumference as a sphere, but the sphere is still larger. and just because you're looking at a smaller slice of the sphere near the poles doesn't mean the rest of the sphere stops existing. but it also doesn't mean you're looking at anything more than a circle, ie same shape, dimensions, and coordinate map.

It seems like the real answer is that it appears that space has originated from a point source, based upon the evidence.
How it appeared from the point and why it appeared from the point are sort of irrelevant, and may well forever be beyond are understanding.

Physics becomes very strange at extreme conditions. For example, if two black holes orbit each other at the correct distance, there is theoretically a figure of 8 orbital path which send you back in time.

>>14599

Uh. The sphere is not larger. It exists in a way which the circle cannot.

Infinity can't really be bigger than infinity. If there are an infinite number of possible positions on the circle, the sphere cannot be "bigger"

To clarify, how much bigger does the radius of the circle have to be than the radius of the sphere for the circle to be the same or bigger size than the sphere? It is a question which makes no logical sense and therefore has no answer.

>>14647
>Infinity can't really be bigger than infinity.
Yes, it can.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinality

This doesn't apply in this case, though.

>>14648
Sort of. An infinite series cannot, by definition, be surpassed; it has at most one boundary.

I do understand the logic that some infinities are greater than others, however, it is difficult to reconcile.

There sphere consists of an infinite number of circle planes, and exists in a way which is simple impossible for the circle to exist.

So in one sense, it is infinitely bigger, in another, they are simply incomparable.

>>14649
>Sort of. An infinite series cannot, by definition, be surpassed; it has at most one boundary.
First of all, you mean an infinite sequence.
Second, just because a sequence is infinite, doesn't make it unbounded. For example, a_i = 1 - 1/i, i in N.
Third, now you're talking about a completely different kind of infinity. An unbounded sequence doesn't contain any elements that are literally infinity. The number of elements in an infinite set is literally infinity.

>There sphere consists of an infinite number of circle planes
This is just an naive way to look at it. Applying this kind of logic to infinite sets is just wrong.
Actually, it's possible to open any circle and "coil" the resulting curve around itself tightly enough to create any sphere. In more technical terms, there exists a bijection between any circle and any sphere.

>>14647

i was talking about surrounding the circle from a higher dimension. the sphere is larger in the z axis. just because you can't come up with a number doesn't mean it isn't larger. is infinity larger than 1?

>>14653

"Larger" is not synonymous or interchangeable with "surrounding".

That said, you are otherwise correct. There are different infinities, and one infinite set can indeed be larger or smaller than another.

Guys guys calm down no reason to get hateful after all we are all scientific and more logical in approach than religion.

You dare blaspheme the holy doctrine of Big Bang! That is one of the cornerstones of our religion of Atheism. Burning at the stake is to good for you.

I just read all the thread and I'm surprised : Inside the question, there are a lot of "parti-pris" (sorry, I'm french...)[position already decided will be a good approximation.]
"the Big Bang is an event. And any event is defined by a time, and location (4 dimensions, if you want me to be exact)"
What do you think about mass (and then gravitation...) ? about energy (this field is even more open...) ? about probability (does this event even existed...?) ?

for my eyes, trying to approaching the big band only with the ideas of location and time seems like trying to fly with a bicycle (you can jump but not fly !!!). It will be not really possible. You will approximate the idea but not be able to make the leap...
The thing is : there are ideas, constructs, abstractions created by the limited human who have naturally conscience only of space and time. Maybe this will be the enigma who will stay unsolved, the human brain doesn't have the capacity to understand this "abstraction/construction/event". This is a "godlike" thing for me ... poor human mind with human abstractions (wich be totally false, by the way !)

>>15070
>"the Big Bang is an event. And any event is defined by a time, and location (4 dimensions, if you want me to be exact)"
>What do you think about mass (and then gravitation...) ? about energy (this field is even more open...) ? about probability (does this event even existed...?) ?
What do I think about them? Well, first of all, they're not events. The mass of the sun doesn't occur at any point in time, nor does its output energy.

>or my eyes, trying to approaching the big band only with the ideas of location and time seems like trying to fly with a bicycle (you can jump but not fly !!!). It will be not really possible. You will approximate the idea but not be able to make the leap...
>The thing is : there are ideas, constructs, abstractions created by the limited human who have naturally conscience only of space and time. Maybe this will be the enigma who will stay unsolved, the human brain doesn't have the capacity to understand this "abstraction/construction/event". This is a "godlike" thing for me ... poor human mind with human abstractions (wich be totally false, by the way !)
This is just an excuse not to think.

If you'll excuse my use of (a modified) Pascal's Wager: We can either assume that a given cosmological object has fathomable or unfathomable properties. If we go with the latter option, we can't reason about the object, and whether right or wrong we're no closer to any truth; if we go with the former option and we're wrong, we're not worse off. If we're right, uncovering the mysteries of the universe is within our reach.

It is called bang because the universe came from an expanding high-energetic concentration of mass and energy. (By mass; I mean baryons. I dont know if they have any promising theories to explain if the extra baryons in the beginning was there in the first place or something breaks the baryon conservation in the early universe.) Explosion, is by definition, that. There was no conventional "explosion" as if something lit a fuse and it happened. Also; linearity of time is an illusion (you can also think the horizon problem); you need only consider the metric in appropriate ones, the t=0 disappears.

Without proof, though, its all conjecture. The only way to be sure is build a very good neutrino detector to gain more knowledge (neutrino decoupling was around t=10 sec i believe) of the early universe and try to do something with that.

Also; "creation" of coordinates at t=0 would imply the creation of information; which violates 2nd law of thermodynamics and since it is entropy that determines the direction of time flow, usual time progression ideas would not be valid anyway.

>>15076
>What do I think about them? Well, first of all, they're not events. The mass of the sun doesn't occur at any point in time, nor does its output energy.
I'm not sure to translate correctly... and then what about solar flares? the phenomena are without energy ( to see it, photons are modifying captors... photons are light energy, no ?)?
>"This is just an excuse not to think."
This seems a little harsh... I believe more that at this time in our knowledge, humanity doesn't have found tools permitting to approach this event...
I agree with your Pascal wager...even it's 4 hundred years old...and it doesn't imply stopping research...

>>15083
I agree more with this definition but
>" "creation" of coordinates at t=0 would imply the creation of information; which violates 2nd law of thermodynamics"
I have questions :
- about the creation of information or coordinates : how's that ? (coordinates are mind things only, no?)
- about the notion of the second law of thermodynamics : this is about reversibility ? Our universe is a system closed ?

>>15098
>>What do I think about them? Well, first of all, they're not events. The mass of the sun doesn't occur at any point in time, nor does its output energy.
>I'm not sure to translate correctly... and then what about solar flares? the phenomena are without energy ( to see it, photons are modifying captors... photons are light energy, no ?)?
So you don't make a distinction between a solar flare and the energy emitted by it? I suppose when you see an open door you're just as likely to think "the door is open" as "the door is being opened".

>>15099
>So you don't make a distinction between a solar flare and the energy emitted by it ?
Euh, not really...but it seems i'm not the only one, this is from Wikipedia :" A solar flare is a sudden brightening observed over the Sun's surface or the solar limb, which is interpreted as a large energy release.[....]The flare ejects clouds of electrons, ions, and atoms through the corona of the sun into space. "...
And, yes when I see an open door i'm able to think likely :"the door is open","the door is not closed","the door is being opened","the door isn't being closed"... and even asking myself why and how this will be possible or probable !
Have a good day, I'm too stupid to continue discuss with you...

>>15100
>I'm too stupid to continue discuss with you...
I'm glad we understand each other.