daz28 wrote:
Science will be able to answer that question, eventually. By dating things, and understanding the composition of things, it can be achieved. It certainly couldn't have had a 'beginning', imo. What the fuck was there before the beginning then. Preseason????
...and the notion of nothing becoming something is unfathomable. Even fathoming nothingness is unachievable, because even thinking about nothingness makes it something. ZOMG!
One thing about the BB BB(that's big bang and bagboy, haha), is that it is only accounting for the matter in the universe. What about the space that it is expanding(contracting) in?? How large is it, and is there other things farther into this unknown area that we have no clue about??? We can only see so far, and assume that's how big the universe is. This has ALWAYS bugged me about astronomy. Just because you can't see any farther doesn't mean it's that big, or that old.
The Big Bang Theory is not accounting for only matter, it is accounting for energy as well.
The space that it would be expanding into would be a void. No matter, no energy. Nothing. That's what it is - nothing.
BagBoy wrote:
I'm no physicist, but I played one on TV.
Think about it. Everything came together in a tiny point to form the big bang. I don't think the physics community is anywhere unanimous on this issue, but if the rate at which all that matter shot out of the big bang slows and slows and slows over time, eventually that inertia or momentum can no longer compete with gravity. Then gravity will be free to draw back all the matter in the universe back into a tiny spot that finally gets too dense, and boom, another big bang. This may have happened a trillion times for all we know.
Yes, that's certainly a possibility. Assuming there was enough matter to give gravity enough force to pull it back together. But many signs point to the universe still speeding up, not slowing down. That's where dark energy comes in, which is thought to make up the majority of the energy of the universe.
It's really a fascinating subject to think about and definitely one that is hard to understand. If you ever get the chance to see a presentation by Dr. Dejan Stojkovic, a physics professor at UB, do it. He does a lot of work and research into the origins of the universe and different models of it. It's quite a fascinating presentation.