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AnastomosisJihad
Hominid



Registered: 01/01/08
Posts: 700
Loc: Ohio
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Re: Beyond the Singularity - What do you think caused the Big Bang? [Re: DieCommie]
#7901386 - 01/19/08 12:09 PM (16 years, 13 days ago) |
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"The big bang is the source of all energy in the universe." - "What is the source of the big bang?"
The big bang is not the source of all energy, its a process through which the universe went. Big bang theory makes no claims as to the source of the energy.
Then what is the source of the energy? This is the op's question.
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It's not a fact like dinosaurs existed is a fact; there are no BigBang bones.
Thats funny, because often the cosmic background radiation is directly compared to relics and fossils from the big bang.
Background radiation is consistent with a big explosion, but there are other ways to account for the microwaves which saturate all of space; aether theories come to mind.
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"infinite density" is not possible. It's just a trick of language and an indication that our theory has gone wrong. Your right its not possible.
Its a limit. Similar to limits in math, as you go back in time farther and farther the density gets greater and greater. It never reaches infinity, but keeps approaching it. Infinity is the destination that the density approaches as the time goes backward in the bang. Thats what is meant by a singularity.
I find it very odd that we can measure the mass of a black hole by its gravitational effects on nearby objects, and yet continue to speak of black holes as singularities with infinite density.
Are we trying to say that black holes are point charges of variable mass that occupy a 'place' in the space-time continuum yet do not occupy any 'space'?
One can just as easily explain the empirical evidence by positing that black holes are supper dense chunks of stuff which take up space like everything else. Sure we don't know how much space they take up, but it seems to me the black hole at the center of a spiral galaxy probably takes up more space than a small one formed by a supernova. The epistemic jump to singularity is unwarranted by the evidence.
Furthermore, a physical singularity is not possible. The metaphysical nature of mathematics allows us to tolerate infinitesimal things (points), but all material things take up space. I suspect point charge theory is an error produced by supposing too strict a correspondence between how things really are and how we describe them in the language of math.
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Annom
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Registered: 12/22/02
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Re: Beyond the Singularity - What do you think caused the Big Bang? [Re: AnastomosisJihad]
#7901425 - 01/19/08 12:19 PM (16 years, 13 days ago) |
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I find it very odd that we can measure the mass of a black hole by its gravitational effects on nearby objects, and yet continue to speak of black holes as singularities with infinite density.
When using Newtons law of gravitation, the density of a spherical mass doesn't matter (as long as it is radially symmetrical). We can model the earth as a mass with infinite density and as long as it has a finite mass it wouldn't affect our simulation of objects orbiting earth. That is exactly what we often do, modelling celestial objects as point masses, a point is a singularity. This, of course, doesn't mean it is reality.
That's just a short comment on that and I agree that it is odd, infinity and singularity are weird concepts.
Edited by Annom (01/19/08 12:48 PM)
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AnastomosisJihad
Hominid



Registered: 01/01/08
Posts: 700
Loc: Ohio
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Re: Beyond the Singularity - What do you think caused the Big Bang? [Re: Annom]
#7901658 - 01/19/08 01:07 PM (16 years, 13 days ago) |
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This is only an approximation, based on the not-true assumption that massive rotating bodies are spherical. A useful fiction no doubt, but all big spinning things wobble a little bit.
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deimya
tofu and monocle



Registered: 08/26/04
Posts: 825
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Re: Beyond the Singularity - What do you think caused the Big Bang? [Re: Annom]
#7901679 - 01/19/08 01:12 PM (16 years, 13 days ago) |
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AnastomosisJihad said:
Strictly speaking, we can never know how things "really are" and it is somewhat meaningless to ask for it. The only thing we have are models and we speak of "things" by speaking of concepts included into the model and which behave the most the way nature does, nothing more. If you really want to postulate some higher order of existence attached to concepts, then I would like to say that epistemologically, electrons did not "exists" in 1833, and they will probably be replaced by something completely different by 2133 the same way the phlogiston does not "exist" anymore.
Science is not there to say what is and what is not in a metaphysical sense, it is there to make sense of stuff around us. All the rest is ideological, as in materialism vs. supernatural, etc. This is the position of materialism and is to me just as void as asking if gods exist or not; both are encrusted in the ideas of the time. Materialism is not science since science changes with time and materialism endows present concepts with a definitive, yet superfluous external existence. Both are rooted in insecurities related to uncertainties. The mystery is much more interesting.
Now, black holes are solutions of Einstein's equations of motion in general relativity. It so happens that there's a metric singularity at the middle of the black hole (for the simplest case which is the uncharged, non-rotating, spherically symmetric black hole, aka Schwartzschild black hole), that is a divergence in the metric. The fact is, general relativity is not a final theory, or more conservatively, it does not mix well with quantum theory and thus it does not take into account quantum effects at small scales. Therefore this singularity is most probably not physical indeed and these things are simply left as problems for the future.
And finally, always remember that proponents of aether theories accuse the establishment first, and then try to argue for their theory in some fishy ways. Most importantly they never produced any measurable predictions, and so are most probably severe crackpottery. My advice to them is to at least drop the aether term altogether since it is much too charged historically.
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deimya
tofu and monocle



Registered: 08/26/04
Posts: 825
Loc: ausländer.ch
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Re: Beyond the Singularity - What do you think caused the Big Bang? [Re: deimya]
#7901784 - 01/19/08 01:36 PM (16 years, 13 days ago) |
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To answer OP's question, to understand what's beyond the singularity, we'll have to have a physical knowledge devoid of a-priori time, space and causality. And I'm sure the physically shady concept of singularity/bing-bang will then be replaced with something much more interesting. General relativity relates together space, time and classical matter and energy. My bet is that time and causality are emergent and that the way we make sense of the world, i.e. causality, energy, etc, is related to the way thoughts emerge. After all our brain is is made of the same stuff it is trying to understand.
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Cubie
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Re: Beyond the Singularity - What do you think caused the Big Bang? [Re: deimya]
#7901854 - 01/19/08 01:51 PM (16 years, 13 days ago) |
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the universe is like a plant. singularity the seed.... grow. and die and restart
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