Question #51bbe
3 Answers
We don't.
Explanation:
Since no one can go back to the beginning of time, no repeatable scientific experiment can be done to test what caused the beginning of earth. This makes all ideas about the origins of the earth merely theories, not necessarily how it actually happened. The big bang theory is a little fuzzy in its explanation. If there was nothing, how did that nothing explode or create matter? An alternate viewpoint is the idea of intelligent design, which is increasing in popularity for the explanation of the origins of the universe. This too is only a theory since it cannot be proved.
I think the problem here is that the laws of physics break down as you approach a singularity (in this case infinite energy density.)
Explanation:
Yes, I agree there was clearly as you put it ‘a speck’ of energy (I’d think a lot more!), but as it was contained in a truly tiny volume of space our current understanding of physics doesn’t allow us to to (a) predict or (b) recreate and test those conditions. Either of these would be sufficient in the first case, ideally both, preferably in the order stated.
We are fairly clear about conditions a fraction (and I’m talking trillionths of a second afterwards) of a second afterwards (though we have been wrong so often and have learned a little each time we’ve been wrong, it is hard to justify the “fairly clear” statement) and beyond that things get quite fragmented in our understanding.
I regularly find new theories/objections/developments of any “settled” concept in the popular science press, so can only assume it is an ‘active area of research’ to say the least.
Fascinating question, though. Just sorry not to be able to provide the much better answer it deserves.
What happened before the Big Bang is purely speculative
Explanation:
The Big Bang started as a singularity. At a singularity time does not exist and space did not exist. Time and Space came into existence at the moment of the Big Bang. There is evidence from the present expansion of the universe that the universe at one point in time, was a single point in space.
Before 1997 the theory was the singularity came about as the universe came together again as gravity pulled the matter of the universe together into a black hole ( the boundary of a black hole is a singularity) This theory was popularly known as the rubber ball theory, that proposed that universe alternated between periods of expansion and contraction. So what existed before the Big Bang was a contracting universe.
However in 1997 empirical evidence clearly showed that the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing not slowly down. This means that the universe is not ever going to recycle, or come back together, as predicted by the "rubber ball theory". This leaves the question of what existed before the Big Bang an open question.
If the universe had a beginning as postulated by the Big Bang and will not recycle as the empirical evidence indicates, then something besides matter and energy must exist. What exists outside of matter and energy can not be answered by using the methods of empirical science that can only answer questions about matter and energy.
