Why Not the Big Crunch

[NavajoEverclear]

I hear that the big crunch idea is losing credibility, and i want to know why. I really like the idea because it means the universe will survive. In the lame expansion thing it just dissapates and is gone forever.

 

But the crunch idea also makes more sense, to me. What caused the big bang? there must have been a beginning to the beginning, and it would make sense that the bang came from the crunch and it goes around forever.

 

The dissapation idea seems to mean that something (the expanse of the universe) had no cause and will never happen again. If its just to dissapate, how can it have cause? In the bang/crunch idea it just goes on forever, it will never be different so it will keep going on forever. In the other theory is there any possibility of an infinate existence before this expansion of the universe? In that case why would it suddenly just die now?

 

If you say this beginning was the only beginning, then you are saying something came from nothing, and that makes no sense (to my understanding, i presume all who oppose the crunch idea will tell me where my reasoning is flawed in their view)

[alt_f13]

The universe obviously began somehow, so don't sweat it.

 

The universe is expanding too quickly for gravity to bring it back in, so it has only to fizzle out.

 

Plus, with the infinite possiblilities the universe presents, I'm sure you'll pop up again sooner or later. Watch the PBS Elegant Universe NOVA special for that interpretation of the big bang etc.

[NavajoEverclear]

how would we know its expanding to fast for gravity? wouldn't that require us to know how big it is, and isn't that kind of impossible?

I'll try to find that program anyhow.

[NavajoEverclear]

aight, why isn't anyone responding to this? This is a big issue!

[jordan]

The server was down the better part of the day. Give it time.

 

We cannot at this time be sure if there is enough mass to counter the expansion or not. This is due to the fact that people don't really know everything that's out there. I think the dark matter issue is the real holdup. But even so, I'm pretty sure the majority agreence is on big cruch over heat death.

[Martin]

i do not mind the fact that a milkweed pod ripens and bursts open and dissipates into the air and the seeds float away and start new plants.

this image does not bother me

I do not require that this particular pod come back together again

 

 

if the stars ripen and become black holes which hatch into new universes then it seems better to me that our universe NOT collapse because it might then (unless they broke free) crush its offspring also. I think it is safer if our universe would just keep steadily expanding

 

surely it has already made millions of black holes and will make millions more, as the tail of a peacock has eyes or seedy bananabread has sesame seeds---well you think of an image I am hungry and thats the only thing I can think of right now

 

I dont believe anything. I am just waiting to learn more.

 

Everclear your sig: "Oh such tacos I will give." is a nice thought.

Have a crunch if you like. We can each think of the cosmic future as we wish.

[NavajoEverclear]

What about these black hole universes? Is this an accepted idea? i remember a thread about that, but didn't read that much into it i guess. I could be happy with that idea too, you see my problem was the logic of it ever ending. Us existing at all can only imply that there is an eternal cycle of things---- otherwise it would mean we came from nothing. If the black hole idea fulfills the requirement of the universe or universes in some way continuing, it makes sense.

 

EDIT: I'm an idiot, that blackhole thread is YOURS and I replied on it. I'm going to go back and check out some of those links

[Martin]

... that blackhole thread is YOURS and I replied on it. I'm going to go back and check out some of those links

 

no it is not an accepted idea, but the guy who developed the idea is a good scientist and it is a testable idea (he derives checkable predictions from it)

so although it is strange it is not foolish-----personally I am not bothered that it isnt yet generally accepted.

 

in fact I was glad of your response in the other thread, which also had some truth to it.

[NavajoEverclear]

in fact I was glad of your response in the other thread, which also had some truth to it.

 

totally man. embrace the opposition, its the only way to live.

[5614]

there are multiple theories about the uiverse and its beginning and ending:

 

there are three main theories about it all.

 

one theory that there will be a big crunch, only a theory though,

 

the other two theories are that, in the end the universe will stop expanding and stay still,

 

and the other that the universe will keep expanding forever.

 

each theory has proof, although i dont know all of it, those are the three main, credited theories!

[NavajoEverclear]

thanks for identifying those. Yeah i know there is proof the the expansion one, i think it was because the speed of the expansion is speeding up, not slowing down, but i dont think it makes sense for the reason I said it, if it ends the cycle. However if universes are born out of black holes it supports the continuity. I don't see non-continuity as a possibility-- the way i see it, we are either here now because we have been here forever (well not us individually, but our matter and the universe and all) and will be here forever, or we had a definate beginning, which means we came from nothing, which is impossible.

[Martin]

... However if universes are born out of black holes it supports the continuity. I don't see non-continuity as a possibility-- the way i see it, we are either here now because we have been here forever....

 

Everclear I will put in a link to that blackhole budding multiverse idea

in case anyone reading the thread wants to follow up on it.

the main source is Smolin's book "The Life of the Cosmos" published in 1996 and may be available in the library. A recent online essay on by the same author is

http://arxiv.org/hep-th/0407213

"Scientific Alternatives to the Anthropic Principle"

a chapter in a book to be published this year by

Cambridge U. Press called "Universe or Multiverse?"

 

the point is not you are supposed to believe or disbelieve this

multiverse idea---it is that if you imagine it clearly enough you can

see that it predicts certain things about our universe----certain things will

be found or not found by astronomers, certain measurements...

So that the idea of a budding universe, although strange, is testable.

 

One might be able to make some astronomical observation that would

prove it false, or at least refute one of its assumptions. that is good

because if it weren't testable it wouldn't have a scientific meaning

(it might still have meaning in poetry or art, but not in science context)

 

I will adapt your words to express the idea: "We are here now because universes in the past had black holes and offspring universes expanded from their bottoms. And because these offspring universes in turn had stars and those stars eventually collapsed, sometimes forming black holes, whose bottoms in turn budded into still more universes. As far as we know it has always been so. And this never-ending budding leads to a kind of universe evolving which is good at making stars and eventually producing black holes. We are here now because life is a kind of cousin of stars and black holes: the same factors that facilitiate star-formation also coincidentally result in plenty of different chemical elements and enable the chemistry of life"

 

I have plenty of unanswered questions about smolin's Multi idea which I would love to be able to ask, but i dont want to bug Smolin (and run the risk of being rejected) and I dont know anything to do but wait for the next article to come out.

 

[edit: here is an amazon link to Smolin's 1997 book "The Life of the Cosmos"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/019510837X/104-6431024-7954306?v=glance]

[NavajoEverclear]

thanks. I need to check that out next time i go to the library (which will have to be in a few weeks since i've run out of online renewing of some evolution books I've had out for a few monthes)

[Martin]

thanks. I need to check that out next time i go to the library (which will have to be in a few weeks since i've run out of online renewing of some evolution books I've had out for a few monthes)

 

do they have a good library at Blorch?

I am imagining that you walk in and there is a slaughtering rat librarian sitting at the reference desk and you want to ask her

"where can I find books on Evolution, if you please?" but

suddenly you catch a strange look in her eyes and decide to

hunt for them yourself

 

Seriously, what books about evolution? find any good ones?

[Sayonara]

I'm pretty sure Blorch underwent an organic sweep. There won't be any slaughtering rat librarians left.

[Guest Jesus Christ]

Nobody will ever answer this there is not enough time and too many possibilities,My guess and everyone elses guess is good as mr hawk man because to answer this question of how the universe started and ended you would have to figure out what the universe really is and why there is a universe and to do such a task you would have to travel as far as possible to the unknown.

 

My best guess within me we are just a thought in gods mind the universe is just a spark within one of gods brain cells. lol far out huh ok

 

Mabey the universe is a empty void inside somthing bigger then the universe, like the universe is the beginning of life for somthing bigger like algae and plankton for another dimension and the universe will evolve into something larger and smarter then we can comprehend and we turn into the virus inside it that kills it in the end. or we are consumed by the other dimension to feed it so that it can grow and be consumed by something else.

 

Put both theroies together and we kill god or feed god and god kills us. thats just my theory.

i dont mean god literaly i use the word god as making sense of what could be bigger than us so in a sense god could be anything living or starting to live.

 

anyway we wont be around to find out "BUT" if we ever find a way to live forever we will never really live forever because adventually our enviorment in which we live will be gone. "BUT" if we did find away to escape the fate of our universe we would die anyway because laws of physics could and most likey would be different. man you humans dont have a chance. like ants building a ant hill just to see someone knock it down and build a skyscraper.

 

Thank god im the jesus

[AL]

But the crunch idea also makes more sense, to me. What caused the big bang? there must have been a beginning to the beginning, and it would make sense that the bang came from the crunch and it goes around forever.

Time and space are intertwined. There need not be a "beginning to the beginning" if time is undefined "prior" to the Big Bang. I use the term "prior" loosely there, but you get the drift.

 

In a multiverse theory, I suppose you could define a prior time in whatever universe spawned ours. It doesn't seem necessary though.

If you say this beginning was the only beginning, then you are saying something came from nothing, and that makes no sense (to my understanding, i presume all who oppose the crunch idea will tell me where my reasoning is flawed in their view)

From a philosophical standpoint, "nothingness" cannot be, therefore "something" must be. The problem though is that time need not be part of the something that was. I know it's difficult to imagine a point where time doesn't pass, but if you think of a singularity without attaching any thoughts or connotations of time to it, you'll find that there is nothing illogical about a singularity simply having "always" been, and thus no need to conclude that something came from nothing. Again, I use the term "always" loosely there since it connotes time. It's difficult to detach time from our language.

[Martin]

Time and space are intertwined. There need not be a "beginning to the beginning" if time is undefined "prior" to the Big Bang. I use the term "prior" loosely there' date=' but you get the drift.

 

...[/quote']

 

You mean time USED to be undefined prior to the big bang.

that was a mistake in the theory

it was fixed in 2001 by a young german physicist

then at Penn State

time goes straight on back past where the break was

just like time usually does.

there have been a lot of papers written about this

since 2001 by people all over the world

(but popular writers have been slow to catch up)

 

time before is defined business-as-usual

but for the Pop Sci scene, the idea of Bang is sexy

so it remains big in the mind of man.

 

would you like some links to online reading material

(most of it is just standard academic technical journal stuff

so it has formulas)

[AL]

Hmm...that's interesting. Yeah, I'd definitely be interested in online reading material so thanks in advance if you can post the links. Since I don't do peer review I don't read journals, but if I can get a rough idea of what this Penn State physicist came up with it would be helpful.