What is Digg?320 Comments
- Poochyfud, on 04/27/2008, -5/+77Physics is so cool.
- ravage386, on 04/27/2008, -8/+75Pics or it didn't happen.
- specialK16, on 04/27/2008, -1/+62Buried as being 13.7 Billion years old.
- DifferentAngle, on 04/27/2008, -2/+48At T=0, Garoth0rk runs "sim_universe.exe"
- sykotik, on 04/27/2008, -5/+41Nothing existed. There was no space, there was no time, no matter, energy, there was NOTHING. The common misconception people, including myself, had or still have is that there is this infinitesimal point floating in the middle of nothing. Perhaps a blank black background, perhaps white. Not true, there was NOTHING. There was nothing for this point to exist in because NOTHING existed. I know, I know, it staggers the mind.
A favorite mental exercise of mine is to sit on my porch and look at a tree. Then I close my eyes and imagine that I "leave my body" and see the top of my head, then I steadily zoom out until I see my block, then my city, all the buildings and people going about their daily business, unaware of my ethereal presence, further out, I see the city and surrounding areas, further out, landscapes and trees, nothing discernible beyond large structures like mountains, further, I see the continent, then the planet, further, just a pale blue dot, further, the solar system floating through the milky way, further and further.
Done correctly, suddenly everything just *snaps* into perspective. You see life as it should be seen. Precious, minuscule, floating in an inky black sea of nothing, yet it's everything. You see that life is something to be embraced, to be loved, and lived to it's fullest until you're erased from this existence by death. Trivialities disappear, borders, differences, it all disappears and all you are confronted with is the cold, hard truth.
And that is that life is precious, rare, small, yet able to look up at the stars and see that it could be different, there could be no intelligence to contemplate upon itself or existence. The clarity is astounding. Everything seems inconsequential against the backdrop of the whole of the universe and this rare, precious thing we call existence. - TimberWolfGirl, on 04/27/2008, -9/+36VERY VERY cool.
- inactive, on 04/27/2008, -1/+24even if you don't understand it
- rollem, on 04/27/2008, -4/+27The time scale in the first few "Eras" is almost impossible to comprehend, I find it encouraging that people are able to study the forces that existed at those times.
"Even so, the timeline of events now emerging is every bit as astounding as the creation myths of the world's religions. " True... but an understatement. It's unimpressive to completely make up a story, it's astonishing that one could find and use real evidence to establish informed ideas about the creation of the universe. - tachyon663, on 04/27/2008, -1/+23INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER ...
- sonoran, on 04/27/2008, -4/+25That's merely your opinion. (Even if it's a sarcastic one.) Science, unlike certain other disciplines, has the sense to admit when something is unknown.
- sonoran, on 04/27/2008, -3/+24The only honest answer to that is: *No one* knows... and so far science hasn't found a way to get any "visibility" into that time-frame to even form a hypothesis.
- InfiniteNothing, on 04/27/2008, -3/+20What's north of the north pole?
- trogdoor, on 04/27/2008, -4/+21That would actually be at T=0 and as far as I know ( admittedly not much ) we don't know what happened at T=0, or even if there was 'nothing' to begin with.
- warp25, on 04/27/2008, -7/+22What I like to know is what existed just before the big bang occurred? My understanding is that space, energy, time and matter did not yet exist. So how did everything form from absolute nothingness?? I'm yet to see a scientific experiment forming something from nothing. Just asking.....
- K3ITHK, on 04/27/2008, -0/+14This was actually not in milliseconds.
- pimpnamedjino, on 04/27/2008, -1/+1410^-43 seconds Larry King was born.
- x0rcist, on 04/27/2008, -0/+12Let me elaborate:
T=0 is relative. If something happened before the Big Bang then would that be T=-x or would that be T=0?
Relative to the Big Bang, T=0 would be when the Big Bang happened, relative to infinity there is no T=0. - Xelseragoth, on 04/27/2008, -0/+12You need to meet some better physicists then, most of the ones I know are pretty cool...
- xero040486, on 04/27/2008, -1/+12Where'd that speck of matter/energy come from?
- Crossmenjeff, on 04/27/2008, -2/+13the farther out we can see in space, the more we can know about the past. its kind of weird to think like that but also very encouraging.
- x0rcist, on 04/27/2008, -1/+12http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Vacuum
In quantum physics, in a perfect vacuum, it has been observed for particles to appear and disappear for fractions of a second. This is also one of the theories as to where the Big Bang came from. - EarlOfLade, on 04/27/2008, -4/+15Correction. You have no such knowledge, only an unfounded fantasy unsupported by reality.
- cyrix, on 04/27/2008, -0/+10Ah yes. The ever present 404. All things come from it. All things vanish to it.
- gameboyhippo, on 04/27/2008, -3/+12I fully expect this to be buried, but here goes. I don't understand where these "facts" are coming from. They say what happen, but they do not explain why it is that they believe this is what happened. So to me, it all sounds like they have an answer (the universe today) and they insert the question to the one they like the best. So let's take a number... 42. Is it 6 x 7, 12 + 30, or 84 รท 2? (Actually it really sounds like they are saying. In the beginning 2 + 2 was -32, but then it changed to 4i + 7, finally one day it became 4 for no reason whatsoever. Creationism on the other hand just jumps to the end. 2 + 2 = 4 because God made it that way.)
Anyway, the article admits that this is as "astounding" as the beliefs of creationists. So I guess it's no big deal. I wouldn't want to offend anyone's religious beliefs But it sounds as logical as Scientology to have this fascinating story of the rules constantly changing without explanation. Oh well. Okay, now flame and/or bury me. - killbert24, on 04/27/2008, -19/+2811^-59 seconds: Nothing suddenly becomes something.
- uberpsycho, on 04/27/2008, -0/+9"Recent calculations suggest that close to the big bang, the fabric of space and time was so contorted that it flipped gravity into reverse, producing a repulsive force. If correct, this would mean that the big bang wasn't the start of the universe at all. Instead, it was merely a "big bounce", the latest in an endless series stretching back into the infinite past."
*head ecksplodes* - afx1, on 04/27/2008, -0/+9RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!!
- youtellme8, on 04/27/2008, -1/+10Interesting, although I am uncomfortable with the idea that time as a dimension began in our universe. I suspect that it as well as our spacial dimensions and others existed before this universe.
- silvershadow21, on 04/27/2008, -0/+9Dugg because you eloquently expressed your thought, rather than dismissing the article with a word.
- nyx210, on 04/27/2008, -3/+11you forgot the obligatory /sarcasm...
- trshtehdsh, on 04/27/2008, -1/+9i'm in an astronomy class right now, with the task to research the shape and fate of the universe. between that, and this (the beginning of the universe) - my mind is completely f*cked. as a scientist, i've always held the firm belief that things *only come* from other things. So where did the universe, no matter how tiny and dense it was, come from??? ...??????????
- BlackJackJester, on 04/27/2008, -0/+8It's interesting how hard it is for the human mind to comprehend infinity.
- Zaneris, on 04/27/2008, -0/+8Louis11: Um.... If you travel North and only North, you'll never head back South, only infinitely closer to the North pole.
It's impossible to go back South if you're heading North. His comment was more intelligent than it appeared to you :P - skews13, on 04/27/2008, -2/+10we are slowly gathering information in human kind. the fact that we don't have an answer for something yet,doesn't mean we eventually won't. the evidence coming in is starting to develope some holes in some long held beliefs. you can never stop searching for those answers because of the naysayers.
- Takteek, on 04/27/2008, -0/+8Nothing existing (anywhere) is something that the human mind cannot comprehend.
- sykotik, on 04/27/2008, -0/+8Hell yeah it is. One of my favorites: "an attosecond is to a second is like a second to the age of the universe."
And we can probe that far down. That's amazing. - talonstriker, on 04/27/2008, -3/+11@slotimus, yes this is one big guess, because it is as of yet not conclusively proven. But the bible on the other hand claims that it is correct even though it has been conclusively proven to be wrong in many aspects--hence lacks any credibility.
- nakani, on 04/27/2008, -0/+8energy came from ____
- CatsAreGods, on 04/27/2008, -0/+8How does sykotik only have like 1 digg at this point?!?!? He can actually *write*!
- eir574, on 04/27/2008, -0/+7You've probably heard this before, but it's worth repeating: Scientific theories are never proven. The best we can do is to continue to try to disprove a theory and show that it holds up to those attacks.
- yaddayaddayoda, on 04/27/2008, -5/+12Genesis 1:
Boreded Ceiling Cat makinkgz Urf n stuffs
1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.
2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz.
3 At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.
4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.
5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1 - insinuate, on 04/27/2008, -0/+7"Only then can they hope to describe conditions at the big bang, when all space and time was compressed into a volume far smaller than a proton."
:HEAD EXPLODES!!!: - casuallyevil, on 04/27/2008, -1/+8"What existed before existence" isn't a valid question - "before" implies precedence, which requires time, which wouldn't exist independent of matter and energy. It's even difficult here to define these "seconds" they keep score with, particularly before the fundamental forces unified. It's not valid to say "nothing existing anywhere is impossible for humans to comprehend," because it doesn't really mean anything - nothing existing anywhere can't happen without defining this "where," it's a philosophical cop-out. It's like asking "where is the universe?" It's a conceptually flawed question. For there to be anything before the universe, you'd have to count it as the universe.
- bridgeyman, on 04/27/2008, -3/+10"creation myths of the world's religions" Ouch.
- eir574, on 04/27/2008, -1/+8We all face the problem of having to decide which sources to trust in areas where we don't have expertise ourselves. Your summary of the big bang theory as "a soccer-ball size mass of energy that 'was there' from the beginning of time [and] just exploded" is not exactly how physicists would put it. Have you examined the primary data yourself? Have you spent years of your life studying physics in order to gain the foundation you'd need to do that? If not, how can you just say it defies your common sense, and therefore it's absurd to believe it?
- sonoran, on 04/27/2008, -0/+6eir574 Exactly! Proof is for mathemticians and philosophers... even lawyers qualify it as being "beyond a reasonable doubt". "Proof" and "Truth" (with a capital "T") are not really within the human repitore... but we like to delude ourselves that they are.
- 3uphoria, on 04/27/2008, -5/+11So hard to actually imagine the nothingness before the start, and matter expanding into a void.
- BoneheadFarker, on 04/27/2008, -0/+6Except that things start to get a little strange when you have all that matter and energy condensed so much that the fabric of space-time itself begins twisting. If it's enough to reverse gravity, then time is not the time we know now.
And I've really gotta stop reading articles like this right before bed. Now I'm going to be up for hours thinking... - sonoran, on 04/27/2008, -1/+6If "God" is considered part of the system you're analyzing, then that's the answer that will satisfy all questions. There's no possiblity of another answer or that any evidence could ever prove inconsistent with that answer. It answers everything and illuminates nothing, which is why science doesn't bother with it.
- sykotik, on 04/27/2008, -1/+6Welcome to life my friend.
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