Thanks for the reply. That’s why it is call the Big Bang Theory, nobody knows for sure how it all began. I just have come up with something that can make sense to me. Maybe I’m wrong, but maybe I’m right.
That’s actually not why it is called a theory, because ‘theory’ in science does not mean “a guess about things we don’t know about.” A scientific theory is rigorously tested explanation of established scientific facts and observations.
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The word “theory” in science does not mean that we know nothing about what the theory is explaining. The Big Bang theory is actually quite well supported, and that is true whether we know how the BB started or not. There is ample evidence (e.g. cosmic microwave background, SN1a measurements of expansion) that the universe started out as dense are of energy and has been expanding for the last 13+ billion years. It is a bit like how we know that thunderclouds produce lightning without needing to know the ultimate origin of the planet or the water in the thunderclouds.
Yes. I haven’t been following this thread, but there is solid evidence for the Big Bang — anyone interested can look up “cosmic microwave background” for more info.
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In which case what you described is the Huber hypothesis not the Big Bang Theory. The theory is well supported but whether a given theory is debunked or not there are certain specific claims it makes and to say it makes other contradictory claims is not to describe the theory. For instance the unicorn, a non-existent creature, has only one horn to claim it has two is not to describe the unicorn (the unicorns is also pink and invisible:-).
BTW when I was in high school the father of a classmate won the Nobel Prize for discovery of the background radiation which was supporting evidence for the correctness of the Big Band theory. I can still remember the excitement.
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Erp, Thanks for the reply. I’m well aware of the discovery and measurement of the background radiation and the information that can be gleaned from it. I don’t see how the back ground radiation can negate that the initial “Big Bang” could not have been a black hole. It certainly could not have been an infinitely small singularity that then became all the matter in the universe. Unless someone wants to use the “magic wand” theory. The laws of physics tell us that you can’t create it all out of nothing. There is a lot of mass in our universe. All those atoms won’t fit into a “speck” of size.
Nothing can escape from a black hole. That is why they call them “holes”. You would also have to explain why your theory would result in the same background radiation that is measured today.
Why? You are arguing from personal incredulity.
But you can create matter from energy. And energy doesn’t occupy space.
See above.
But you can create matter from energy:
E=mc^2
Particle accelerators turn energy into mass all of the time. In their collisions they get more matter out than they put in.
Thanks for the reply. There was enough energy just floating around to create all the matter in the universe at the moment of the Big Bang?
All of the energy was there at the beginning of the initial expansion. There is debate as to where the energy came from, but all the BB theory needs is for the energy to be there and it was.
As the universe expanded the energy was spread out until it reached a lower density where matter could condense. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN is trying to recreate these high energy densities to see how matter condenses in these types of conditions. This is how they were able to create the Higgs boson which they detected as photons as the Higgs decayed.
Well no. There are a number of ways you can deal with this, the most common being that the total energy of the universe is actually just zero. A short version of this is related to the geometry of space:
And a slightly more technical read: https://www.astrosociety.org/publication/a-universe-from-nothing/
A second edit: The Big Bang Theory deals with what happened right after the universe began, and predicts extremely well a large number of different phenomena. So in reality, it deals nothing with how the universe actually began, just the physics of what happened right after!
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The Big Bang theory was invented by George Lemaitres, a Catholic priest and physicist, not a group of basement atheists. In fact, physicists opposed the big bang for some time precisely because the standard model posits that the universe began to exist (which is basically the modern consensus).
The big bang says nothing about the cause of the universe, just that the universe seemingly began out of nothing and started expanding from there. The term ‘big bang’ really only refers to the history of the universe after the first instant of the beginning of the universe, and this beginning could be caused by anything, including God. The big bang does not a priori disinclude God. In fact, it has nothing to do with the question of God – it leaves the question open. Your friend seems to have conflated the big bang with naturalism.
That should be;
N: No, there weren’t even any parts. That’s what the universe was like before the Big Bang.
J: (lays her phone on the table) So if I put nothing into an empty box, and shook it around, and then dumped a working phone out of the box onto the table what would you call it?
N: Magic! Obviously it couldn’t have occured by natural means.
If referring to the universe, the analogy certainly doesn’t work because it’d be more like putting pieces into a box and shaking it around- but the pieces obey fixed laws with certain physical interactions as we can model the formation of universes with the laws of physics just starting from a box of particles:
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That is weird, most christians I know love the big bang for “showing that the universe had a beggining”. That just goes to show how people can find problems wherever they want if they want to.
Have you ever tried to show them the Lemaitre vs Hoyle debate? Rodney Holder has some pretty good talks on that. I don’t think that saying “an atheist was against the big bang and a christian was in favor” is the best argument, but it might at least open their minds a little bit to the idea. Most of this insistence of christians in negating science seems to be related to a conviction that it is intrinsicaly related to materialism and atheism after all.
Quote of the day
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I agree it’s a darned good quote, as so many from Christy are. But it seems to me that it isn’t even because scientific explanations are inadequate for what they address. Belief is probably motivated by concerns of a different kind, from a domain not addressed by science.
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Scientific explanations are great for scientific questions.
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