Would you buy it for a quarter?

I think the title means: wuold you find this notion plausible? or would you be able to suspend your disbelief?

The notion is this: in the far, far, far future people, and I use the term loosely, find a way to figure out what "happened" before the Big Bang. This leads to a most disturbing conclussion.

Can you believe there is any way in which information can be gathered "before" the Big Bang?

Quote: Nareed

Can you believe there is any way in which information can be gathered "before" the Big Bang?

The oscillatory universe is a cosmological model originally derived by Alexander Friedman 90 YEARS AGO. It is a theory in which the universe undergoes a series of oscillations (bounces), each beginning with a big bang and ending with a big crunch. After the big bang, the universe expands for a while before the gravitational attraction of matter causes it to collapse back in and undergo a bounce.


The big bang theory always leaves some puzzling quandaries. Either the collapsed universe remained that way for an infinite amount of time until suddenly it decided to explode, or time began with the explosion. The oscillating model is a little less taxing on our concept of time. I know it has been investigated by many top physicists in the past 90 years, so some of them believed that there was some emprirical evidence in the universe.

Quote: Pacomartin

It is a theory in which the universe undergoes a series of oscillations (bounces), each beginning with a big bang and ending with a big crunch. .

I think the universe has always been here
in one form or another, and so have we.
This confuses people because they think
they see beginnings and endings in every
thing, when what they're seeing is not
endings, but transitions.

I believe an 'enlightened' person, like they
have in Eastern religion, is a person who
realizes all of this on a primal level and
not just intellectually. It changes them,
everything that's important to us is meaningless
to them.

What astronomers know now is that we can never have a Big Crunch with what Dark Energy is doing. On the other hand, nobody has a clue what D.E. actually is, none whatsoever. So one theory is that it will cease and the Big Crunch will then be possible. Another theory has it constantly increasing, which would create a very bizarre universe indeed, all matter flinging apart.

Quote: Pacomartin

The oscillatory universe is a cosmological model originally derived by Alexander Friedman 90 YEARS AGO.

Did not Einstein show time is relative? ;)

Think a minute. Had Newton thought of passing light from a telescope through a prism, he'd have discovered the expansion of the universe centuries ahead of Hubble. Some discoveries depend on prior discoveries or developments, some don't.

Quote:

The big bang theory always leaves some puzzling quandaries. Either the collapsed universe remained that way for an infinite amount of time until suddenly it decided to explode, or time began with the explosion.

The thing is if time began with the expansion (it's not really an explosion IMO), then nothing happened before then because there was no before for things to happen. That is hard to conceive.

To make matters worse, we can only look or deduce conditions back to a small fraction of a second after the Big Bang. So we don't even know what happened at the Big Bang. To see beyond it would seem impossible. Now. Lots of things that seemed impossible before are routine now.

Quote: Nareed

I think the title means: wuold you find this notion plausible? or would you be able to suspend your disbelief?

The notion is this: in the far, far, far future people, and I use the term loosely, find a way to figure out what "happened" before the Big Bang. This leads to a most disturbing conclussion.

Can you believe there is any way in which information can be gathered "before" the Big Bang?

Seems I can't help without resorting to the never ending story.

Quote: Nareed

Did not Einstein show time is relative? ;)

The thing is if time began with the expansion (it's not really an explosion IMO), then nothing happened before then because there was no before for things to happen. That is hard to conceive.

I think the oscillating model (OM) of the universe really hit it's peak about three years after the Big Bang Theory. People were the most uncomfortable with the idea of the beginning of time, or a time before time.

Now that the ideas have been around for decades, and so other physicists have introduced concepts that used to be the domain of Zen Buddhism, the OM doesn't get as much attention.