Singularity Paradoxes: Nothing or Something?

[jerryboy]

The singularity paradox

Maybe this has been dealt with, but it seems that cosmologists can't seem to decide if the cosmic singularity is a "nothing" or a "something". If it's a "nothing" then accounting for a universe somehow emerging from nothing is becomes very difficult to explain. It may even qualify as unexplainable. If it's a "something" then what kind of "something" is it and still what accounts for the this strangest of "some things" to emerge past Planck time. The first question is doesn't the whole question hang on the possibility that infinite density and temperature are actual characteristics of the singularity rather than just mathematical artifacts? Are such infinities actually possible in the real world? What after all does infinite temperature or density mean in a one dimensional world where the distance between all points are zero. Don't you actually have to have some mass for density to be relevant and infinite temperature is likewise meaningless without dimension since temperature depends on separate atoms vibrating as high rate of speed. The second question is are we being entirely presumptuous to suggest that prior to Planck time don't all characteristics of space time become extinct anyway. Don't the laws and constants of the universe become operable until the boundary of Planck time is crossed, and prior to this are inoperable? If so infinite temperature and density have no real meaning and the singularity is really a "nothing", but if it is really some kind of "something" then what caused it to be a "something", because all "some things" have causes and only a "nothing" doesn't have a cause.

 

[Drakkith]

Typically when our math starts to give us infinities we say it's broken. We simply don't know enough to say what happened. This is probably one of those cases. Real singularities may or may not exist. We just don't know.

 

[jerryboy]

So if real singularities exist you could have a "nothing". If some sort of something exists prior to Planck time then it is may be dimensional and begs the question what was its cause and what rules govern it. Does time exist or if it does is every moment exactly like the next and what sort of event result in its emergence from Planck Time and the universe began to exist?

 

[Drakkith]

To my knowledge most professional astrophysicists and cosmologists don't actually believe the singularity is real. Instead it is likely that our knowledge of physics at that scale is incomplete and that a working theory of Quantum Gravity will help resolve the issue.

 

[martinbn]

This is not a very good analogy, but try this. Take a plane and remove one point from it. The new geometric object has the following property. Any line segment can be extended indefinitely in both direction unless its extension happens to pass through the removed point, then the extension must stop after a finite length in one direction. Call such a plane singular. Now ask your question again. Is this singularity something or nothing?