Was Space Present Before the Big Bang or Did It Expand with the Universe?

[Harveyf]

If and when the "Big Bang"...

Here's one I've pondered for almost seventy summers [and winters; etc.] When the Universe began, was the black container of space "there" to welcome the expanding matter, or was it created as the matter expanded from its initial inception? If the space was "there," how did that "empty" get to be? And if the space was created as the matter expanded, what was it replacing as it grew...the empty, or the nothing, or the null, or...??
Harveyf

 

[marcus]

Here's one I've pondered for almost seventy summers [and winters; etc.] When the Universe began, was the black container of space "there" to welcome the expanding matter, or was it created as the matter expanded from its initial inception? If the space was "there," how did that "empty" get to be? And if the space was created as the matter expanded, what was it replacing as it grew...the empty, or the nothing, or the null, or...??
Harveyf

Harvey, I personally doubt that space (a web of relationships) can exist without matter

I am not saying that matter must be everywhere, but there must be some sprinkled around for space to be space

I cannot imagine space having an Absolute existence on its Own, like your black container.

I guess I mean to include light in the idea of matter---as some people do---so energy as well as mass-ful stuff counts here as matter.

It is a nice question to wonder about for 70 years. Humans get a chance to wonder about some great questions, don't we?

 

[Harveyf]

Pondering

Yes, Marcus; seventy years of pondering - it's not enough...I hope another of me in one of those other dimensions has resolved some of my questions. You would think with all that space, and the problems of time, human beings would find warfare infantile, and pre-historic. That's why the dialogue is everything. To continue asking questions, do you think Mankind will ever get over religion, and begin to focus on the greater questions of how Humanity will survive if it doesn't reach out to the cosmos for its continuance?

 

[PoPpAScience]

Harveyf; there are those alive today who have answers for your questions. But to get others to see beyond what they feel is the only answers, just like in religions, is the hardest part. Just like how Einstein went beyond present day thoughts, others today must also go beyond the norm to see more. Also going beyond present thoughts today is the key to continuance of humanity.

 

[Harveyf]

Strange, but I almost understand of what you speak; the rational mind, setting aside all mundane thought, focusing on the common sense of reality, expunging all consideration of conflict, prejudices, and any strife of human spirit. The thinkspeak; the feelspeak - the mind, if you will, of empirical evidentiaries. The mind of Man striding one level up to truly rational thought, allowing emotional compassion to rule over the baser animal instincts of pre-Cambrian mentality. "Wings Over The World," as H.G. Wells imagined the human of the future to be. Long overdue for Humanity, if you ask me...
Harvey

 

[PoPpAScience]

Yes Harveyf that is well put. Going beyond what is known, to seek more knowing, is the Evoluting of human knowing. We must never stop Evoluting or thoughts, or live in fear of knowing more then we believe.

 

[russ_watters]

The way the big bang theory goes, space itself was created with the big bang. The matter in the universe is actually essentially stationary in an expanding space.

 

[Phobos]

Welcome to Physics Forums, Harveyf.

Like Russ said, the Big Bang marked the beginning of space, time, matter, energy, etc. In the standard Big Bang model, there is no external reference frame into which space is expanding. Perhaps "expanding" has the wrong connotation...perhaps our language doesn't have a word to accurately describe it since it is something very different from our everyday experiences. The universe certainly appears to be expanding from our viewpoint (galaxies getting farther apart), but the expansion is not at the expense of some external reality.

As far as we know.

Our scientific insight is limited to the "visible universe", which is the portion that is within our field of view. There are some theories about external realities (for starters, check out String Theory) but these are not as well developed/accepted as Big Bang theory.

 

[Harveyf]

Then, if I understand you correctly, Phobos, you and Russ are advocating our viewable cosmological reality as having been created simultaneously with the "empty" of the spatial boundary into which all matter is "sort of" expanding from micro-second to micro-second. It IS a puzzlement to attempt visualization of a spatial vacuum which obviously has "depth," and yet can accommodate "expanding" matter which does not lie on the periphery of the simultaneously created space, but fills the "hollow" of the dark container with its content...whew!
Harvey

 

[Chronos]

Its pretty hard to fathom space, time or matter as stand alone entities. None of these concepts can be defined in terms that do not include all three properties. The observable universe is the only universe of any consequence to us. Whatever unobservable properties it may possess, if any, are irrelevant: at least from a scientific perspective. Just to clarify, the universe may well include features not yet observed, but, that is not the same as unobservable features.

 

[Harveyf]

Doesn't seem fair to be endowed with such a capacity for curiosity, only to have the candle dim and extinguish itself just as the flame has begun to burn its brightest. With such limited scope, wouldn't it be more beneficial to focus our energies on the only universe we can see, before we begin to tackle the abstract philosophy of alternate universes? I can see trying to fathom and define the concept of whether or no matter fills the void at the moment of the "Big Bang," or if the void is expanding its dark interior as the newly-created matter rushes to "fill" it, quicker than conceptualizing the possibility of imperceptible dimensions. Yes, it's hard to fathom Space and Time, but even harder trying to ignore them, and almost impossible not to look up and out and think, "why?"
Harveyf

 

[russ_watters]

Then, if I understand you correctly, Phobos, you and Russ are advocating our viewable cosmological reality as having been created simultaneously with the "empty" of the spatial boundary into which all matter is "sort of" expanding from micro-second to micro-second. It IS a puzzlement to attempt visualization of a spatial vacuum which obviously has "depth," and yet can accommodate "expanding" matter which does not lie on the periphery of the simultaneously created space, but fills the "hollow" of the dark container with its content...whew!
Harvey

Slight clarification: the way it looks, there is no boundary. The Hubble telescope has found that if you look in any direction, the large scale structure of the universe looks pretty much the same. Think about the surface of a balloon - its a 2d analogy to what space is like. The surface of a balloon is finite but has no boundary - and if you blow up the balloon, the surface expands, but doesn't really expand "into" anything.

 

[Chronos]

What russ said is better. His logic is compactly described. I tend to venture off into a 'void' which does not even exist [by my own admission!]

 

[Harveyf]

I know what you're saying, Russ; the problem is attempting to resolve that balloon's surface expanding "not into anything..." In reality, of course, when you blow up a balloon, its surface is expanding into the space in which I also dwell. My mind creates the troubling thought of the dark container of space that matter is filling being finite. In other words, to my simple mind, created space as finite, expanding as it does along with the matter it contains, leads my rationality to consider as to what, if anything, lies beyond the periphery of that "finite edge?" If nothing [no thing] - how does one describe it to his own mental satisfaction? If the peripheral "edge" of space is being "pushed outward" by its content expansion - what is it "pushing" against? See how limited minds work? I know you will say my perspective is a little off; that there is no "other side" to the peripheral edge of expanding space, but you can grasp, I'm sure, the philosophical, as well as the physical complexity of that "no thing's" consideration. Hmmmm...
Harvey [p.s.] deep, but very enjoyable conversation...

 

[Chronos]

Just to compound the torment [I routinely do that to my puny mind], consider this. We are in the most ancient region of the universe observed since the big bang. Everything else we see, even nearby stars, appear as they were in the past. So, in that sense, we are the leading 'edge' of the universe.

 

[Harveyf]

Chilling, if not absolutely fascinating! Gotta tell you this: I was nine years of age when I first had the thought about the "why" of the blackness of space. After seeing two H.G. Wells motion pictures, and staring at the night sky, I responded to my mother's inquiry as to what I was staring at, with: "Why is the black, mom?" She said, "You mean the sky?" I said, "No, mom; you take all the lights out of the sky and you're left with the black - the container - why is that?" She said, "God knows!" You can see why, at the age of almost seventy, I'm still asking the simple, yet tough, and maddening question!
Harveyf

 

[John]

Two forms of expanding: It can just expand like a loaf of bread, in which the center stays still and everything else just expands like rising dough, or it can expand like an explosion, in which an empty shell is formed with all the material leaving the center.

If it expands like a loaf of bread we could see regions that are “outside the loaf”. If it expands like a shell, it would look infinite because light would travel round and around the shell and never leave the shell.

With the universe expanding like a shell, it would have a dipole look to it, which the universe does have. When you look directly at the outer or inner edges, there will be fewer things to see, but the light will eventually bend around the shell.

Expanding like a shell gives rise to the idea that there is another shell below us and another shell above us, and the center is constantly renewing itself.

To answer Why is the sky black? If expanding like a shell, then the shell we are in doesn't have to be that old or that big, so if not that old or big, it didn't have the time or the capacity to fill itself up entirely with light.

 

[Chronos]

Because light requires space and time to travel through. It is a big picture thing. Once you let go of the absolute reference frame thing, it all makes sense.

 

[Harveyf]

I must admit, the manner of your explanations are becoming more "familiar" to my inexperienced thought-processes on this matter of expansion, but may I inquire of you as to list other analogies to help the process along? I still feel like a fledgling in comparison to the ease by which you comprehend the phenomenon; I'd like to say, 'eureka,' and join the mental party. In utilizing the "shell" analogy, as opposed to the loaf of bread one, you state the light might bend at the edge of viewable space corroborating the "shell" analogy. I really want to understand this; can you elaborate? I do so want to 'let go' of the absolute reference thing, Chronos...If I could just fully comprehend the process you're trying to help me visualize?! [And thank you all for exhibiting such patience with my naivete].

 

[John]

I would like to know what Chronos thinks about the shell form, and if this idea has been put forth by anyone else. All I know about the universe being an expanding shell is, when I compared what we would see being in an expanding shell, the form any explosion takes on, it looked exactly like all the descriptions I have ever seen about the universe, for example:

If we were inside the expanding shell, Andromeda might appear as another galaxy one revolution of the shell away from us, but it would be younger and seen from a different angle, so we wouldn't recognize it as Andromeda. The light arriving from Andromeda the second time around would have been given off when the shell was smaller. It would have spiraled up to us from closer to the center. As we look farther still, we would see light that has spiraled up and around several times, so every galaxy we see will be younger than ours, relative to how far away. The universe would appear to be a solid expanding form with us on the edge and no older galaxies than ours. We would also appear to be exactly in line with the polar axis of it, even though we are just part of the shell. We would even appear to be in the center, with the whole of it expanding away from us. The expanding shell fits every description of the universe I have seen so far, but I have never heard anyone say it is an expanding shell, like you would typically get after an explosion.

I have to say I am tired of people telling me my ideas are all wrong. This seems right.

 

[Harveyf]

John; believe me, I would want to be among the first to assure you that your ideas were right; unfortunately, I cannot "see" the shell analogy in the terms you describe. For the misfit I am, there must be either a different or simpler methodology to explain the seemingly simplistic picture before your eyes. Would that I had those eyes to see with. Is there any other way to describe the phenomenon of infinite expansion, or is there a limit to the "balloon's flexibility?" And is there an analogy for that, and has either been proven to be the case, thus far, by scientists and/or astronomers?
Harveyf

 

[Chronos]

Analogies, while useful aids to visualizing physical processes, sometimes create more problems than they solve. Space is the ratio of distance vs time between two material [mass possessing] objects in the universe. That ratio is called velocity [d/t]. As you can see, neither term has any meaning without the other. When distance is zero, time is meaningless. When time is zero, distance is infinite, and also meaningless. Therefore, without mass possessing objects in motion, all notions of time and space are meaningless. The concepts of mass, time and space combine to form the universe we observe. Regardless of which direction you look, you will see something. This makes sense when you bear in mind you are always looking into the past when you observe the universe. Since all massive objects [such as Earth and the solar system] travel much slower than light, light from the past has traveled beyond our present. We only see the part that is just now catching up with us. This also explains why the universe appears to be so homogenous and symmetric. No matter what direction you look, you are ultimately looking back at the 'big bang'. I could elaborate on why I think that way, it is a quantum fluctuation thing.. but, that is a different story.

 

[Chronos]

To John: You are basically advocating a background dependent reference frame. Apply relatavistic corrections and propose the experiment you would use to test your prediction.

 

[John]

But in my background dependent reference, everything works the way they say it does. We can't say the universe has no shape. We can't say it is just about mathematical time and velocity. Sure that sounds intelligent, but it must have some kind of shape. The shape that appears to us doesn't produce all the qualities we know the universe has. My expanding shell is not only the natural way an explosion happens, but it has the correct dipole, the correct infintity, and the correct "always looking back to the origin" qualities; and it is all in a physical structure that you can visualize and draw a picture of. Einstein said, "If I can't visualize it I can't understand it."

 

[John]

If we can get past rejecting the expanding shell idea, I have a really hot explanation for how much it can expand and what happens when it runs out of time. We are almost to that point, marked by the new fact that the galaxies seem to be accelerating away from each other, as if the shell of space has nearly reached its limit and space is slowing down, but the heavier galaxies are slowing down less.

 

[Harveyf]

John; Two things: 1) I'm glad Einstein said it first; at least my visualization problem emulates a like mind in the field 2) I can't wait to hear your explanation for the ultimate result of the expansion we've been discussing...

 

[John]

I had written this in another thread, and it’s an important prerequisite for what I want to say next. Oddly, it wouldn’t post in the other thread. I wonder if it will post here.

They say a string is a two-dimensional tube. I have figured out what that would look like. If you take two points and separate them by a distance you have

. . (two points separated by a distance)(I have to learn to draw on this thing.)

Points HAVE to be separated by a distance, because if they aren’t you can’t create any space with them. It is impossible to create a line with an infinite number of points not separated by a distance. You have two impossibilities. You can’t have an infinite number of anything, and if you did have an infinite number of points not separated by a distance, you wouldn’t span any distance.

So you must have points that are separated by a space. If logic says they have to be separated, the same logic says points themselves must also have an effective diameter. If they don't have a diameter and a mass, they don't exist.

The distance between them, mathematicians will tell you, doesn’t exist, and mathematicians are right because they are always right. Yet, there has to be a distance. At the same time, the distance has to not exist.

Let’s draw a manifold around those two points. Just draw a loop around those two points. The manifold represents what does not exist, and it encircles the two points, which have to exist and do have a diameter and mass. If the distance between them is space that doesn’t exist, then the points have a strong a need to come together. Their mass and their diameter resists their coming together.

So now with a manifold encircling two points that have diameter and mass, you have a two-dimensional hollow tube. The two dimensions are the two points. The hollow tube is the manifold around them. There is a huge tension between the two points because at the same time there is distance between them and nothing exists between them.

So you have a two-dimensional hollow tube that has the tension of the strong force. The farther you try to separate them apart, the harder they resist being separated.

 

[Phobos]

Harvey - It would be fair to say that the whole universe was infinite from the very beginning, such that expansion into something else is moot. But you'd still need to deal with the concept of an expanding infinity.

Perhaps this would be easier if we didn't view time as so one-directional. Since space is 4D (space + time), the whole universe (past, present, future) may already exist and we're merely perceiving the spatial coordinates at this point in the timeline. Still a tough question.

 

[Harveyf]

Phobos; this is scary. I actually comprehend your message. Now I know how limited my mental capacity is. I tried like crazy to understand John's concept. He and Chronos seem to dialogue with ease on matters that cross my eyes. As to that part of your message, that "...it would be fair to say that the whole universe was infinite from the very beginning," you say it best when you recognize that there is a concept of an expanding infinity to deal with. My own view on the possibility of a finite universe expansion is based mainly on my perception that there could be potential for the matter of space, and the peripheral edge of the real spatial container of "empty" into which matter is expanding, are both continuously experiencing birth from micro-second to micro-second simultaneously. But it isn't Physics upon which I can base such an assumption, but more in the line of philosophical consideration. Also, I would agree with your second premise on spatial coordinate perception, if it weren't for the real action of space-time motion which can be perceived and reasoned in the human mind. No; I cannot resolve black hole deep-well gravity science, just as I cannot fully make sense of a super-string theorum on universal creation, but I can see the results of all of these quantum mechanics in the night sky canvas. Both awesome, and in motion, the cosmos seem as simplistic in its ongoing existence, as complex as the most complicated piece of machinery, and as perplexing as life itself as a continuing phenomenon of reality.

 

[John]

All physics and math is based on that perception of the universe, which is the idea there is an infinite expanse, and matter and numbers fill it.

For example we see a line. We say the line already exists and there are an infinite number of places or points in that line. We say the infinite expanse of space already exists, and that all matter is expanding and even being sucked into it.

But then we get all these weird things that come out of string theory, and string theory seems so correct in so many ways. The weirdest is ten dimensions.

If space doesn’t already exist, then you have to make space. The mathematical line doesn’t exist. You have to make it. You can’t make a line with non-dimensional points. Whoa! Nelly! This changes everything. You have to make it with points that have value and mass.

If you try to stack points together that have value and mass, like stacking cannonballs, you get a structure of tetrahedrons, and you can only travel from “cannonball” to “cannonball” or point to point in six directions, which are six underlying dimensions. You get a structured universe on a background that can be a simple expanding shell from a normal explosion of real material.

In this space that is a structure, we live in an expanding shell, which will run out of energy and collapse, but our souls will go between the points of space to a lower shell where we continue our existence. That goes on forever as each shell collapses. If we are living in a series of shells, from a series of explosions, then we see the shell we are in, the shell above us, and the shell below us.

The microwave background picture gives us three distinct regions separated by two empty regions, as if we are looking at our shell, the shell above us, and the shell below us. Each shell has an empty gap between them.

The shell above us will collapse, but we are safe. Part of space itself will run out of momentum and collapse falling through the hyperspace between points, all the way to the center, where it explodes into a new shell. The Bible says at some time in the future, the sky will roll up like a scroll and one third of the stars will fall from heaven. If we are in the middle of three shells, when the upper shell collapses, exactly one-third of the stars that astronomers and scientists are aware of through powerful telescopes, which are galaxies in the outer shell, will disappear from the night sky.