What is the Universe expanding into..

Do you think there was anything before the big bang?

  • I don't think there was anything before the Big Bang

    Votes: 56 12.5%
  • I think something existed before the Big Bang

    Votes: 200 44.7%
  • I don't think the big bang happened

    Votes: 54 12.1%
  • I think the universe is part of a mutiverse

    Votes: 201 45.0%

  • Total voters
    447
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Interestingly, DE only became the major force ‘pushing’ everything apart between 7 and 9 billion yrs ago - it was not present straight after the Big Bang, or if it was present prior to 7-9 billion yrs ago, it was swamped by other forces.

The other point is it appears to be uniform throughout the cosmos - so not clumpy like ordinary matter at ~ 7 × 10−30 g/cm3 (cf the wiki article).
 
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Saw this 😉
 

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Ah! Terry Pratchett OBE - sadly missed.

Perhaps photons of light are not their own antiparticles after all, and the darkness in the universe is due to the presence of hitherto undetected 'dark' anti-photons.

P.S. I do not offer that as a viable hypothesis - it is just plain silly.

Unless, of course, it turns out to be true - in which case I will claim all the credit! 😉
 
This is why the universe will be completely dark when all matter has turned into photons. Efter this, all photons start to collapse into one single point... hence, the big crunch.

And it all happens again - around and around, forever and ever...

//
 
The opposite of matter being converted into photons would be photons being converted into matter.

According to a theory first devised by scientists Breit and Wheeler in 1934, if you smash two photons together hard enough, you can generate matter - an electron-positron pair.

Up till now, it has not been possible to generate sufficiently energetic photons to prove the theory correct. The photons would have to be gamma ray photons, and we don't have a gamma ray laser.

However, and hot off the press, physicists have detected the strongest evidence yet that matter can be generated by collisions of light.

The process is complicated, but can be examined here: Physicists Detect Strongest Evidence Yet of Matter Generated by Collisions of Light
 
But the process you are talking about took place during and just subsequent to the BB (see Steven Weinberg ‘The First Three Minutes’). Surely when all matter eventually decays into photons at the end of the universes life, it will be trillions of LY in diameter, photons will be very diffuse and the temperature will be at circa absolute zero. How will matter form spontaneously in that situation?
 
Just been reading about the 2nd law of thermodynamics and how biological processes move from disorder to highly ordered systems through ‘work done’.

How do highly ordered systems arise out of disorder? And why would evolution (life as we know it) move in the opposite direction to that of entropy?
 
How do highly ordered systems arise out of disorder? And why would evolution (life as we know it) move in the opposite direction to that of entropy?
Back in post #6581 I mentioned the project "Life on the Edge: quantum thermodynamics, quantum biology and the arrow of time" which will be led by Professor Jim Al-Khalili and Dr Andrea Rocco of the University of Surrey.

The idea is to explore the distinct ways in which the thermodynamic arrow of time manifests in living organisms compared to inanimate objects.

The hypothesis is that biological systems may have evolved to harness quantum processes, such as quantum thermodynamics.

Quanta Magazine

Perhaps the Surrey team may come up with the answers you seek. 😎
 
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