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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The difference was described and discussed only recently in this thread.

Cosmic inflation is a rapid period of exponential expansion that is now hypothesised to have occurred before the hot Big Bang and the creation of the universe as we know it.

The metric expansion of space is the increase of the distance between two distant parts of the universe with time. It is an intrinsic expansion - that is, it is defined by the relative separation of parts of the universe and not by motion "outward" into pre-existing space as, for example, an explosion of matter.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/starts...ang/?msclkid=b92631acb4f011ecbe9517926b2a9b59
 
some thoughts to think upon

from Albert Einstein:

“I didn't arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind.”
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. Matter is spirit reduced to point of visibility. There is no matter.”
"Time and space are not conditions in which we live, but modes by which we think.
Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, determined by the external world."
“Time does not exist – we invented it. Time is what the clock says. The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
“I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me."
"The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why.”
"A human being experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
"Our separation from each other is an optical illusion."
“When something vibrates, the electrons of the entire universe resonate with it. Everything is connected. The greatest tragedy of human existence is the illusion of separateness.”
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.”
“When you examine the lives of the most influential people who have ever walked among us, you discover one thread that winds through them all. They have been aligned first with their spiritual nature and only then with their physical selves.”
“The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.”
“The ancients knew something, which we seem to have forgotten.”
“The more I learn of physics, the more I am drawn to metaphysics.”
“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike. We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us. It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware.”
“I’m not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books.”
"The common idea that I am an atheist is based on a big mistake. Anyone who interprets my scientific theories this way, did not understand them."
"Everything is determined, every beginning and ending, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."
and so--
0 What is all encompassing can have no opposite.
1 Before the beginning was a Cause and the entire purpose of the Cause was the creation of effect.
2 In the beginning and forever is the decision and the decision is TO BE.
3 The first action of beingness is to assume a viewpoint.
4 The second action of beingness is to extend from the viewpoint, points to view, which are dimension points.
5 Thus there is space created, for the definition of space is: viewpoint of dimension. And the purpose of a dimension point is space and a point of view.
6 The action of a dimension point is reaching and withdrawing.
7 And from the viewpoint to the dimension points there are connection and interchange. Thus new dimension points are made. Thus there is communication.
8 And thus there is light.
9 And thus there is energy.
10 And thus there is life.
11 But there are other viewpoints and these viewpoints outthrust points to view. And there comes about an interchange amongst viewpoints; but the interchange is never otherwise than in terms of exchanging dimension points.
12 The dimension point can be moved by the viewpoint, for the viewpoint, in addition to creative ability and consideration, possesses volition and potential independence of action; and the viewpoint, viewing dimension points, can change in relation to its own or other dimension points or viewpoints. Thus comes about all the fundamentals there are to motion.
13 The dimension points are each and every one, whether large or small, solid. And they are solid solely because the viewpoints say they are solid.
14 Many dimension points combine into larger gases, fluids or solids. Thus there is matter. But the most valued point is admiration, and admiration is so strong its absence alone permits persistence.
15 The dimension point can be different from other dimension points and thus can possess an individual quality. And many dimension points can possess a similar quality, and others can possess a similar quality unto themselves. Thus comes about the quality of classes of matter.
16 The viewpoint can combine dimension points into forms and the forms can be simple or complex and can be at different distances from the viewpoints and so there can be combinations of form. And the forms are capable of motion and the viewpoints are capable of motion and so there can be motion of forms.
17 And the opinion of the viewpoint regulates the consideration of the forms, their stillness or their motion, and these considerations consist of assignment of beauty or ugliness to the forms and these considerations alone are art.
18 It is the opinions of the viewpoints that some of these forms should endure. Thus there is survival.
19 And the viewpoint can never perish; but the form can perish.
20 And the many viewpoints, interacting, become dependent upon one another’s forms and do not choose to distinguish completely the ownership of dimension points and so comes about a dependency upon the dimension points and upon the other viewpoints.
21 From this comes a consistency of viewpoint of the interaction of dimension points and this, regulated, is time.
22 And there are universes.
23 The universes, then, are three in number: the universe created by one viewpoint, the universe created by every other viewpoint, the universe created by the mutual action of viewpoints which is agreed to be upheld – the physical universe.
24 And the viewpoints are never seen. And the viewpoints consider more and more that the dimension points are valuable. And the viewpoints try to become the anchor points and forget that they can create more points and space and forms. Thus comes about scarcity. And the dimension points can perish and so the viewpoints assume that they, too, can perish.
25 Thus comes about death.
26 The manifestations of pleasure and pain, of thought, emotion and effort, of thinking, of sensation, of affinity, reality, communication, of behavior and being are thus derived and the riddles of our universe are apparently contained and answered herein.
27 There is beingness, but man believes there is only becomingness.
28 The resolution of any problem posed here by is the establishment of view-points and dimension points, the betterment of condition and concourse amongst dimension points, and, thereby, viewpoints, and the remedy of abundance or scarcity in all things, pleasant or ugly, by the rehabilitation of the ability of the viewpoint to assume points of view and create and uncreate, neglect, start, change and stop dimension points of any kind at the determinism of the viewpoint. Certainty in all three universes must be regained, for certainty, not data, is knowledge.
29 In the opinion of the viewpoint, any beingness, any thing, is better than no thing, any effect is better than no effect, any universe better than no universe, any particle better than no particle, but the particle of admiration is best of all.
30 And above these things there might be speculation only. And below these things there is the playing of the game. But these things which are written here man can experience and know. And some may care to teach these things and some may care to use them to assist those in distress and some may desire to employ them to make individuals and organizations more able and so give to Earth a culture of which we can be proud.

-- Considerations take rank over the mechanics of space, energy, and time; By this it is meant that an idea or opinion is, fundamentally, superior to space, energy, and time, or organizations of form, since it is conceived that space, energy, and time are themselves broadly agreed-upon considerations. That so many minds agree brings about Reality in the form of space, energy and time. These mechanics, then, of space, energy, and time are the product of agreed-upon considerations mutually held by life.
The aspect of existence when viewed from the level of Man, however, is a reverse of the greater truth above, for Man works on the secondary opinion that mechanics are real, and that his own personal considerations are less important than space, energy, and time. This is an inversion. These mechanics of space, energy, and time, the forms, objects and combinations thereof, have taken such precedence in Man that they have become more important than considerations as such, and so his ability is overpowered and he is unable to act freely in the framework of mechanics. Man, therefore, has an inverted view.
Whereas, considerations such as those he daily makes are the actual source of space, energy, and time and forms, Man is operating so as not to alter his basic considerations; he therefore invalidates himself by supposing another determinism of space, energy, time, and form. Although he is part of that which created these, he gives them such strength and validity that his own considerations thereafter must fall subordinate to space, energy, time and form, and so he cannot alter the Universe in which he dwells.
The freedom of an individual depends upon that individual's freedom to alter his considerations of space, energy, time, and forms of life and his roles in it. If he cannot change his mind about these, he is then fixed and enslaved amidst barriers such as those of the physical universe, and barriers of his own creation. Man thus is seen to be enslaved by barriers of his own creation. He creates these barriers himself, or by agreeing with things which hold these barriers to be actual.
 

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I always felt that Einstein was, before being logical profoundly intuitive. He seems to say that in the post above - SR and GR came to him as profound insights that he then tested with thought experiments before moving onto the mathematical proofs, which he said were the hardest thing he had ever done.
 
I am not confusing inflation in the first fraction of a nanosecond with expansion 13.7 billion years later. The question is what IS it expanding into, not what DID it expand to.
I am questioning constants as they apply now.
If space is expanding, and time is expanding, then the ratio that is the definition of speed is only relevant at one time. As light travels to originating at different times, and with time expanding, then it is not a constant function.

Of course this picture represents in three dimensions and the expansion is in four, so harder to visualize.
 

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c is absolutely fixed - Maxwell’s equations showed that and the Michaelson-Morley experiment confirmed it. It is the bedrock upon which SR and GR are built.

The rate at which time passes is relative however. It passes more slowly for an object moving with respect to one that is stationary and for an object within a gravitational field.
 
If space is expanding, and time is expanding, then the ratio that is the definition of speed is only relevant at one time.

The question, "If space is expanding does that mean time is expanding?" is frequently asked on physics forums.

The "ratio that is the definition of speed" relies on the measurement of distance, so we need to look into how distance is measured in an expanding spacetime.

In general relativity, the formula for the measurement of distance simplifies (or so I am told) as:

ds^2 = −dt^2 + a(t)^2 dΣ^2

The term a(t) is scaled according to the spacetime metric which determines the geometric properties of four-dimensional spacetime.

In short, the a(t) term determines whether the spatial dimensions expand or contract.

The dt term on the other hand, which defines time, is not scaled according to the spacetime metric and thus time does not expand nor contract.

I've interpreted the above from the following source:

https://newbedev.com/does-time-expa...ract?msclkid=84aae83ab51e11ec8e1ec1c2abc68143

However, I don't claim to understand it all! 😀
 
I still can't see how C is fixed if time is relative proximity to mass and to velocity, and space is expanding. It seems to be fixed only in the observers specific space-time. It would be fixed in all others, but not across at a large scale. There is something I am having trouble grasping. Space and time are both variables. Time dependent on warpage of space ( influence of mass) Time varies with velocity. So how can their ratio be a constant? There is a logical paradox here. If time is different in my basement than on the first floor, the C is different from my perspective on the first floor, even though it is the constant if I was viewing it from my basement.

If we follow SR, and GR, then there is no gravitational field as gravity is not a force, it is an effect that mass has on space-time. Often what we call force, is just the energy to change direction or velocity of motion. Newtonian.
 
I still can't see how C is fixed if time is relative proximity to mass and to velocity, and space is expanding. It seems to be fixed only in the observers specific space-time. It would be fixed in all others, but not across at a large scale. There is something I am having trouble grasping. Space and time are both variables. Time dependent on warpage of space ( influence of mass) Time varies with velocity. So how can their ratio be a constant? There is a logical paradox here. If time is different in my basement than on the first floor, the C is different from my perspective on the first floor, even though it is the constant if I was viewing it from my basement.

If we follow SR, and GR, then there is no gravitational field as gravity is not a force, it is an effect that mass has on space-time. Often what we call force, is just the energy to change direction or velocity of motion. Newtonian.
Post #8584 has all the answers. 🙂
 
Guess no one quite understands my confusion. Someday I will maybe get to talk with a astrophysicist who can grasp my quandary.
Time is relative. So how can a distance per time be a constant outside the specific space-time and be the same as another space-time observer?
 
Guess no one quite understands my confusion. Someday I will maybe get to talk with a astrophysicist who can grasp my quandary.
Time is relative. So how can a distance per time be a constant outside the specific space-time and be the same as another space-time observer?
This is because time itself is relative. One way to conceptualise this is to imagine that if you are stationary, time will tick by at a certain rate wrt to a separate independent observer. If you accelerate so you are moving, you have to give up the rate at which time passes wrt the independent observer, so it slows down for you. If you move really fast so you are travelling at c, you have to give up the rate time passes for you wrt to the independent observer. Time does not pass for the object travelling at c.

The same happens in reverse of course. You will see time passing incredibly fast for the independent observer.

Einstein deduced this from the very fact that c is constant, and he asked himself what would happen if he travelled at c. the conclusion he came to was that time is relative (pliable) and not fixed as Newton had said it was. This was one of his many great intuitive insights.
 
As you read this, you are whizzing across the spacetime landscape at exactly the same speed as everything else in the universe.

This universal spacetime speed is c, the speed of light!

This way of thinking about how things move through spacetime helps us to get a handle on why moving clocks run slow.

A moving clock uses up some of its fixed quota of spacetime speed because of its motion through space and that leaves less for its motion through time.

In other words, a moving clock doesn't move so fast through time as a stationary one, which is just another way of saying it ticks more slowly.

In contrast, a clock sitting at rest whizzes along in the time direction at the speed c with no motion through space. It therefore ticks along as fast as possible.

P.S. I've referred to my book Why does E = mc^2? (and why should we care?) by Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw.
 
Guess no one quite understands my confusion. Someday I will maybe get to talk with a astrophysicist who can grasp my quandary.
Time is relative. So how can a distance per time be a constant outside the specific space-time and be the same as another space-time observer?
Observed distances and time intervals are not fixed properties of space but fixed properties of observation. All observers will measure the same ratio of distance/time. The inextricable link between distance and time is the nature of our universe.
Yes, space-time is wibbly-wobbly.
 
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I like to think of time as the result of entropy, and distance as a manifestation of expended energy. When you move something from point A to point B, you accelerate it which simply means you are shifting its inertial frame. Once you remove the force (cease energy expenditure), it occupies a new inertial frame and therefore a new relative time wrt its original position. So a change in relative time has come about through energy expenditure which is directly linked back to increased entropy.
 
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I'm not so sure that distance is a "manifestation of energy".

After a very brief period of acceleration, a huge distance can be covered at steady speed and with zero energy expenditure.

I witnessed this during the Winter Olympics when the GB Women's Curling Team won the Gold Medal! 😃
 
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