Rather OT I know, but here goes.

I enjoyed watching Horizon’s “Is everything we know about the universe wrong?” episode recently which looked at flaws in the “standard theory” of the creation of the universe, and the bolt on theories dreamt up to keep it working despite of the flaws (I’m inclined to think that perhaps everything we do know about the universe is wrong, I find the idea quite appealing).

One such bolt on theory was inflation. Apparently the temperature of the cosmic background radiation (the supposed after glow of the big bang) is far too constant to have originated from a standard chaotic explosion. Inflation addresses this by theorising that the universe exploded onto the scene in a small way, stayed small for a while to allow the temperature to equalise then suddenly ‘inflated’. The values quoted, if I remember them correctly, were something along the lines of an expansion of a quadrillion times in a fraction of a section, but if that was the case surely that means everything must have traveled many times over the speed of light and I though that was some sort of unbreachable boundary…

… or am I just being thick? Just because I enjoy watching Horizon doesn’t mean I necessarily understand a word they’re talking about.

i’m sure your concerns will be addressed in a future humourous episode of the big bang theory.

WE DONT KNOW
ok the speed of light does not need to be broken the Big Bang needs to expand briefly then wait long enough for everything to be evenly spread out [ heat] and then inflate again. There is no need to break the speed of light – the smaller the size of the initial expansion the faster the spread of entropy [ even dispersal of heat].
On the broader theme you hint at we dont really know what laws were applicable at that time. Before the Big bang happened there were no laws of science, no light no time etc so we dont really know how or what applied or when our laws came into being; instantly after a bit of cooling etc? we just know the effect of this Big Bang.

Well, I’m very much the layman but was trying to get my head around an expansion of a quadrillion times in a fraction of a second; it sounds fast to me!

Wikipedia has a page but I think it’s going to make my head hurt!

a fraction of a second

…sounds a bit approximate 😐

They’re winging it. What I really like is that despite their obvious winging it they still get billions in funding.

You can’t transmit information faster than the speed of light, but that doesn’t forbid the expansion of space-time at FTL speeds.

They’re winging it. What I really like is that despite their obvious winging it they still get billions in funding.

Well the funding will dry up once they actually work out the answers, what they have to do is keep promising that they are making progress and will work it out one day, as long as the cheques keep getting signed.

Nice troll SBZ but not understanding how the big bang created the scenario is not the same as not knowing there was a big bang – ther eis a point of origin of everything and we have divergent evidence for this [ cosmology , astrophysics etc]
They do give the time a measure

It lasted from 10?36 seconds after the Big Bang to sometime between 10?33 and 10?32 seconds.

which i think can be described as a fraction of a second to help the layperson understand it t hose figures should be avove the number but it does not show on here

Surrounded By Zulus – Member

…They’re winging it…

if they are, they’re very good at winging it:

(graph from cobe)

Another question that arises from their winging it is – what is the real life benefit of knowing how the universe started and developed?

Better to spend that money on investigating nuclear fusion or something useful.

Surrounded By Zulus – Member

Another question that arises from their winging it is – what is the real life benefit of knowing how the universe started and developed?

we no longer burn witches people with red hair to punish them for a bad harvest?

ahwiles – Member
Surrounded By Zulus – Member
…They’re winging it…

if they are, they’re very good at winging it:

(graph from cobe)

POSTED 22 MINUTES AGO # RE

good old gnuplot

but if that was the case surely that means everything must have traveled many times over the speed of light

Not really – if spacetime expands, you haven’t travelled anywhere have you? Imagine being an ant on the surface of a balloon, and the balloon being blown up. You’re stood stock still, but everything else is getting further away. All ants stood on the balloon will think the same way. Now imagine there were dots drawn on the balloon, and the only way the ants had of telling distance was counting the dots between themselves and their neighbours.. see what I mean?

What I really like is that despite their obvious winging it they still get billions in funding.

How much money do you think actually gets spent on big bang research? It’s just a few blokes with pen and paper, hardly big budget stuff compared to experimental fusion reactors and particle accelerators and the like.. well.. ok so the big bang people do spend time on the big machines… The reason we spend money on it is because it’s part of our culture. Like spending money on the arts or parks and gardens and so on.