Collisionman said:
You see according to Newton's axioms an object cannot move until a force acts upon it, such as if I were to kick a ball; I am exerting a force on the ball making it accelerate and move. I'm not well experienced in physics yet but I am sure that principle is the same even at the Quantum mechanical level (?).
Now given that motion actually exists, we can move, the planets move, the stars move, the galaxies move, doesn't that suggest that a 'force' had to put those objects motion in the first place. I am not suggesting that a force still exists which makes these objects move but something (according to Newton's laws) had to put them into motion. If this never happened then shouldn't everything in the universe be at rest (not moving) or in a state of constant speed (which every object in the universe isn't)?
I like your line of reasoning but can't totally agree with the way you are putting it for a few reasons. But maybe they could be worked out.
First - Gravity is intrinsic to space whenever there are bodies with mass. This means ,I think, that gravity isn't really a force but more a geometric property of space. Yet gravity explains non-uniform motion. Maybe someone who knows some Physics could explain this but it seems that Newton's first Law doesn't really apply for gravity.
But whether it does or not in order for there to have been a time of uniform motion there would have been a time without gravity which I assume means without bodies with mass so there would have been no bodies with uniform motion anyway. So the idea that the Universe got started when acceleration replaced non-uniform motion seems to be wrong.
Second - In Quantum Mechanics change occurs stochastically and I do not think that this is at all like uniform motion. Uniform motion - or any kind of motion - is a macroscopic approximation to the behavior of a fundamentally random process. So Newton's view of things is outdated and no longer explains motion or forces.
Also I think that force in Quantum mechanics is replaced by momentum and energy. Force doesn't really exist. Rather there are Quantum mechanical phenomena - I think sharing of particles but don't quote me on this - that replace classical potentials. For instance I think electrostatic potential is replaced by a QM sharing of a photon.
I think though that interpreting gravity Quantum mechanically has been a problem but as I said before gravitational force is replace by space-time curvature.
Third - If the Universe were in an early state where there were no masses and thus no uniform motion in Newton's sense there still may have been Quantum mechanical randomness. Even if there was no time, this randomness could still cause change perhaps (I don't really know what I am talking about) and maybe just by chance a random event kicked off the creation of the Universe that we live in. This could have been the prime mover for the universe in its current incarnation - a random event.
Fourth - While it is true that uniform motion is relative, in a world without forces there would be an absolute frame of reference and one could restate your question by asking when did the absolute frame of reference disappear and General Relativity take over?
Fifth - While Newton's Laws may not have always been true it is hard to imagine the Universe arising from nothing. Even if there were a creator how could he have created something from nothing? It seems more plausible that the Universe is historically immortal and exists perhaps because it is intrinsically indestructible.
A pious friend of mine argues that there Universe could not have existed - at least as we know it - before time. Yet something must have existed or else the Universe would have arisen from nothing. For him this is the Prime mover, the existence of a lawful enitiy prior to time.
