A.S. You seem to have done a lot of thinking on this issue and I am interested to know your thoughts. In a nutshell How did all this huge universe with an unfathomable amount of solid material come to be? I understand there is a big bang theory, but doesn't that require a compression of all this material into a critical mass that then explodes and creates an expanding universe of a huge,huge, unthinkable amount of material? A speck of which is earth that happened to be hospitable to the formation of chemical reactions that became life? Where did that material originate?
How's your math?........
I thank you for your effort but I'm a high school graduate only and almost 67 years old. I'm pretty good at arithmetic and real good at reading comprehension. This discussion and your answer are so far over my head I guess I'll do like my wife does about politics and just forget about it. But anyway thanks again and sorry for putting you to the trouble. Best thing for me to do is to go back to arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic that our country has become.
Hastings, Let me apologize for the complexity of my answer. Since you feel you are better with words than numbers, lets try to stick to mostly words and skip the numbers. Imagine you need to build a house, but have a personal net worth of exactly zero (We begin with nothing). Now we're going to assume a special idealized world for this example, one where every dollar spent on building the house creates exactly one dollars worth of value in the finished product, so in the process, not value can be created, nor destroyed. (This represent the conservation of energy). By building the house you create an asset (matter)You can borrow exactly what you need from a bank, but this creates a liability (negative gravitational energy)You build a new house worth 200k, and in the process take out a loan for exactly 200k. At the end of the process, you have a new house (Matter in the Universe), but an equal amount of debt (negative gravitational energy), so your net worth remains exactly zero (Net energy level of the entire local presentation of our universe). You have created an asset out of nothing. All of your friends marvel at your new wonderful house, but are unable to see or even comprehend the nature of your bank note, so they idolize you as the amazing man who created a house out of nothing.
Ok, I'm going to study your answer tomorrow when I'm not drifting off. So thanks again for humoring me. Another Question, do you think our expanding universe runs out of energy and collapses back into a super compressed entity that explodes again in a big bang. Have these compression events and bangs been happening forever. I understand we are talking eons.
Hastings,
That's a great question, one I contemplated for many years before I found an answer that seemed to meet it's burden of proof to me.
For background, let's recall what happens when too much matter comes into to close of proximity. Gravity binds it together, and given enough mass close enough you get a black hole with a density sufficient to bend the fabric of space time itself.
The same principle also applies at much lower densities. The density of matter affects the "curvature" of the local presentation of our Universe.
A universe with a high matter density is said to be "closed". The density of the matter is such that the universe would eventually collapse back onto it's self into a new singularity. Now there's no guarantee the new singularity would be of the same nature as the one at the time of the Big Bang, so instead of a series of Big Bangs, it's possible such a universe would end as a single Black Hole containing all the matter of the universe.
The opposite condition is a universe with a low matter density, or one that's said to be "open". Even without dark matter, an open universe expands for ever, with the acceleration reaching a point where it over comes the forces of the gravitational, electromagnetic and strong binding forces, ripping apart the very fabric of space time itself.
The third possibility is a "flat" universe. In a flat universe, in the absence of dark matter, it expands for ever, but at a decreasing rate, until the rate of expansion eventually approximates (but never reaches) zero.
The empirical measurements indicate we live in a "flat universe", and are within the margin of error. Additionally, it's my understanding, a "Universe from nothing" as described above could only result in flat geometry.
Of course there's a twist. Dark Matter is real and it's accelerating the expansion of our universe. In this scenario, stars are expected to form normally for one to a hundred trillion years, but eventually the supply of gas needed for star formation will be exhausted. As existing stars run out of fuel and cease to shine, the universe will slowly and inexorably grow darker. Eventually black holes will dominate the universe, which themselves will disappear over time as they emit Hawking radiation.
I've hypothesized this state of the "heat death" of the universe could reach the condition we called "nothing", one where the laws of quantum mechanics once again takes over and the "nothing" once again becomes unstable and........BANG.........But this last part is just my speculation......
Last edited by antelope_sniper; 07/29/19.
You didn't use logic or reason to get into this opinion, I cannot use logic or reason to get you out of it.
You cannot over estimate the unimportance of nearly everything. John Maxwell
