Office conversation

Originally Posted by northwind

"Nothing, nothing's what you got when you ain't got something."

"Nothing" by A, great song!



Anyhoo, back to the discussion... This was quite "interesting"... by interesting I mean complex...

How closely we can extrapolate towards the singularity is debated—certainly not earlier than the Planck Epoch. The early hot, dense phase is itself referred to as "the Big Bang",[16] and is considered the "birth" of our universe.......

The earliest phases of the Big Bang are subject to much speculation. In the most common models, the universe was filled homogeneously and isotropically with an incredibly high energy density and concomitantly huge temperatures and pressures, very rapidly expanding and cooling.

Hope that made sense

Thus, if the Big Bang was extreme temperatures, high energy and pressures, then pre-Big Bang must be lesser temperatures and pressures ... Ok, that makes sense to me, BUT what caused the increase in pressures and temps etc? Arghhh!

hmm I knew there was a reason I chose biology over quantum mechanics

Originally Posted by Ed

Can you define voltage without using the term 'potential difference' - it's not easy. But if there is no voltage, no potential difference, there is nothing - so 'nothing' is what's happening inside the wires before you switch the juice on.

By that definition, "nothing" is the state of electrons in the wire prior to supplying a voltage. Therefore "nothing" once again, is "something."

By the way, voltage isn't potential anything. It either is or it isn't. It's a mesaure of pressure (you either have it or you don't) under which electricity flows. (Current being a measure of how much is flowing because of the pressure).

Originally Posted by TVR_Tracy

Thus, if the Big Bang was extreme temperatures, high energy and pressures, then pre-Big Bang must be lesser temperatures and pressures ... Ok, that makes sense to me, BUT what caused the increase in pressures and temps etc? Arghhh!

hmm I knew there was a reason I chose biology over quantum mechanics

Collision of particles causes interactions that could be described as pressure, or that cause friction and therefore temperature.

Think of radiation (surely you studied that under biology), irradiated particles are warmed by collisions. The higher the frequency of radiation, the shorter it travels (alpha radiation) but more importantly, the more damage caused.

Originally Posted by TVR_Tracy

Thus, if the Big Bang was extreme temperatures, high energy and pressures, then pre-Big Bang must be lesser temperatures and pressures

Sounds a bit like false logic to me...the quotation states the high temperature and pressure with no speculation as to conditions before that. As far as we know 'pre-Big Bang', assuming there to be such a period, temperature and pressure may have been even higher still? Just speculation, and I'm no scientist, but you can't extrapolate from one state and assume the certainty of another without substantiation.

As far as my memory goes, you wouldn't need anyone to 'create' the high temperatures and pressures from a previous state of lower ones, they exist as a by-product of the enormous mass crammed into such a tiny little space.

Originally Posted by MeridiaNx

As far as my memory goes, you wouldn't need anyone to 'create' the high temperatures and pressures from a previous state of lower ones, they exist as a by-product of the enormous mass crammed into such a tiny little space.

Correct. You can stick gas in a canister, and increase the pressure as much as you like. Eventually the canister will break. If that cracking produces sparks, then you'd better be out of the way.

Fire (and therefore explosions) need 3 things:
Heat
Fuel
Oxygen

I find the last one of those interesting in the big bang theory. Oxygen must of existed in space for there to be an "explosion."

Hehe, all this sciency-talk...I'm guessing that means you want a science-type answer to this? Or are you carefully ignoring the philosophical one I put on the previous page?

Coming at it from that angle (seeing as I know bugger all about science), then nothingness doesn't actually exist; it is an active state all of its own, much as white is a combination of all colours rather than an absence of any. So says Coleridge anyway.

Originally Posted by MeridiaNx

Hehe, all this sciency-talk...I'm guessing that means you want a science-type answer to this? Or are you carefully ignoring the philosophical one I put on the previous page?

I'm not ignoring anything, I agreed with MiniMatt & said that if I wanted to be pedantic I could still pick faults. As your #2 points out, nothing is a state, therefore, it is something.

Oh yea, and I'm still on the first page (settings allow for 40 posts per page )

Originally Posted by Baph

I'm not ignoring anything, I agreed with MiniMatt & said that if I wanted to be pedantic I could still pick faults.

Oh yea, and I'm still on the first page (settings allow for 40 posts per page )

*a small squeak can be heard from page 3* LIES!!!!!

Originally Posted by Baph

I find the last one of those interesting in the big bang theory. Oxygen must of existed in space for there to be an "explosion."

That, of course, is assuming that the 'explosion' was similar to those we currently understand...no reason why it couldn't have operated in a different manner though.

I imagine it could work somehow like a giant magnet being turned on, forcing everything apart. Or it always was on, but the forces keeping the mass in such a small space were suddenly removed. Can't quite remember how magnetic forces interact with gravity/mass/energy etc. but I'm sure there's a link somewhere...

Originally Posted by Ping

*a small squeak can be heard from page 3* LIES!!!!!

Page 3? Like the one in The Sun?

I opened the discussion, does that mean I have to reply to everything in the thread, or be accused of ignoring things?