Origin of the Universe
Offline "In the beginning, there was nothing. Then God said, "Let there be light!" And there was light."
With these 17 words begins the Old Testament. If you bothered to read any farther, you should check into the local hospital and have your head scanned, because you clearly don't have a brain. In the beginning, was there nothing, or was there God? And who is he talking to? Does God talk to himself? What was there before the beginning? Where did God come from? These 17 words are so ludicrous as to clearly indicate that the book you're holding is worthless, might as well toss it on the fire and read something better like The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkein.
If the answer to that last question sounds anything like "God is eternal; he always was and always will be", why don't we just do away with the middleman here and apply that statement to the universe itself? "The universe is eternal; it has always existed and always will" makes a lot more sense!
"In the beginning, there was nothing. Then there was a Big Bang. Then there was matter, energy, space, and time."
i'm sorry, but this explanation is every bit as ludicrous as the first one! What was there before this Big Bang? And what caused this Big Bang? Needless to say, it doesn't help matters for atheists trying to explain science and reason to theists when the "scientific" notion of the origin of the universe is every bit as nonsensical as the biblical one!
Here's what happened in a nutshell: Scientists - Albert Einstein in particular - began with the preconceived notion that the universe was finite -- which was undoubtedly the result of growing up within a religious paradigm. A finite universe cannot be static, it would eventually collapse upon itself, so it must either be expanding or collapsing. It looks like it's expanding, so with a bit of careful observation and mathematics we should be able to calculate just exactly how long ago it was all at one point and this expanding began. So we'll know the age and the size of the universe! Won't we be smart! And so for the past century cosmologists have been writing articles of ever-increasing complexity that nobody ever reads because they don't make any sense and nobody believes them anyway.
It's plainly obvious that the universe is not finite. It's infinite in all spacial directions, as well as in time both forward and backward. The first concern, that the universe must be either expanding or contracting, evaporates -- an object in an infinite universe is surrounded by an infinite number of other objects in all directions, there is no net gravitational attraction that would cause an eventual collapse. If the objects within 20 billion light-years of our home planet appear to be flying away from each other, so what? It certainly is of little importance in the grand scheme of things, such as what's happening 20 quintillion light-years from our home planet!
In an infinite universe, the questions are ever so much more interesting. I'll point out a few:
Occam's Razor: The theory that, if the universe were infinite and there were an infinite number of stars out there and have been for an infinite amount of time, the night sky would be as bright as day. Mathematically, this would be true -- if one were to presume that light, once emitted by a star, travels indefinitely through space without degradation. Clearly, light does not travel indefinitely through space without degradation! Maybe we should be looking into exactly what happens to light as it travels for 15 billion years or so.
The "red shift": The basis for the theory that the entire observable universe is expanding, that the light from all visible stars is shifted towards the red end of the spectrum as though they are moving away from us, and the farther away the star is, the faster it appears to be moving away. Perhaps. However, perhaps -- considering the degradation of light that must be occurring as described under Occam's Razor -- these stars aren't moving away from us at all, the red shift is merely a consequence of light travelling for billions of years.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics: Clearly this cannot hold on a universal scale, because there has already been an infinite amount of time passing, everything would have fallen into utter disorder by now. Apparently there is some mechanism by which order is restored. I suspect order is gained whenever space dust aggregates into a planet or star.
Mass vs. Energy: Each star is burning hydrogen in a fusion reaction, converting mass into energy. Since that can't go on forever -- but has been going on forever -- clearly there is some mechanism in the universe by which energy is converted back into matter. Perhaps as light travels through space for billions of years, each photon gradually becomes a tiny particle of space dust. Or perhaps there's something going on in black holes.
The cyclical nature of everything: Everything that is happening now has happened an infinite number of times before. Everything is cyclical. Obviously, it'd be very interesting to study all the various cycles involved.
I would very much like to be reading articles discussing theories on these issues -- but all we get from the cosmologists is more garbage about the Big Bang. I'd like to slap them.
-- Kirbert
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I shall continue to be an impossible person as long as those who are now possible remain possible.
Ok, but if I remember correctly, I even asked if were a lark of some sort, it already seemed you were too smart for that.... 
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Endless_Universe_Made_Possible_By_New_Model_999.html
According to a paper recently released by researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill, the universe can be cyclic without any problems (if dark matter behaves a particular way). In a nutshell, as well as I can understand it (Feel free to correct me on this if I'm mis-reading the article):
How to cycle the universe:
1. Universe as we knows it expands more and more rapidly due to the influence of dark matter. Eventually everything is broken down due to this expansion.
2. Individual patches of the universe are now isolated from each other since the expansion is greater than the speed of light, so these individual patches can then collapse upon themselves and bounce out (big bang-ish) forming a new universe.
3. For each patch, repeat 1.
Because the patches can't interact with one another, entropy is in patches too far away (It sounds like some patches contain the entropy and others are fresh), so the 2nd law of Thermodynamics is still good.
Personally, I don't understand where the new matter/energy comes from in these new universes. Does the expansion itself cause particle/antiparticle pairs to pop out of the fabric of space-time?
-Triften
"In the beginning, there was nothing. Then there was a Big Bang. Then there was matter, energy, space, and time."
This is only "true" in the sense because scientists, following only what they can observe, cannot make assumptions about what is outside the Big Bang, because we simply don't know.
I however think it's safe to assume that we're being very egotistical here if we really seriously consider the known universe(the one created by the big bang) to be the only universe.
How old is this universe, by way of Big Bang? Is it 14 billion years? Give me a break, the Universe and time is infinite. The number 14 billion is a cosmic nano-second on such a scale.
Time has no backwards and forwards persay.. I guess this is a matter of debate, but it is almost widely accepted that there is only the present. The concept of future and present is a construct of the concious mind so that we can put events in order.
If the universe is ever expanding at the speed of light by way of the Big Bang, then the Earth and the solar system is always moving at the speed of light. Of course, relative to the fairly still world, I am of course not running at the speed of light, but because I am apart of a system which is moving at the speed of light, I am moving in the speed of light.
Once an object is moving at the speed of light, time stops. Therefor, time is non-existent, for the universe has always been in the present due to the ever expanding nature of the universe.
St. Augustine had a more philosophical approach by saying that because the past is not real(you can not physically reach out and grab the past) and that the future is not real(as well, physically, the future is impossible to just reach out and grab) then there is only the present.
I have my own theory on the eventual collapse of the universe(the one created from our Big Bang) but it is merely theory, and has no mathematical basis. Once I've explored it a little more indepth, I would love to share it on these boards. It's pretty far out. I however do believe that this universe will evenetually collapse in on itself. We may never know.
How exactly would things be falling into utter disarray by now? Wouldn't the second law just cause it to get colder and colder? I think I'm missing a key part in that law?
Law of conservation states that something can't just gradually become something else without some force behind it. E=mc^2 states that mass is energy and vice-versa. A photon is mass. Very little mass, but regardless, it has mass. There is nothing in this universe that has no mass. Dark energy, dark manner, anti-particles, gluons, W and Z bosons, all have mass. Though energy is not considered directly to be matter, all matter has mass. And all mass is energy. Therefor matter is energy.
I am with you on the black hole part. Because nothing, not even light can escape a black hole, under the immense pressure of singularity, the mass of all particles, the energy of all particles, are being compressed infinitely smaller and smaller. This build up of pressure and mass and energy leads to something. By theory of worm holes, it simply is spitting out that energy in another part of the Universe in the form of quasars. Maybe that mass is being transported into another dimension of reality. We wouldn't know, unless we tempted the awesome power of a black hole.
You say that there can not be just nothing. Dark energy is believed to be what fills up 70 percent of the energy which is in the known universe. Dark energy is believed to have negative pressure equal to it's energy density, by way of thermodynamics(causing this cosmic expanision) It is energy which is the cost to just have "nothing" in deep space however, so it must have mass as it is energy. Therefor mass and energy must infinite as the universe is infinite.
Inifinite is not a number, therefor, the megaverse is ever expanding, always, trying to reach infinite. Therefor, mass and energy has to be always ever expanding. If it wasn't ever expanding, then over the course of time, there wouldn't be any more dark energy to fill up the regions of space. What happens then? You said yourself, there can't just be nothing. And if there was nothing, there would be no dark energy to cause this ever expansion, then matter would be static, and you said yourself, the universe can't be static.
But, mass increasingly ever-steadily goes against the laws of conservation because energy just can't be made out of thin air(nothing rather)
So where did this energy come from? The universe is, and always was, and energy and mass is and always was.
Yet, the energy that we know of(what's in the known universe) WAS nothing more then a single point in time and space. The Big Bang was a point of immense singularity. All the energy in the known universe wasn't the size of a baseball, or the head of a pin. It was the size of something so enormously small, it was actually infinitally small. The size of the universe at that time couldn't be ZERO because that would mean there is no energy or mass, and that violates the law of conservation.
With the immense gravitational force of this point of singularity however, the volume of the universe could not have been a fixed size. It was constantly reaching a volume closer and closer to zero.
I don't know where I'm going with that, but I know it's mind boggling, and my head hurts.
What I can get to is that if black holes cause such awesome events as worm holes, or whatever you want to theorize,
Then what happens at this perpetual black hole which was the universe prior to the Big Bang? What "laws" where there for this universe.(it is said that in black holes, there are no laws, down is up, left is right) WHY was this universe at a point of singularity at one point in time and space. What forces made for that to be the case? Is it a cycle of expansion, collapsing, expansion, collapsing, over and over again? Is this the only universe that does this, or in the cosmic megaverse, is there an infinite number of these Big Bangs and Big Crunches happening each and every cosmic nano-second?
If the law of conservation is true, then WHERE did all this matter(energy) come from? It couldn't just come from nowhere, and the amount of it can't ever change. So how was the distribution of energy spread among the megaverse..say...an infinte seconds minus one second ago. But, an infinite minus one is simply infinite. So, I ask, what was the distribution of energy, and where did the energy come from, an infinite amount of seconds ago?
I believe it was, and always was. Why? As in the words of Brian37, Just Because.
1 in 5 Americans believe we live in a Geocentric solar system. Who do you blame for that? God? I blame god.
Think of two glasses of water, one hot and one cold. You can mix the two and end up with two glasses of lukewarm water -- but you cannot reverse that action. This is the second law at work. Basically, it says that eventually everything in the universe will be lukewarm per se, a uniform level of energy. This law has been proven conclusively for things on Earth; things always move towards less order (the hot water will gradually cool, the cold water will gradually warm, just be being near each other) and restoring order requires the expenditure of energy (reheating the one glass of water, chilling the other). But as I said, clearly the law cannot hold on a universal scale; somehow lukewarm dust floating around in interstellar space must be able to become fiery hot stars all by itself.
-- Kirbert
Entropy has nothing to do with order. I can now see why you thought that "The beginning" was somehow referring to more than creation. Of course God was "In" the Beginning. If you examine just those three words you can perhaps reach enlightenment. "In The Beginning" then it says "GOD". BTW, Entropy only refers to heat death or the dissipation of energy.
Then he is of those who believe and charge one another to show patience, and charge one another to show compassion.
The law does hold true always in the universe, because nothing is colder then absolute zero. Heat will always diffuse to reach absolute zero. I have my own ideas on what happens when the universe does reach absolute zero, but it will happen simply because the second law does hold true in the universe.
What's wrong with a uniform level of energy? Aren't we always told that balance is almost always more stable then a world of extremes? The only "order" I could imagine you are speaking of is that naturally, the universe will keep attempting to reach absolute zero. That is the 2nd law working to effect, but mind you, this "order" is only due to the near stopping of molecules because it is so cold(and this is directly related to the pressure being exerted on the molecules. More pressure means there more times the molecules bump into each other, which causes friction. Think of a computer duster can getting cold after the pressure is released rapidly)
The thing is, this function where the 2 glasses of water can't be made hotter is ridiculous.(of course the glass[the universe] will get colder because of the ever expansion of the universe-less pressure, less friction, less heat) The glass CAN get hotter, and will get hotter by way of the Big Crunch, the heat death of the universe, whatever you want to believe in in the final stages of this universe.
The only order in this universe is not by way of heat or coldness. Order is only achievable in this megaverse because infinity and zero lets it be so. That's some pseudo new age kind of thing to say, but in all reality, I really can't help but really reaffirm that, at least to myself. If the universe was not infinite, then it would be near impossible to keep order. If zero was not an intergral part of the universe, then atoms would not be able to balance itself out(thus, chaos) A proton with +1 charge, a neutron with 0 charge and an electron with -1 charge creates a hydrogen atom, with overall, zero charge. Think about how many things in this universe equals zero. Nothing. There is not on object that just equals zero. Energy is mass. For there to be energy, it must have mass. Mass can't be zero because then it would not be mass. Zero creates balance in the universe. Infinity is what drives the balance to astronomical porportions, while still maintaining balance. Fucking beautiful if you ask me.
Dust floating around in space will NOT become fiery hot star by itself. After a supernovae explosion, those microscopic particles of dust will gather to form a new star, and if lucky, planets. Actually, most of this interstellar dust you talk about can only be created after a supernova. After the Big Bang, and the cooling of the gluons and plasma, there was only hydrogen, a little helium, and maybe trace amounts of slightly heavier atoms(think nitrogen, carbon)
After the collapse of a star, those hydrogen and helium atoms within the nuclear reactor fuses into heavier and heavier elements. All that dust afterwards is just hydrogen that has fused into your gold, uranium, neon, iron elements. I'm pretty sure there is nuclear fusion happening at the core of our earth? This is why the planet has such heavy elements as uranium. There was no uranium in this solar system until the star that was before the sun collapsed, and it's dust was collected as the rudimentery collection of "earth" was being formed some 4.6 billion years ago.(is that year correct?)
Anyhow, because of gravity, most of this dust doesn't just float off into deep deep space. Sure, some will, but more likely then not, it will be pulled in by a planet, a star, or black hole.
Triften--
The universe can't be expanding faster then the speed of light, because nothing can expand faster then the speed of light, unless the expansion is using a method by way of an alternate dimension or reality. But wait, we can't discuss such things here because that is irrational and illogical. There can't be something else there if we can't see it, right?
The only flaw I see is that the expansion universes would most certainly have to be much much smaller then the previous Big Bang. Therefor, going back in time, and one will find itself at a point where there was an extremely large collection of mass and energy, in a very very small space. Such effects upon space-time would be inconceivable, even if one were to even begin to imagine what black holes are like let alone a black hole of universal porportions. All this energy in one area would cause this area of space to collapse on itself, and that would mean, at one point of this patch of universe theory is that at one time, there was the megaverse at a point of singularity. That is impossible because the universe was, is, always was, and always is. Unless, gasp, the megaverse is always a point of singularity on the cosmic scale.
Also, with these little patches, always isolating itself, sooner or later there will be a little big bang where there is not enough matter for the patch to contract in on itself. Where does this rogue patches of matter go? Just dissipates in deep space? Simply, sooner or later, because the law of conservation always hold true, there would be no patches of mass that would contract on itself, creating a universal dissipation of "space dust" throughout the megaverse. If time is infinite, then why hasn't this happened already? That's a reasonable concept because if time is inifinite, then all these events should have occured a near infinite amount of time ago, because there has been such a long amount of time for this dissipation of matter to occur already.
1 in 5 Americans believe we live in a Geocentric solar system. Who do you blame for that? God? I blame god.
I think we basically agree here, but I'd like to clarify a point I was making: It may very well be true that black holes harbor such interesting things as singularities, worm holes, rifts in space and time, etc., etc. But they might not; they might be simply what they look like, extremely dense objects developing extremely powerful gravitational fields. The theories about worm holes and the like come from cosmologists desperate for explanations to support their Big Bang theory of a finite universe about 16 billion years old. Once you accept an infinite universe that is eternal, there is no need for black holes to harbor such features. They still might, but we need to theorize about them from a rational standpoint before we can even develop reasonable assumptions.
-- Kirbert
Thank you so much for that reply. It helped a great deal in explaining how outwardly rational people, even engineers, can rationalize something as irrational as theism.
-- Kirbert
I misstated that bit. It's when the universe is expanding AT the speed of light. If space expands at the speed of light, then light from one point can't reach another and so they are isolated from each other.
This theory is for an infinitely large universe so the first item is a non-issue. One can divide an infinitely large space into an infinity of infinitely large spaces. So each of these expansion universes is also infinitely large.
It's been mentioned by many already in previous threads, but: Time is a part of our universe. As long as time existed, the universe existed. Even if the big bang is "the start of it", that's when time itself began, so saying the universe always was doesn't constrain any of these things. I'd recommend reading Peter Coveney and Roger Highfield's "The Arrow of Time."
I don't think it's a matter of matter. It's the isolated "causal patches" of space collapsing in on themselves.
As I already said, I'm not sure exactly where the "new" matter and energy come from. I haven't read the whole paper and I'm sure that if I did, I wouldn't understand half of the deeper explanation.
No one says it hasn't happened already. If it has, we just happen to be around 15 billion years or so into one of these universes.
-Triften
Absolute zero would mean that energy has ceased to exist. That never happens, and that's not what the second law says.
We're not at a uniform level of energy. Since an infinite amount of time has already passed, if everything were to eventually reach a uniform level of energy, we'd be there -- and we'd have already been there for an infinite amount of time.
No, it doesn't. Where did you get this idea?
No, it's not.
Clearly you didn't read it. Making the two glasses hotter would involve heating, which involves energy, not entropy. The point was that you cannot make one glass hot and the other cold again without expending energy to do so. By mixing the hot and cold water, you have increased the level of entropy (disorder) in that system, but you cannot restore it to its original level of order without introducing energy from an external source.
I agree. In fact, that was kinda my point.
I think we're agreeing here, actually. I was speaking of the cyclical nature of everything, and my point here was that dust floating around in space will gather to form planets and stars all by itself, there is no need for an external input of energy or other extraneous assistance for it to happen. The fact that the interstellar dust was once part of another star or planets goes without saying. In fact, it has been parts of other stars and planets an infinite number of times. It is all cyclical, it has always been cyclical, it will always be cyclical.
The Big Bang, if it happened at all, concerns me not in the least, because it would have been an insignificant event in the universe. I want to know what happened before the Big Bang and what was going on one trillion light years to the southwest at the time.
Possibly before the collapse, too. But the point is, all this takes place without any external input. And it somehow must be reversible, otherwise everything would be heavy elements by now.
True. But that star was made of dust that coalesced, and that dust came from a yet previous star, and so on and so on. Each of these stars was presumably creating uranium during their death throes. Since this has happened an infinite number of times, why isn't everything uranium?
Actually, the question is why isn't everything iron, since all elements lighter than iron are gradually fusing to move towards iron, while elements heavier than iron are fissioning to move towards iron. So, why isn't everything iron? Somewhere in this universe there must be a process going on that breaks iron down into hydrogen and helium.
The black holes might be involved. They collapse atoms down into a solid plasma of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Elements as we know them cease to exist. At the end of the life of a black hole (yes, there must be an end, everything is cyclical), perhaps there is some sort of explosion in which all of these protons, neutrons and electrons are reassembled into elements -- and it may be that hydrogen is the element most readily assembled under those conditions, so gobs of them are created.
Yeah, 4.6 billion years is as good a number as any for the age of the Earth. Actually, the problem I have is that, as far as I know, nobody has assembled a plausible and cohesive description of the physical condition of the Earth from those days until the present. I think it would be completely unreasonable to presume that, 4.6 billion years ago right after the Earth coalesced from dust, it was the same diameter as it is today, contained the same mass, rotated at the same rate, had the same gravitational pull, etc., etc.
As a first instance: the Earth is gathering dust from space today, which would seem to mean the mass is increasing at some rate. I suspect the rotation rate is also slowing, as the angular momentum is probably unaffected by this gathering of dust, yet the increase in mass and moment of inertia will require that the angular velocity decrease in concert.
Such changes, over 4+ billion years, would undoubtedly have many implications. For example, the dinosaurs may have been living under different gravitational conditions than we are today, which may help explain why some of them were so large.
Are we far enough off track?
Well, therein lies another level of hogwash in the Big Bang theory. If there was such an explosion that resulted in everything in the observable universe flying away from one central point, it's true that the various stars and planets would each be travelling at a different rate so they'd end up scattered, with the only observable characteristic that each one is growing more distant from every other one. But light emitted from the Big Bang would have radiated outward from the point of origin at the speed of light. Unless we just happened to be travelling at the speed of light ourselves, we'd never see it again, it has long since left us and gone. Yet cosmologists talk about the Cosmic Background Radiation as though this energy is just mulling around waiting for us to observe it. I'm sorry, but the "Cosmic Background Radiation" is simply the collective emissions of the radiant heat of all the interstellar dust, most of which is very close to absolute zero. Very simple, no cosmological implications worth musing about.
And my favorite question: What was happening two feet to the left at the time?
The Big Bang is hogwash. If it happened, it happened within the universe, not as a cause of its existence. Until we ditch this entire concept that the universe is finite and had a beginning, we'll never move on to realistic theories about the structure and nature of the universe.
And someday we're going to look back on the days of extensive theorizing about the Big Bang the way we look back on how people could possibly think the world was flat.
-- Kirbert
Understood. My point is that I think this is all a crock. There is no reason whatsoever to postulate that time itself had a beginning, and in fact postulating such is an exercise in fantasy -- kinda like some other fantasies we all know and love. Let's forget all that hogwash and begin anew with the very reasonable presumption that the universe always was and always will be and that time and space had no beginning and will have no end. And then let's start to work on rationally explaining the universe as we see it today.
-- Kirbert
Actually, a photon is a very interesting critter. It is an electromagnetic wave which contains no matter and would therefore have zero mass -- if it were moving at any speed slower than the speed of light. Any matter moving at the speed of light would have infinite mass. So, mathematically, a proton's mass is zero times infinity -- which is indeterminate, could be anything. It therefore has been measured empirically, and the above statement is correct, it's a very tiny mass.
This is a bit off track of my original contention, though. I was suggesting that light must degenerate as it travels through space -- a requirement that follows from Occam's Razor -- and as long as it is degenerating, it might provide an alternative explanation for the observed red shift as well.
Then realizing that energy cannot be destroyed, one must ask oneself what becomes of that photon when it has degenerated to the point where it is no longer light? It cannot simply cease to exist. The simplest explanation may be that it is simply absorbed by space dust to become heat, perhaps later to be re-emitted as radiant heat.
But I was postulating that it might somehow become a tiny particle of space dust via some conversion of energy into matter that science has not observed or postulated yet. There must be a mechanism for energy to convert into matter somewhere in the universe, because there's a dreadful lot of matter being converted into energy in each star, and balance is being maintained somehow.
-- Kirbert
Proof by incredulity?
I'm agreeing with the idea that the universe "always was" because time began with the universe, so there was no "before".
Scientists do try to explain the universe rationally. It seems that your stance that this is "a crock" is more likely based off of a lack of information on your part than a failure of physicists to think rationally.
Where do you get zero times infinity from?
A photon has energy. Energy equates to matter, therefore the photon has mass.
Also, are you ignoring the particle-wave duality that we've observed?
How does that follow from Occam's Razor?
Light "degenerates" when it interacts with things. When light collides with something it transfers some of its energy to the thing it struck. If light just travels through empty space, it doesn't give up energy to anything.
Radiant heat is EM. Those are photons as well.
A photon can spontaneously change into a matter/anti-matter pair of particles. Nothing is created/destroyed since the matter/anti-matter pair would release energy equal to the photon if they collided.
It doesn't take much matter to create a whole lot of energy.
-Triften
Not really. Here, take a look:
http://www.rationalresponders.com/common_cosmological_misconceptions
This page presents a brief overview of some cosmological models for how a universe might be generated. None of these models violate any laws of physics. I plan on adding some more info concerning scientific ex nihilo accounts for the universe. Again, none of these theories violates any laws of physics.
Really? Well, here's a counter proposal for you to consider: perhaps they don't make sense to you, because you don't really understand what cosmologists are actually saying... Perhaps, just perhaps, some of the brightest minds in the world: Hawkings, Linde, Guth, Ferris, Greene, have all managed to avoid coming up with cosmological models that make 'no sense at all', and that, in actuality, you don't really know enough about what they actually do say. What do you think?
You're off the mark several levels. 1) Brane theory holds that there was 'something' before the big bang, and accounts for what this 'something is - look into it.
2) Hawking's theory holds that the universe is finite but boundless timewise, ergo the part of your question relating to 'before' the big bang makes no sense in his model.
3) Smolin points out that there are three possible ways to decribe the nature of a singularity (i.e. beginning point), not just one.
4) Ex nihilo theories would hold that nothing existed in the first place!
Well, the first problem here is using 'causality'... if something 'caused' the universe, then there was 'something already existent. Now, brane theory can deal with this... as can any multiverse theory. But ex nihilo theories would hold that talking about 'before' and'causality' are basic errors... there wouldn't be anything prior to the big bang to cause anything!
I'd hardly call this a humble opinion.
Why not read what a cosmologist actually says before you psychoanalyze their errors? You might find out that these errors don't actually exist in their work in the first place.
Hardly a modern cosmologist.... in fact, hardly a cosmologist at all in the modern sense of the term....
Actually, this is an old error, the problem and the solution predate Einstein. I think you are talking about the universal constant.
Really?
Infallible?! No. Come on. Proving Albert wrong became a hobby for the quantum physicists. Neils Bohr in particular ate Einstein's lunch on a regular basis. If their debates were a boxing match, the ref woulda stopped it in round 1. No one considered Einstein infallible.
Where on earth do you get this from?
But what do you base this judgement on? What if your basis itself is flawed due to lack of current knowledge of cosmology?
Oh, obviously.... of course. Actually, big bang theory demonstrates that our universe is in fact finite... all matter must have been relegated to an infintesimal point.... so I really don't know what grounds you are holding to here.... Of course, you could employ Hawking's finite but boundless model, but I doubt that's on your mind here.
Actually, that doesn't solve the problem! If that were the case, then all matter would still coalesce in one point! Newton's argument for an infinite static universe fails! Here's why:
"The failure of Newton's reasoning is an illustration of how careful one has to be in thinking about infinity. From a modern viewpoint, an infinite distribution of matter under the influence of gravity would unquestioningly collapse. One way to correctly understand the problem is to imagine approaching the infinite distribution of matter by considering a succession of fintie spheres with larger and larger radii. Suppose that two spheres of mass A and B have the same density of matter, but sphere B has twice the radius of sphere A. Suppose further that each sphere consits of a distribution of particles such as stars, that are very small compared to the distances beween them. Since the stars will not start to press agianst each other when the spheres begin to contract, there will be no pressure forces to resist their contraction. It can then be shown that gravity will cause both spheres to collapse in exactly the same amount of time! We can imagine doubling and redoubling the size of the sphere in a vain attempt to avoid the obvious, but the time required for the collapse will not change! Since an infinite distribution of matter can be defined as the limit of a sphere when the radius is increased indefinately, it follows that the infinite distribution of mater will collapse in the same time as any finite sphere." - Alan Guth.
As Guth says "If you are able to grasp this, pat yourself on the back, as you are able to recognize a problem that the great Sir Issac himself couldn't grasp!"
By the way, if you are thinking "if the matter is spread evenly throughout an infinite universe, how would it choose a center to collapse?" - here's the answer: matter can contract uniformly without choosing a center... each observer would view himself as the center.... think of it as reverse expansion phenomena.... I ask you to read "The Inflationary Universe" by Alan Guth for more on this.
You need to bone up on cosmology before you continue. We all do, no offense.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
But the expansion doesn't concern matter traveling through the universe, its an expansion of the universe itself..... so applying the speed of light limit might be a fallacy of composition.
Nice try, but you didn't really think this would work, did you? Megaverse theory, multiverse theory. Brane theory or other theories that attempt to argue for more than one universe are NOT supernatural claims!
There can't be something else there if we can't see it, right?
This is a childish strawman of the scientific method. The method does not rely on real-time observation, as this claim implies, it applies on rational-empirical methodology.
Considering the rest of your post was well reasoned, I'm hoping you were just joking around.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'