Big bang

[reflected_light]

I'm not particularly up to date on my science, but is the going theory that the universe is infinite? If so, how could infinity come from one singular point? If everything came outwards from the Big Bang, it would suggest that the singularity was at the centre of the universe. But can there be a centre to an infinite space? Can there even be infinity if its manifestation has a probable origin?

[Bohm2]

There is no centre of the universe as there is no edge of the universe. And cosmologists do not know whether the universe if finite or infinite.

[reflected_light]

So where do you think the Big Bang happened, if not in the centre?

[Bohm2]

So where do you think the Big Bang happened, if not in the centre?

There is no centre of the universe! According to the standard theories of cosmology, the universe started with a "Big Bang" about 14 thousand million years ago and has been expanding ever since. Yet there is no centre to the expansion; it is the same everywhere. The Big Bang should not be visualised as an ordinary explosion. The universe is not expanding out from a centre into space; rather, the whole universe is expanding and it is doing so equally at all places, as far as we can tell.

Where is the centre of the universe?
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/R ... entre.html

[Obvious Leo]

That the big bang was the "beginning" of the universe is rapidly becoming an unloved hypothesis so you may need to rethink your notions of infinity. Do you mean spatially infinite or temporally infinite because it's easy to prove that it can't be both? If you mean the former I agree that the notion of infinity is metaphysically unsustainable but if you mean the latter then I'd ask how could it be otherwise? The existence that springs from non-existence occurs only in the confused mind of Larry Krauss. ( With apologies to the the theists who take yet a different view but I took this as a scientific question.)

Regards Leo

[reflected_light]

If the universe is expanding equally everywhere, does it mean there are an infinite amount of centres? Isn't expansion an outward movement relative to a certain point? I am unable to visualize this idea, if it is expanding everywhere equally would not the objects in the universe be moving in different directions, appearing chaotic due to their exposure to the other infinite points of expansion?

[Mechsmith]

The Big Bang Never Happened is a book on a competing theory. It's on Amazon and is a fairly decent read. Ultimate beginnings seem to be a popular subject, and you can find several theories without looking too hard.

Frankly, The Expansion of the Universe is possibly and probably simply an optical illusion.

[Obvious Leo]

Frankly, The Expansion of the Universe is possibly and probably simply an optical illusion.

This might be putting the case too strongly but that an observation is entirely a construct of the consciousness of the observer is the mainstream position both of philosophy and every relevant science except physics and this should be telling us something.

Regards Leo

[reflected_light]

This theory then suggests a shared human consciousness. If we are all tricked by the same illusion then perhaps it is our ability to observe that connects us. Could the observation itself be the illusion?

[Obvious Leo]

This theory then suggests a shared human consciousness. If we are all tricked by the same illusion then perhaps it is our ability to observe that connects us. Could the observation itself be the illusion?

This is why I don't like using the word "illusion" and I certainly don't hold with the notion of a shared human consciousness. It's not that we're being tricked into observing something that isn't there but rather that we're interpreting our observation incorrectly. "The problem of the observer" has haunted physics for a century and the most famous analogous example goes back a long way further. We see the sun rise in the east, traverse an arc across the sky, and then set in the west. Therefore the sun orbits the earth. This is a perfectly logical conclusion and yet we know it to be false.

Make no mistake. If our solar system contained no other planets then the heliocentric model of cosmology would NEVER have been discovered because no other evidence exists to even hint at the possibility. In fact in the absence of other planets to say that the earth orbits the sun is no more meaningful than to say that the sun orbits the earth. They simply orbit each other. The heliocentric model is without doubt the most remarkable feat of human reason in the history of our species and it's all too easy to overlook this fact. It is insanely counter-intuitive until we understand how it works and then it instantly becomes bloody obvious. The same could be said of Newtonian gravity which is also about as counter-intuitive as it gets until such time as we get it. This says much for the way our intuitions are shaped by our learning but I'll avoid the digression.

The observed expansion of the universe has been the most difficult nut to crack but in fact it lends itself to a breathtakingly simple explanation which immediately makes all the counter-intuitive conclusions of modern physics evaporate. You've confessed to only a superficial grasp of physics so I hope you can get it, but those with a little bit more should be able to get this quite easily. It doesn't require a degree in physics ( I haven't got one) but a good layman's grasp would be helpful and a flexible mind is essential. We don't observe the universe expanding but rather we observe the universe aging. Einstein's model of General Relativity is second only to the Copernican paradigm in terms of the deep truth it reveals. It shows us that gravity and time are intimately interwoven in a precise mathematical relationship which is inversely logarithmic in its nature. This means that the universe ages more slowly within galaxies than it does between them because the galaxies are gravitationally bound. Because the gravitational field is stronger within a galaxy than it is in intergalactic "space" time quite literally passes more slowly in these regions. When we think we're observing the universe expanding what we're actually observing is the galaxies moving away from each other, a subtly nuanced difference in perspective which makes the world of difference.

It takes a bit of conceptual gymnastics to get your head around this but an observation is nothing more than the construction of a mental map of our surroundings by our consciousness. If time passes more quickly between galaxies than it does within them then the observer's mental map will perceive this as the galaxies moving away from each other. This is not an illusion because the galaxies are indeed moving away from each other but they're not moving away from each other in space, they're moving away from each other in TIME. The space exists only in the mind of the observer because he spatialises time, as does Special Relativity when it represents time as a spatial dimension. This means that our current models of physics are modelling the mental map of the observer rather modelling than the real universe.

That 3 dimensional space is solely the construct of the consciousness of the observer has been mainstream metaphysics since the pre-Socratics. For almost 3 millennia not a single philosopher has ever said anything different but for reasons best known to themselves our physicists have steadfastly ignored this fact. All of the biological sciences accept this as a given and neuroscience has gone a long way to describing the mechanisms for this and yet the physicists remain adamant in their hubris and therefore remain stuck with a spacetime paradigm which makes no sense.

If they were to pay some closer attention to what scholars in other fields have shown us they could see that a spaceless model of the universe leads seamlessly to quantum gravity and the so-called Theory of Everything but I won't head down that path because that part gets rather technical.

The only other point I'd make is that this is a genuine scientific hypothesis because it yields testable predictions which contradict those of the spacetime paradigm. These relate to the phenomenon of "quantum" entanglement, which has nothing to do with the rest of the quantum mechanics nonsense but is a straightforward prediction from GR. The irony of all this is that Einstein knew bloody well all along that his paradigm was wrong and said so many times. The reason why he knew it was wrong was because the "spooky action at a distance" contradicted it and entanglement had been satisfactorily demonstrated. For almost a hundred years since the ostriches have never lifted their heads out of the sand.

Regards Leo

[reflected_light]

Interesting Leo. I am familiar with the observer problem, that the results of the same experiment will differ wether they are observed or not. Does that mean that there is an alternate reality to the 3d reality our minds construct? Something still happens when we are not looking does it not?

[Obvious Leo]

that the results of the same experiment will differ wether they are observed or not.

This was once a common misunderstanding of the quantum mechanics theory but it is no longer construed in this way. It makes no difference whether an experiment is observed or not, which will come as a relief to those of us attached to the notion of logic and committed to the Aristotelian doctrine of causation. "Collapsing a wave function" is just a fancy way of saying "taking a look" and the notion of causing an event to occur simply by observing it implies reverse causation. It hardly needs to be said that we can't observe something until after it's happened because the speed of light is finite, which means we can only observe the past and never the present. As Einstein famously said: "The moon is still there whether somebody's watching it or not." This is not a statement of belief but a simple statement of logic. The moon was there before there was any trace of life on earth, let alone any complex life with the sensory apparatus to observe it, and to suggest otherwise is plainly cock-headed. Luckily nobody thinks like this any more but this sort of nonsense has been very damaging for science. Clearly such a dereliction of fundamental logic alienates the common man from the universe he lives in and we now have the the sorry situation of all sciences being tarred with the same brush. Many people regard science generally as a faith-based discipline which we can either choose to believe in or not, depending on our conceptual taste.

Something still happens when we are not looking does it not?

You bet it does, but this doesn't necessarily mean that what's happening is what we think is happening. What we think is happening depends entirely on the assumptions we make about the system we're observing.

Regards Leo.

[reflected_light]

So is there a method exempt from the limitations of human perspective? How can you say that what we observe is an "illusion" yet claim that there are such things as scientific facts, these 'facts' being discovered by human minds and their respective perspective.

I am impartial, I have no theory that I prefer or defend. I am just trying to make sense of what it is you are saying

Very interesting stuff.

Let me clarify my question, How do you know if you have made the right assumption?

[Joe_C]

If the universe is expanding equally everywhere, does it mean there are an infinite amount of centres? Isn't expansion an outward movement relative to a certain point? I am unable to visualize this idea, if it is expanding everywhere equally would not the objects in the universe be moving in different directions, appearing chaotic due to their exposure to the other infinite points of expansion?

Think of dots on the surface of a balloon. As you blow it up, every dot moves away from every other, while not moving away from a central point. That is a two dimensional illustration, space is (at least) three dimensional.

[reflected_light]

The balloons I blow up are 3 dimensional, so unless the universe exists as a membrane on the outer edge of an expanding sphere I'm not sure how the 2 dimensional balloon makes sense. Does the 3D balloon not have a center? A spherical one would, and are the dots not equally growing in distance relative to the central point as you blow air into it, with minor discrepancies I suppose.

it seems too simple an analogy for me to apply to such a seemingly complicated notion as the universe.