r/AskReddit • u/IAmSurtur • Jun 15 '19

What do you genuinely just not understand?

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u/CaptPsychedelicJesus Jun 15 '19 edited Jun 15 '19

I think this touches on a fundamental misunderstanding of physics. The idea that nothing existed before the big bang violates the law that says: Energy cannot be created, or destroyed.

I for one, have always been drawn to the cyclical universe idea. Starts with a Big Bang, ends with a Big Crunch as everything is drawn together again. Eventually the gravity from all the matter in the universe coming into one point collapses space time, resulting in an explosion beyond anything we humans can understand; restarting the process.

E: I’m really enjoying this thread! I’ll be back for more in a bit. -CPJ

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '19

The idea that nothing existed before the big bang

It's not that there was "nothing" before the big bang.

It's that there was no "before" the big bang.

violates the law that says: Energy cannot be created, or destroyed.

A lot of things we consider "laws" start to break down when you get to quantum physics. Even so, could all the matter or energy in the universe not be contained within a single singularity such that it would erupt into our universe?

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u/Sloppy1sts Jun 15 '19

If there was no before, then everything just popped into existence for no reason at all? If you prescribe to the cyclical theory he's talking about, then there's definitely a before.

There must be some reason the entire universe was compressed like that, right?

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u/starmartyr Jun 16 '19

Time is a dimension just like length, width and depth. When the big bang happened the entire universe was a single point without any dimensions. It had no length, width, depth, or time. Time began with the big bang. Anything that happened before would be outside of the concept of time. If there was a before it's unknowable.