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Frequently Asked Questions About the Big Bang and Early Universe

This document will attempt to address common questions about the origins of the Universe to the extent that modern cosmology can answer them. Many scientific laymen are confused by the Big Bang and automatically resort to God as an explanation since they can't understand it. Creationists just decide to throw the theory out as invalid because they can't understand it and hide behind Genesis as a solution. My hope is that this will show people that God is not a required explanation for the Big Bang, because, frankly, it gets irritating. If we resorted to God for every unknown phenomenon we came across, very little would get accomplished. There are going to be a lot of "could be's" in this document. Most are my own opinions on the origins of the Universe. If you'd like a question answered that isn't answered here, please E-mail me. I'm an astronomy student, and I'd be happy to try and answer some questions. If I can't, I'll see if my professor can. If he can't, wait five years, then ask again. ;)

How big was the Universe at the beginning?

The Universe was in a singularity condition "before" the Big Bang (notice the quotes), meaning that it was infinitesimally small. All distance separations were zero, meaning that there was no space. Since there was no space in the Universe's singularity condition, it is impossible to accurately express how small it was. As a consequence of the absence of space, there was no time, either.

Did the Big Bang create everything in the Universe?

The law of conservation of energy prohibits the spontaneous formation from nothing. You cannot create or destroy energy or momentum. There is a finite amount of energy (matter and energy are two forms of the same thing by E=mc2) in the Universe that is always the same. If the Big Bang theory proposed that everything was created in an explosion, it would violate the most fundamental law of physics. The only reason science can even exist is if we make the assumption that the laws of physics are constant anywhere and everywhere at all times, and this is a quite reasonable assumption. There's no evidence of a period when the laws of physics were not in effect. However, it is impossible to say for sure, because our current physics does not take us back past 10-43s after the big bang. In that small amount of time, virtually anything can happen.

What caused the explosion in the Big Bang? Something must have created all that matter and energy and caused it to explode.

No one really knows what caused the explosion, but that's certainly no reason to defer to some sort of divine intervention. The early Universe could have existed as a very unstable, very massive particle that underwent its decay with the Big Bang as its mechanism. The other common question that everyone has is, "Where did the mass in the Universe come from?" The answer, simply, is nowhere. The mass in the Universe has always existed. General relativity postulates that the Big Bang would have begun time because, in a singularity state (like what the Universe was in just before the Big Bang), there is no time. The Universe has, quite literally, existed for all time. The relativity of time and its consequences is by far one of the most difficult concepts for the scientific layman to grasp. Most people say that they know time is relative, but they have no idea what that implies for the early Universe. The relativity of time means that there was no "before" the Big Bang. Time is not a straight line concept. Time on the sun passes at a different rate than it does here on Earth due to the difference in the gravitational disturbance that it creates. There is a reason why we call it "spacetime." Space and time are interconnected. Since we know that mass creates warps in space, it creates warps in time, as well. There is no "absolute time." In other words, there is no "correct" timeline. As such, there is no correct spot to watch an event take place from. So, in a way, Einstein's Relativity disallows for the existence of God. If there was an omniscient God, he'd be in an absolute frame of reference, on an absolute timeline. According to Relativity, this cannot exist. Time's existence really can't even be accurately described. Time simply exists, as does the universe. There was no point where the Universe's mass just popped into existence. The Universe is infinitely existing. It has always existed, and will always exist.

If the universe has always existed and will always exist, how do we get to this point in time? How am I living in the present? Shouldn't it have taken the universe an infinite amount of time to get to this point? And, if it takes an infinite amount of time to get to this point, we should have never gotten to this point, right? I can't get to infinity. In an infinite aged universe I suspect that "the present" is impossible.

The Universe has always existed, but time hasn't. You can't view time as one timeline. Time is relative, meaning that it depends on your frame of reference. Without multiple frames of reference, there is no time. That's why time began with the Big Bang, because it created multiple frames of reference.Also, I'd like to point those really curious about this question to our friend, Calculus. Specifically, derivation. For those of you who haven't taken Calculus, or have simply forgotten, derivation is finding the exact rate of change on a line at one given point. How big is a point on a graph? Infinitesimally small. When you want to find a car's acceleration on a line graph of its velocity at one, single point, you must derive it. Thus, you are dividing the line up into an infinite number straight lines, and finding the slope of the straight line at a given point. This should show that it is possible to work finitely in an infinite world.

As yet another aside, you can't divide the Universal "timeline" up into units smaller than 10-43 of a second. This is known as Plank Time, and it is the smallest possible unit of time that observable event can take place in.

But, something must have created the mass in the Universe!

There is no reason to think that. We have no evidence of a time when the Universe did not exist, because it has existed for all time. Stop trying to rationalize your belief in God. You won't get very far.

You're just being stubborn! You atheists are just trying to find ways to get around the crystal-clear explanation that God created everything!

Yes, that's exactly what we're doing! God is the worst possible explanation for physical phenemomena! Saying that "God did it" doesn't help science advance at all, since it describes no working mechanisms, makes no predictions and therefore is not testable. Just because the physics of the present cannot answer your questions doesn't mean that they can't be answered. Newtonian physics couldn't explain the working mechanisms of the sun, but then particle physics came along and answered that question. Relativity and quantum physics cannot take us back to further than 10-43 of a second after the Big Bang occured, but someone in the future might. The bottom line is this: If we'd left the sun to "God's work" then we'd have no knowledge of nuclear physics, and a great deal of technology (like this computer) would be impossible. God is an unacceptable answer in science, as well as logic. This is why faith in God is irrational.

Since entropy exists, and all energy is slowly becoming less useful, and someday in the future all energy will be completely evenly spread out over the cosmos and of no use to anyone, doesn't your statement imply that, in the universe's infinite past, energy/mass must have been infinitely the other way around? And, how is that possible?

Entropy started with the Big Bang. "Before" the Big Bang (and I use that term loosely), the Universe was in a singularity condition. There was no space, no time and no distance. All mass existed at exactly one point, defined by its own existence, because there was no volume around it (confused yet?). Because of this, all reactions taking place took place instantaneously, in zero time, because there was no time, because there was no distance, because there was no space. Without any of these, entropy doesn't happen. The Big Bang is responsible for the Universe's current incarnation, that is all. It has always existed, according to the most basic assumption in physics and of science.

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