I don't know that it was ever nothing...

You believe something has existed forever and has created everything that exists, aside from itself. Sounds like a theist to me.

not really, your jumping to conclusions... I said I don't know how it started, if it did... i don't think there is enough information about it to make a logical decision about it...but from what i do know, i can't put a creator in the picture...

What's stopping you? You admit you don't know why something exists rather than nothing.

For something to exist, rather than nothing, a time-less, space-less, incredibly powerful entity must exist. Now you can assume it was some sort of natural cause, which just begs more questions or you can assume it was God.

why must? because I don't know, it must be true? there is no other answer?

how would you gather evidence to prove the creator theory? what calculations would you do to prove this?

there is tons of evidence that points a natural formation, but no evidence of a creator? why is that?

Ellie Zolfagharifard
The Daily Mail
Tue, 04 Feb 2014 07:37 CST


The latest theory contradicts the most popular concept of the universe which suggests the world started with a Big Bang, and has been expanding ever since. Pictured here is the cosmic microwave background that is thought to have been left over from the Bang.


Our existence didn't come as a result of a glorious bang, but instead of a long, cold transformation, according to a new theory.

The theory contradicts the most popular concept of our universe's beginning, which suggestsit started with the Big Bang, and has been expanding ever since.

The Big Bang model suggests the universe began from what is known as a 'singularity', or a point of infinite density at which physical laws break down.

But Christof Wetterich, a theoretical physicist at Heidelberg University in Germany, claims this Big Bang never happened. Instead, the universe started as an empty and cold void, slowly emerging from a deep freeze.

He claims his theory will help resolve some of the more challenging aspects of the Big Bang theory, such as the singularity present during the beginning of the universe.

The concept that the universe is expanding was developed in the 1920s when astronomers look at the light emitted or absorbed by atoms, which appeared at different frequencies.

Professor Wetterich's latest suggestion builds on his earlier theory that the universe is not expanding, but instead getting fatter.


The Slow Freeze Theory

The theory suggests the universe started as an empty and cold void, slowly emerging from a deep freeze.

Professor Wetterich's argues that while fundamental particles become heavier over time, gravity weakens.

This logic suggests the universe still underwent inflation but did not necessarily continue expanding.

Professor Wetterich also argues that instead of starting with a big bang, time before inflation could stretch into the infinite past.

His picture is akin to saying that instead of the universe expanding, the ruler with which we measure it is shrinking.

In this picture, he says, 'you can go as far back in the past as you want, and the past is even pretty boring.'
They found that when matter moved away, galaxies exhibited a shift to the red, lower frequency part of the spectrum.




Professor Wetterich's latest suggestion builds on his earlier theory that the universe is not expanding, but instead getting fatter.


After observing that most galaxies exhibit a red shift that became greater for more distant galaxies, they theorised that the universe was expanding.

But Professor Wetterich's theory suggests that the fundamental particles of the universe are instead becoming heavier over time, while gravity weakens.

This logic suggests the universe still underwent a period of inflation but did not necessarily continue expanding.

According to a report in Science News, Professor Wetterich's picture is akin to saying that instead of the universe expanding, the ruler with which we measure it is in fact shrinking.

Professor Wetterich also argues that instead of starting with an explosion, time before inflation could stretch into the infinite past - in other words, there was no real beginning to the universe.

In this picture, he says, 'you can go as far back in the past as you want, and the past is ... pretty boring.'

Professor Wetterich's latest suggestion builds on his earlier theory that the universe is not expanding, but instead getting heavier.

Radiation from the early universe would make it look hotter than it actually was if particle masses have been increasing. This means distant objects would appear to be receding even if they aren't.

He says this would explain why the universe appears to be expanding.

Professor Wetterich claims that he is not trying to overthrow the big bang as both it and his slow freeze model are consistent with current scientific observations.

No, it logically follows that the universe was created by something, since we know it hasn't existed forever (at least not in it's current state). So yes, the universe was created by a "time-less, space-less, incredibly powerful entity". Could it have been a natural phenomenon? That's not out of the realm of possibility, but that leads to an infinite regress. What caused the cause. God would explain the existence of the universe and stand as a causation terminator, the original cause of everything.



Unfortunately, I'm not a physicist. But I feel certain that scientists might be able to answer those questions and many more, if only they could entertain the possibility.



What are the "tons of evidence" for a natural beginning of the universe?

I get the feeling that maybe you aren't understanding the scope of the question. You do understand that space/time/matter are all interrelated, right? How did those things, which compose everything that exists in the universe, come into existence? If you want to claim that there is "tons of evidence" that the origin was natural, you don't know what you are talking about. On that subject, there is no proof and no workable theory. There are hypothesises of a mother universe spawning baby universes and theories like that, but they have a problem...who created the mother universe? The best hypothesis from scientists has simply pushed the problem back in time, there is no answer forthcoming. If an archeologist finds a ruin, they try to determine who built it. They don't keep re-dating the building, each time saying it's older than the last dating and then claiming that the ruin wasn't built, it always existed.

just because I can't come up with an answer doesn't mean a god did it... it means I need to learn more...

I don't see anyone saying "If you don't understand something, you should assume God did it".

I've explained using logic and reasoning why God is the best explanation for the existence of the universe.

sorry, I don't see it that way...not out of the question, but pretty far down on my list...

here is how I see it now days. I use to be a bible thumped, but feel I was brought to this understanding.
check this out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_4WTxwXjD8

Why the dis on the lentils? I had some just this evening . This conversation devolved into a religious/creator and natural process debate. It had its interesting points, that is not doubted! Yet I think it stands in good reason to 'front face' the idea that scientists shouldn't believe anything, not even impecable logic or the Newtonian paradigm baised scientific method, and neither should spiritual seekers. Both start off with saying I Don't Know to the big questions and then go from there. Maybe it is a very good case and point to say that religious ideas held by a social power stalled out scientific development through the dark ages to its end sometime shortly after Newton died. But there are many kinds of dogma, and it can pervade even scientific thinking in the blink of an eye. To caution against this, one might view the nearly 400 years past as an experiment in how to do science. Was it successful? I'd say not in the way I'd define it. With work and patience and a peak of an creative edge, there is no failure, but only a path to walk. So drop any ideas of doing science like it was done in Newton's days, or proving a Creator did it all entirely. . While history has a surpising relevancy in scientific thought today, whatever new consesus is reached about these types of questions will certainly be a page turn.

did you read the other theory i posted about 5-6 up?

But Christof Wetterich, a theoretical physicist at Heidelberg University in Germany, claims this Big Bang never happened. Instead, the universe started as an empty and cold void, slowly emerging from a deep freeze.

Twice now, but it just isn't sticking. I could make my own view, one flawed and likely wrong, but trying to wrap my head around his is just too much for me. It seems like a good trend to make an infinite time span, and wouldn't it be odd if some basic equations like the mass-energy equivalence still covered phenomenon well? Say, for example, that the uni. really is getting heavier, but that the speed of light is slowing down to compensate. You could imagine a particle or beam expelled from a moving body, or even a still source, and think, well, just measure its speed right, I mean if it is radiation. But it is sorta like how in shape dynamics, the size of the ruler with which to compare also shrinks or expands from diff. regions as you move it to try to gauge. So here, the signal itself would be subject to a sort of red or blue shift, more like an expansion shift, and would run at the same speed rate and energy as the surroundings. Perhaps then, an acceleration would show streaks in a sequence that could have information regarding how massive a unit of mass is compared to a speeding up body today, if one can pardon the hypothetical nature of such thinking. If it is born cold, there must have been a long time for subtle effects to have been acquired and also built up. These still pass the minds of physicists uncaught, and it may always remain that way. But there is the hope that science will expand to take in new facts and new facets of scientific thinking. There is still something hanging in the air in my thinking about how the expansion is not but a apparent affect. Your man seemed to suggest this, but whether or not it is his exact version, I do deem such an attitude regarding it as needed at this time. One big bang only is not likely, from reading that bit, but the expansion and other large, universal traits just have to be known!

thats kind of an issue, nobody knows, but there are people who think they do. at least some people are smart enough to say "i don't know", rather than "it must be ________" because thats all that fits in their mind...

maybe if we see a black hole blow up, we might know more about what really happened...

Odd, but I heard that the do explode eventually, it is just that it takes longer than our universe has been around, or the 14 billion that is popularized as a ball park figure. So that can be interpreted as BH processes were going on before the Big Bang. That settles that it is not so simple as a onetime startup. But I agree that your modest view is the only one that can be put forth with integrity at this time. Thanks for bringing that point to a brighter light, Moe!

I think Hawkins theory based on string theory particles appearing and disappearing randomly with no cause/effect principle in effect, shows that matter can and has the ability to sporadically appear.
You can't see beyond/further back in time, than the "bang", because there was nothing before. Time and space are relative, no time...no space. Bang, time starts, space starts:)

i think that we can only see so far, a limited field of view... the further light travels, the more diffuse it gets... ever notice the closer you get to an object, the better/more details you can see? same with the universe, we have no idea whats beyond our FOV, because we can't see it...yet...

and, time has nothing to do with it, the only time time stops or starts is when someone is born and dies, because it is nothing but a perception...

Yo folks. sup? this is my 1st post here on this site. this topic caught my fancy.

i happen to have studied this topic for years now. i'm not saying i'm a mathematician mind you but hear me out.

So 1st of all lets think about all this logically.

they say the big bang was sparked by quantum fluctuations. The antimatter & quantum vacuum are what is being argued. in which virtual particles appear & then destroy each other. they're is nothing left over. paul diracs equation predicted this but as i recall (correct me if i'm wrong plz) in order for the matter to not be destroyed & become a part of the more solid world, this means there must be another matter for it to hook on too right?

It's also interesting to note how string theory is added to it but there are many physicists that simply say it's overinflated in worth. mostly cuz its all confined to simulation not real world controlled testing. apparently there's like a 60 or 70% success rate or something with there models on some things.

They bring string theory into it to start telling us about a multiverse. Now here's the thing. to say multiverse to to say that the known universe that we've mapped out is all there is & there's copies of it out there somehow. it's totally unprovable & actually a kind to religion in that way. it reminds me of an ancient mythological motif, the world egg or the cosmic egg. parthenogenesis, look up that phrase in relation to religion.

they base this off the idea that well in the quantum world, mathematically, all scenarios that could possibly exist all happen simultaneously therefor... multiverse. i'm like what! why? based on what some psychedelic experience cuz... humgf... ya know i'm cool with that... but lol you know.

it's not like you can visit these alt worlds. also keep in mind just cuz the math says something must exist doesn't always ring true. other times it's not real, it's for an abstract purpose. like negative numbers, they don't actually exist but they exist in relation to other things.

Then there's the problem of how did the inflation go faster than the speed of light? i thought Einstein said that was impossible?

all this to bring you to a universe filled with clouds of hydrogen that are hot.

now of course the big bang theory was made to explain where the hydrogen came from of course. but here's an alt, is it possible that the big bang was simply a super massive black hole that finally exploded releasing all the stuff built up? if you don't know what i mean, it's well known that any atom, no matter what kind on the periodic table of elements into a singularity whether it be a black hole, quasar, ect. when it's finally released, the result is hydrogen.

and that theory doesn't disobey any of the laws of physics, the other does.

Actually there's a whole debate on the idea known as plasma cosmology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_cosmology


here's some useful sources:... thoughts
Inflationary cosmology on trial lecture by Dr. Paul J. Steinhardt, the Albert Einstein Professor in Science and director of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science at Princeton University.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcxptIJS7kQ

Plasma Physics' Answers to the New Cosmological Questions by Dr. Donald E. Scott of NASA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8tqgntbjyE

The Electric Universe Illuminates Recent Discoveries
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtFTRBSUMV8

"Dark Matter" proof, Synchrotron radiation actually supports Electric Universe, Plasma Cosmology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgMldh8hL3w

The Big Bang Never Happened: A Startling Refutation of the Dominant Theory of the Origin of the Universe by Eric J. Lerner a popular science writer, his book is based on Hannes Alfv�n theory of Plasma Cosmology.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Bang-Never-Happened/dp/067974049X

Cosmic Plasma by Swedish electrical engineer, plasma physicist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics Hannes Alfven
http://www.amazon.com/Cosmic-Plasma-Astrophysics-Science-Library/dp/9027711518

String Theory is Pseudoscience
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4219
http://profmattstrassler.com/2013/09/19/am-i-misleading-you-about-string-theory/
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2006/09/the_trouble_with_string_theory.html
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392094,00.asp
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/science/2013/08/18/1-string-theory-takes-a-hit-in-latest-experiments.html
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1226142,00.html
http://www.firstpost.com/topic/product/higgs-boson-superstring-theory-proven-wrong-by-lhc-supersymmetry-debun-video-GPKj73pSBdw-86998-50.html

The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next by Lee Smolin, theoretical physicist, faculty member at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo & member of the graduate faculty of the philosophy department at the University of Toronto.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Trouble-With-Physics-Science/dp/061891868X/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense by Michael Shermer, science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic
http://books.google.com/books?id=KCanmmIb8QUC&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false

nice first post, JohnPriesmeyer.. welcome to mingle and post all you want