Conservation of Energy and the Big Bang, AKA Why 'something can come from nothing.'

[Vagn]

Conservation of Energy and the Big Bang:-

First of all we must understand that the big bang is not an 'explosion' as such, the name was actually given by a critic of the theory, the big band is actually a theory that describes the expansion of the singularity for t > 0, i.e after the expansion first began 13.75 billion years ago. Before this general relativity falls apart, so we can not use it to determine what was occurring.

From the First Law of Thermodynamics (1st law of ThD), we know that in a closed system, we know that energy can not be made or destroyed, which leads to the question, how can something come from nothing?

Strictly speaking the answer is we don't know, as it is the default scientific position, however there are several hypotheses as to how it occurred:

It has been suggested that there are forms of 'negative' or 'anti-energy' which was created in equal amounts after the big bang, this would mean the total energy of the Universe is zero. One possibility is that gravitational potential energy, is the corresponding 'negative energy' and therefore whenever any energy is produced a gravitational field is also produced therefore hypothetically energy and thereby mass could be made without violating the 1st law of ThD.

There is also another situation in Quantum Mechanics where energy can be 'made'. In Quantum Electrodynamics, vacuums have energy coincidentally called vacuum energy and are filled with 'virtual particles' which are produced and annihilated constantly. These virtual particles consist of 'borrowed energy' from the vacuum itself, however they annihilate so quickly that the energy is regained by the vacuum rapidly.

We also do not know whether the universe is in fact a closed system, as recently a group of galaxies has been detected travelling faster in one direction than they should be, this was called the dark flow. We do not yet know what is causing the dark flow, and it may possibly be an experimental error, due to improber calibration of the instruments, however we are unsure.

[Vizsla]

I like this one:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s...-universe.html

The idea is intelligent creatures, a bit like us, somewhere in the multiverse develop the technology to start off new universes. Apparently you only need something slightly bigger than the LHC. They make ones with physical constants that are likely to create intelligent critters like themselves, and us. Then the intelligent critter progeny go on to develop the technology to create new universes. The cycle continues forever with more and more universes with intelligent creatures like us in them.
Just read the f-ing article.

[MathiasOfAthens]

We also do not know whether the universe is in fact a closed system, as recently a group of galaxies has been detected travelling faster in one direction than they should be, this was called the dark flow.

Sounds like they being sucked out of the universe?? Scary thought.

Ok Vizsla before I read the article what started the first big bang for the first group of designers?

[Vizsla]

No one knows.
Anyone who says they know is lying.

The point is:


If there is even a tiny chance of it happening just once somewhere in the multiverse then once it has happened the chances of similar universes, like ours, existing becomes almost a certainty.
So we have removed doubt.

[MathiasOfAthens]

True, good point.