Can cosmologist mathematicians compute all the way to absolute nothingness?

[yrreg]

Please be patient with me.


Cosmologists compute all the way back to the big bang when there was just a very condensed point of energy from which time, space, whatever else came forth, and now we have -- to be humorous -- a nose in our face that does not fall off even if we sneeze very hard.

Can any genius of a cosmologist mathematician compute still further on backward until he can now tell mankind that voila he has reached the point of absolute nothingness, and thus he has proven that the universe came from nothing, on the basis of his scientific cosmological mathematics, working on whatever empirical data like CMB in today's state of the universe.

Please forgive me if I sound whatever like flippant, I am really very serious, because I notice that cosmologists-mathematicians can really work wonders of cosmic scales with scientific cosmological mathematics.



Yrreg

 

[Math Is Hard]

It's a question for cosmologists so I have moved it to the cosmology forum. -MIH

 

[Chalnoth]

Please be patient with me.


Cosmologists compute all the way back to the big bang when there was just a very condensed point of energy from which time, space, whatever else came forth, and now we have -- to be humorous -- a nose in our face that does not fall off even if we sneeze very hard.

Can any genius of a cosmologist mathematician compute still further on backward until he can now tell mankind that voila he has reached the point of absolute nothingness, and thus he has proven that the universe came from nothing, on the basis of his scientific cosmological mathematics, working on whatever empirical data like CMB in today's state of the universe.

Please forgive me if I sound whatever like flippant, I am really very serious, because I notice that cosmologists-mathematicians can really work wonders of cosmic scales with scientific cosmological mathematics.



Yrreg

Calculating what happened at the earliest times is more of an empirical problem than a mathematical one. Basically, it's a question of which mathematics are correct at very early times, instead of just calculating from known mathematics.

 

[Chronos]

The short answer is no. Our best theories fail at t<1 [planck time].

 

[yrreg]

The short answer is no. Our best theories fail at t<1 [planck time].

You mean that there is no kind of mathematics however a genius mathematician one is whereby the genius can compute from empirical data today all the way beyond the big bang to absolute nothingness?

So, is it then the implication and thereby also the certainty that there is always something existing that is the universe even though it is very very very very dense insofar as our computation goes, which computation must be based on genuine true mathematics not any kind of mathematricks?


Now, tell me, how can these guys like Stenger and Krauss and Hawking state that the universe came from nothing unless they have another meaning for nothing which is something but not nothing?

In which case they have another meaning for lying, when everyone else understands lying as saying with one's lips what one knows in one's mind to be not the fact.


Thus also they are really more grievous liars.


But why do they want to lie so grievously?




Yrreg

 

[Chalnoth]

You mean that there is no kind of mathematics however a genius mathematician one is whereby the genius can compute from empirical data today all the way beyond the big bang to absolute nothingness?

If we use General Relativity as our theory of gravity, there is a singularity at t=0. This singularity is mathematical nonsense that cannot exist. It isn't matter of being better with the calculations: we need a quantum theory of gravity.

 

[Chronos]

You mean that there is no kind of mathematics however a genius mathematician one is whereby the genius can compute from empirical data today all the way beyond the big bang to absolute nothingness?

So, is it then the implication and thereby also the certainty that there is always something existing that is the universe even though it is very very very very dense insofar as our computation goes, which computation must be based on genuine true mathematics not any kind of mathematricks?


Now, tell me, how can these guys like Stenger and Krauss and Hawking state that the universe came from nothing unless they have another meaning for nothing which is something but not nothing?

In which case they have another meaning for lying, when everyone else understands lying as saying with one's lips what one knows in one's mind to be not the fact.


Thus also they are really more grievous liars.


But why do they want to lie so grievously?




Yrreg

You are missing the point. There is no guarantee mathematics conceals the ultimate solution - and it is absolutely certain all solutions are mathematically validi. Why do you think physicists would lie? Are you asserting they are so vain they need to twist the truth to fit their version of reality? I believe the vast majority of physicists are totally honest.

 

[mehuldangar]

respected sir i thought that tomorrow is change in today. what ever change in universe occuers today is depend on any law or law comes out after change occuers. i also want to know that at t=0 second we were not there but still we were there in another forms thene can we prdict from today that what will happen tomorrow. if we know all the things universe had and how all the things in the universe behave (means charactristics of all the things etc. gravity and al such things that exist in the universe) than we aree able to trace out future or not?

 

[yrreg]

You mean that there is no kind of mathematics however a genius mathematician one is whereby the genius can compute from empirical data today all the way beyond the big bang to absolute nothingness?

So, is it then the implication and thereby also the certainty that there is always something existing that is the universe even though it is very very very very dense insofar as our computation goes, which computation must be based on genuine true mathematics not any kind of mathematricks?


Now, tell me, how can these guys like Stenger and Krauss and Hawking state that the universe came from nothing unless they have another meaning for nothing which is something but not nothing?

In which case they have another meaning for lying, when everyone else understands lying as saying with one's lips what one knows in one's mind to be not the fact.


Thus also they are really more grievous liars.


But why do they want to lie so grievously?

You are missing the point. There is no guarantee mathematics conceals the ultimate solution - and it is absolutely certain all solutions are mathematically validi. Why do you think physicists would lie? Are you asserting they are so vain they need to twist the truth to fit their version of reality? I believe the vast majority of physicists are totally honest.

But they do give opposite meaning to the word nothing to mean something but making people psychologically convinced that they mean absolute nothingness.

If they appear to you, I refer to people like Stenger, Krauss, and Hawking, not to be lying to others, then they are lying to themselves or being dishonest with themselves.

Now, why would they want to lie to or to be dishonest to themselves?



Yrreg

 

[Chalnoth]

But they do give opposite meaning to the word nothing to mean something but making people psychologically convinced that they mean absolute nothingness.

If they appear to you, I refer to people like Stenger, Krauss, and Hawking, not to be lying to others, then they are lying to themselves or being dishonest with themselves.

Now, why would they want to lie to or to be dishonest to themselves?



Yrreg

What are you going on about?

 

[256bits]

respected sir i thought that tomorrow is change in today. what ever change in universe occuers today is depend on any law or law comes out after change occuers. i also want to know that at t=0 second we were not there but still we were there in another forms thene can we prdict from today that what will happen tomorrow. if we know all the things universe had and how all the things in the universe behave (means charactristics of all the things etc. gravity and al such things that exist in the universe) than we aree able to trace out future or not?

Short answer is "NO".

Longer answer:
I quote you "if we know all the things universe had and how all the things in the universe behave". What are all the things - all the star, all the planets, all the molecules, all the electrons, protons, quarks, all the people, all the interstellar dust and gases? You may need to first think about what you mean by all the things. And then think about how you would go about calculating how all these things behave and react to one another. Are you up to task to do the calculation by tomorrow? Do you think you could design a computer for you to do the calculation faster than what is happening in the universe itself?

You are setting up for a reply I bet. But let me counter that. There are formulas that are used how molecules react to one another for example. . Another set of calculations may yield an answer to the gravitational force between stars. Thermodynamic equations can solve problems for heat engines and energy flow in gases. So scientists use one set of equations for a particular problem at hand. And no there is not a theory of everything yet, and even if and when it is discovered, it still would not be the one to use to calculate say how many miles per gallen you get in your car from driving down the street.

 

[256bits]

What are you going on about?

I think he means that if the moment (start) of the big bang can not be calculated to the exact second at t=0 ( but only to 0.000...1 seconds whatever that number is ) than how can anyone say what was there at the moment of the big bang. Then by thinking logically, how could anyone say the universe came out of nothing at t=0, if t=0 is not calculable. To the op, it would seem more speculative than scientific.

 

[Chalnoth]

I think he means that if the moment (start) of the big bang can not be calculated to the exact second at t=0 ( but only to 0.000...1 seconds whatever that number is ) than how can anyone say what was there at the moment of the big bang. Then by thinking logically, how could anyone say the universe came out of nothing at t=0, if t=0 is not calculable. To the op, it would seem more speculative than scientific.

Well, if that's the case, and probably also if it isn't, the answer can be found in simply noting that plain language simply cannot properly describe a concept that is, at its core, mathematical. Because natural language simply can't probably describe these sorts of concepts, you'll end up with apparently contradictory statements just because different people make different choices on how to try to explain something which can't really be explained.

Underneath it all, there is a mathematical description which is consistent and is widely agreed-upon in the scientific community. If you see what seems to be an inconsistency, it's almost certainly because of this language barrier.

 

[Imax]

What are you going on about?

From the title, I'm guessing the question is “Are there mathematical models that can go back to the Big Bang?”

Not certain about references to “genius” or “grievous liars” :uhh:

 

[Chronos]

This is all word salad ... pass the sauce.

 

[dst]

Something like the CTMU perhaps?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Yrreg please provide specific quotes within context and with references from where you got them that these people say the universe sprang from nothing.

Current cosmological models only go back to one unit of Planck time after the big bang.

 

[Chalnoth]

Something like the CTMU perhaps?

Pretty sure the CTMU is just crackpottery dressed up in somewhat more sophisticated than average language.

 

[Tanelorn]

Agreed. I gave it all of 3 minutes and it didnt help me understand the U any better.

 

[yrreg]

Originally Posted by Chalnoth
What are you going on about?​

I think he means that if the moment (start) of the big bang can not be calculated to the exact second at t=0 ( but only to 0.000...1 seconds whatever that number is ) than how can anyone say what was there at the moment of the big bang. Then by thinking logically, how could anyone say the universe came out of nothing at t=0, if t=0 is not calculable. To the op, it would seem more speculative than scientific.

Actually I started this thread in the philosophy board, but it has been moved to this place because of the word cosmologist, I guess.


What am I about?

Will they lock up this thread if I tell what I am about?

Here, I am about getting people to notice that socalled scientific but atheist cosmologists are making monkey of language, using the word nothing but understanding something, like the universe came from nothing, so that ordinary people will come to think that the universe according to science did come from nothing, so there is no God creator needed whatsoever.


But if scientists be also philosophers even though atheist, they will realize that no matter how they come to conclude about the material universe can be broken up into particles, and forces, and laws of physics whatever, all the components of the physical material universe put together still cannot make up the universe that is the factual universe in reality outside and beyond their scientific observation and experimentation and mathematical models, so that all the summation of the material or physical components of the material universe will not be equivalent to the reality of the factual universe as to produce a nose in man's face.


[ To moderators, don't lock this thread, move it back to philosophy. ]




Yrreg

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Actually I started this thread in the philosophy board, but it has been moved to this place because of the word cosmologist, I guess.

Your thread is not suitable for the philosophy forum. See its guidelines;
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=459350

What am I about?

Will they lock up this thread if I tell what I am about?

Only if the thread conflicts with the rules that you agreed to when you signed up;
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=414380

Here, I am about getting people to notice that socalled scientific but atheist cosmologists are making monkey of language, using the word nothing but understanding something, like the universe came from nothing, so that ordinary people will come to think that the universe according to science did come from nothing, so there is no God creator needed whatsoever.

I repeat my earlier post; provide quotes as to where these people did this, and in context. Current understanding does not dictate that the universe started from nothing. If you see this on TV or other places it is usually because the person saying it either doesn't know what they are talking about or are getting the point across poorly.

But if scientists be also philosophers even though atheist, they will realize that no matter how they come to conclude about the material universe can be broken up into particles, and forces, and laws of physics whatever, all the components of the physical material universe put together still cannot make up the universe that is the factual universe in reality outside and beyond their scientific observation and experimentation and mathematical models, so that all the summation of the material or physical components of the material universe will not be equivalent to the reality of the factual universe as to produce a nose in man's face.

I have no idea what you are on about here. Please be clearer and do not stray into your religious beliefs or personal over-speculative theories as I suspect you may be doing.

 

[yrreg]

Well, thanks for the info about how to get a thread started in the philosophy board.

I will look up references to cosmologists who state that the universe came from nothing.

By the way, you have not come to cosmologists who state that the universe came from nothing but all the time they mean something instead of nothing?

Okay, I will steer away from religions, but God needs not be only relevant in religions, it is also relevant in physics, only not for the contemporary physicists who happen to be atheist.


I will now look for links to cosmologists stating that the universe came from nothing but understanding all the time that it is not nothing but something.


Coming back to the title of the thread, Can cosmologist mathematicians compute all the way to absolute nothingness?

They have computed to time equal zero, and I guess also space equal zero, but what about the whole material universe?

As far as I know they go all the way back to the point of some very very very dense energy thing from which time and space and everything else arose or sprang from.

On that consideration they can say that there was a state of the universe when it was outside time and space, and therefore at the risk of sounding religious though it is still physics, it was eternal at that state.




Yrreg

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Well, thanks for the info about how to get a thread started in the philosophy board.

I will look up references to cosmologists who state that the universe came from nothing.

By the way, you have not come to cosmologists who state that the universe came from nothing but all the time they mean something instead of nothing?

Okay, I will steer away from religions, but God needs not be only relevant in religions, it is also relevant in physics, only not for the contemporary physicists who happen to be atheist.

Do not post unscientific, unfalsifiable claims here. I have never come across a scientist who said such a thing in peer reviewed literature.

I will now look for links to cosmologists stating that the universe came from nothing but understanding all the time that it is not nothing but something.


Coming back to the title of the thread, Can cosmologist mathematicians compute all the way to absolute nothingness?

They have computed to time equal zero, and I guess also space equal zero, but what about the whole material universe?

As far as I know they go all the way back to the point of some very very very dense energy thing from which time and space and everything else arose or sprang from.

On that consideration they can say that there was a state of the universe when it was outside time and space, and therefore at the risk of sounding religious though it is still physics, it was eternal at that state.

We cannot say anything about the nature of before the big bang or even meaningfully address whether or not the question makes sense. Current models only go so far, there are proposed models that may explain the big bang but they as yet have no evidence.

 

[yrreg]

Now that I am looking for them I could not find them. I have been looking for quotes from celebrity scientific cosmologists stating that the universe came from nothing, I have to admit that I have not come to any in that short busy period of time this morning, but according to their adoring representatives or fans who speak knowingly about what they (the celebrity scientists) hold, that is their position -- I am referring to the atheist scientific cosmologists.

If they don't really mean that the universe literally came from nothing, why don't they come out in public before the media to tell the public that they don't really mean the universe came from nothing, but are just exaggerating, because it must always come from something; but they keep quiet.

Here is what I read in a New York Times science piece:

http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/the-physics-of-nothing/

The Physics of Nothing

¶A dispatch from my colleague Dennis Overbye:

¶As fans of the late, great “Seinfeld,” know, there is a lot to say about nothing.

¶At the World Science Festival Thursday night, four physicists spent nearly two hours under the jocular and irreverent grilling radio broadcaster John Hockenberry, cohost of “The Takeaway,” and barely scratched the surface of the void that is the background or perhaps the platform of all our experience. They did in the end offer an answer to the question that has plagued philosophers and scientists: Why is there something rather than nothing at all?

¶“Nothing is unstable*,” Frank Wilczek, a physicist and Nobel laureate from MIT, finally said to a general murmur of agreement of his colleagues on stage, John Barrow of Cambridge University in England, Paul Davies of Arizona State and George Ellis of the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

¶Given a chance, nature will make nothingness boil with activity.

*[ Bolding from Yrreg ]

I just pick three comments from 1 to 84:

Strictly speaking, physicists are able to attempt to answer
‘how’ questions, but not the ‘why’ ones, ever. It is intriguing
to understand that the universe was evidently able to create
itself out of ‘nothing’, and they’re getting reasonably close to
understanding HOW this might have happened, and that’s
about it. It’ll have to suffice.

“There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
––Mark Twain, “Life on the Mississippi” (1883)

This once again reaffirms my belief that there are things that science will never be able to fully answer, and that are the exclusive territory of God. Some scientists don’t feel comfortable with this notion, because at the truly macro level — faith is the irreducible element one must reply upon.
​

Yrreg

 

[Chalnoth]

Now that I am looking for them I could not find them. I have been looking for quotes from celebrity scientific cosmologists stating that the universe came from nothing, I have to admit that I have not come to any in that short busy period of time this morning, but according to their adoring representatives or fans who speak knowingly about what they (the celebrity scientists) hold, that is their position -- I am referring to the atheist scientific cosmologists.

I am an atheist cosmologist, and I will state unequivocally that we do not know, and at this point cannot know, that our universe came from nothing. In fact, it is far more likely that our universe was born from some other universe than it came from nothing.

Your presumptions are just plain wrong.

Finally, nearly all of the science that appears in the popular news media is wrong. It pays to be very skeptical of anything that appears in the popular press.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Please remember; no religious discussions people, stick to established cosmology and not personal feelings on the issue.

 

[Drakkith]

Yrreg, the problem you are encountering is that MOST people watch TV shows and other media or have this stuff explained to them in an extremely simplified fashion. A great many of these shows and articles and other media have been produced by NON scientists. In addition these people are only human, and subject to misunderstandings, fallacies, manipulation of wording, and countless other things that further distorts the "truth", most of it unintentional, but sometime not.

As has been stated, no current model of the universe says it came from nothing, the models simply don't say anything about it other than acknowledging that they break down past a certain point in the past.

 

[Tanelorn]

Thanks Chalnoth I agree with what you are saying there. I find it extremely difficult to accept that so much matter and energy appeared from nothing at all. Or even out of some kind of quantum fluctuation which I think I have read about.

 

[Chalnoth]

Thanks Chalnoth I agree with what you are saying there. I find it extremely difficult to accept that so much matter and energy appeared from nothing at all. Or even out of some kind of quantum fluctuation which I think I have read about.

Well, that last part is entirely reasonable, because the quantum fluctuation didn't actually have to produce much matter at all to explain our universe. All it did have to do was get inflation started. That is, it had to produce a small region of space-time (much smaller than the size of a proton) which was dominated by a field with particular properties, which include a very high energy density and a potential energy which sufficiently dampens the expansion so that it behaves somewhat like vacuum energy for a time.

Do this, let it evolve for some $10^{-30}$ seconds or so, and you've got yourself all of the matter that you need to start a universe like our own.

Now, granted, these requirements are a bit specific. But you don't need it to happen often. You just need it to happen sometimes, and you're guaranteed to get universes like the one we observe.

 

[Tanelorn]

Are you saying that "the energy density of this tiny piece of space time" contains a form of energy which can "condense" into particles of matter. So matter could be viewed as a kind of twisted up space time?

 

[DaveC426913]

Now that I am looking for them I could not find them. I have been looking for quotes from celebrity scientific cosmologists stating that the universe came from nothing, I have to admit that I have not come to any in that short busy period of time this morning, but according to their adoring representatives or fans who speak knowingly about what they (the celebrity scientists) hold, that is their position -- I am referring to the atheist scientific cosmologists.

If they don't really mean that the universe literally came from nothing, why don't they come out in public before the media to tell the public that they don't really mean the universe came from nothing, but are just exaggerating, because it must always come from something; but they keep quiet.

Here is what I read in a New York Times science piece:
Yrreg

All things are boiled down and simplified for their audience. The boiling is often not done by the experts.

If you are interested in more than a passing explanation of cosmology, pick up the right books, and don't believe everything you read in a New York Times science piece. Remember the intended audience.

 

[Chalnoth]

Are you saying that "the energy density of this tiny piece of space time" contains a form of energy which can "condense" into particles of matter. So matter could be viewed as a kind of twisted up space time?

Not quite. The way inflation can be understood is as follows:

1. Start with a small region of space-time dominated by an inflaton field.
2. This inflaton field drives a rapid accelerated expansion of space, causing it to expand by at least a factor of around 10^30 in a tiny fraction of a second.
3. At some point, the inflaton field reaches its minimum potential energy, at which point the field decays into a very hot thermal bath.
4. This thermal bath can be thought of as the start of the "big bang": at that point the standard big bang theory takes over. It expands and cools, and the matter we are familiar with condenses out of the hot soup.

 

[Tanelorn]

Thanks Chalnoth, I will try to understand these 4 steps

I have spent a lot of time trying to get to the bottom of the characteristics of empty space and I recently surrendered to the modern view that space is completely empty of anything physical. ie. It is all particles or matter and force carriers. So I am uncertain how inflating space gives rise to matter, or is the matter supplied by the inflation field?

By hot soup do you mean a normal plasma, or perhaps quark gluon plasma (quarks can't exist on their own so it probably can't be that) or perhaps something else? There isn't much space to fit that much matter in unless matter particles are all point like particles like the electron. I read recently that the electron is infinitismal in size.

 

[nazarbaz]

I suspect that we're not understanding the problem. The two solutions are not mutually exclusive, even if they are equally disturbing.
What does it mean to live in an 'eternal' universe or multiverse with no beginnings and no endings ? It could undermine the very idea of causality. And how could we conceive of a cosmos coming ex nihilo, from nothing, even if it's not the absolute void.
Very fundamental questions we can't seriously answer with notions like 'God'.

 

[Chalnoth]

Thanks Chalnoth, I will try to understand these 4 steps

I have spent a lot of time trying to get to the bottom of the characteristics of empty space and I recently surrendered to the modern view that space is completely empty of anything physical. ie. It is all particles or matter and force carriers. So I am uncertain how inflating space gives rise to matter, or is the matter supplied by the inflation field?

Basically, as the space expands, the inflaton field retains approximately the same energy density. It acts, in other words, very much like vacuum energy. So you start with a teeny tiny bit of inflaton stuff with a very high energy density, and after inflation progresses for a little while, you end up with significantly more of this inflaton stuff, but still with an extremely high energy density. The inflation itself, in other words, dramatically multiplies the total amount of energy in the inflaton field*. Then, when inflation stops and that stuff decays, you get universe filled with hot, dense matter.

By hot soup you do mean plasma, or perhaps quark gluon plasma (quarks can't exist on their own so it can't be that) or something else? There isn't much space to fit that much matter in unless matter particles are all point like singularities like the electron.

At the time that inflation ended, I'm not entirely sure it would be cool enough to be a quark-gluon plasma. Remember that this stuff has to both produce dark matter and the matter/anti-matter asymmetry of our universe, neither of which has yet been observed in our most powerful particle accelerators. So it has to have been significantly hotter than we have yet touched in our accelerators.

* I'm playing fast and loose here with the term "energy". There is no non-arbitrary definition of it here. But on rigorous way to define things shows that this energy comes from gravitational potential energy, so that during this process the total energy always remains zero.