Tag Archives: unraveling the universe’s mysteries

Nature of Light

What Made the Big Bang Go Bang? Part 2/2 (Conclusion)

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Discussing the Big Bang in terms of time, as we typically understand time, is difficult. It will not do any good to look at your watch or think in small fractions of a second. Stop-motion photography will not work this time. Those times are infinitely large compared to Planck time (~ 10-43 seconds, which is a one divided by a one with forty-three zero after it). Theoretically, Planck time is the smallest timeframe we will ever be able to measure. So far, we have not even come close to measuring Planck time. The best measurement of time to date is of the order 10-18 seconds.

What is so significant about Planck time? The fundamental constants of the universe formulate Planck time, not arbitrary units. According to the laws of physics, we would be unable to measure “change” if the time interval were shorter that Planck time. In other words, Planck time is the shortest interval we humans are able to measure, or even comprehend change to occur. Scientifically, it can be argued that no time interval is shorter that Planck time. Thus, the most rapid change can only occur in concert with Planck time, and no faster. Therefore, when we discuss the initiation of the Big Bang, the smallest time interval we can consider is Planck time.

The whole notion of Planck time, and its relationship to the Big Bang, begs another question. Did time always exist? Most physicists say NO. Time requires energy changes, and that did not occur until the instant of the Big Bang. Stephen Hawking, one of the world’s most prominent physicists and cosmologists, is on record that he believes time started with the Big Bang. Dr. Hawking asserts that if there was a time before the Big Bang, we have no way to access the information. However, an argument can be made that time pre-dates the Big Bang. How is this possible?

If we consider the Big Bang is the result of a quantum fluctuation in the Bulk, energy changes are occurring in the Bulk. This implies time exists in the Bulk and pre-dates the Big Bang. This begs the question: is there any evidence of a Bulk and other universes? A growing number of scientists say YES. They cite evidence that our universe bumped into other universes in the distant past. What is the evidence? They cite unusual ring patterns on the cosmic microwave background. The cosmic microwave background is leftover radiation from the Big Bang, and is the most-distant thing we can see in the universe. It is remarkably uniform, with the exception of the unusual ring patterns. Scientists attribute the ring patterns to bumps from other universes. Two articles discuss this finding.

  • First evidence of other universes that exist alongside our own after scientists spot “cosmic bruises,” by Niall Firth, December 17, 2010 (https://www.dailymail.co.uk).
  • Is Our Universe Inside a Bubble? First Observational Test of the “Multiverse.” ScienceDaily.com, August 3, 2011.

Obviously, this is controversial, and even the scientist involved caution the results are initial findings, not proof. It is still intriguing, and lends fuel to the concept of there being other universes. This would suggest time, in the cosmic sense, transcends the Big Bang. As impossible as it would seem to prove other universes, science has founds ways of proving similar scientific mysteries. The prominent physicist, Michio Kaku, said it best in Voices of Truth (Nina L. Diamond, 2000), “A hundred years ago, Auguste Compte, … a great philosopher, said that humans will never be able to visit the stars, that we will never know what stars are made out of, that that’s the one thing that science will never ever understand, because they’re so far away. And then, just a few years later, scientists took starlight, ran it through a prism, looked at the rainbow coming from the starlight, and said: ‘Hydrogen!’ Just a few years after this very rational, very reasonable, very scientific prediction was made, that we’ll never know what stars are made of.” This argues that what seems impossible to prove today might be a scientific fact tomorrow.

A theoretical case argues that cosmic time in the Bulk pre-dated the Big Bang. Eventually we may be able to prove it. It is reasonable to believe time for our universe started with the Big Bang. This is our reality. This is consistent with Occam’s razor, which states the simplest explanation is the most plausible one (until new data to the contrary is available). For our universe, the Big Bang started the clock ticking, with the smallest tick being Planck time.

We are finally in a position to answer the two crucial questions. First, what made the big bang go bang? Second, how long did the infinitely dense energy point exist before it went bang?

Why did the Big Bang go bang?

The Big Bang followed the Minimum Energy Principle, “Energy in any form seeks stability at the lowest energy state possible, and will not transition to a new state unless acted on by another energy source.” The infinitely dense energy point, which science terms a “singularity,” sought stability at the lowest energy state possible. If it was “duality,” as argued in Chapter 2, the collision of the infinitely energy-dense matter and antimatter particles would represent the unstable infinitely energy-dense state. Therefore, the arguments presented apply equally to a “singularity” or “duality.” Being infinitely energy-dense, implies instability and minimum entropy (ground-state entropy). Thus, it required dilution to become stable, which caused entropy to increase. The dilution came in the form of the “Big Bang.” Since we were dealing with an unstable infinitely energy-dense point, the Big Bang went bang at the instant of existence. The instant of existence would correlate to the smallest time interval science can conceive, the Planck time. This process is continuing today as space continues its accelerated expansion.

This gives us a reasonable explanation of why the Big Bang went bang. It argues that it went “bang” at the exact instant it came to exist.

This post is based on my book, Unraveling the Universe’s Mysteries (2012), available from Amazon.

Universe's Accelerated Expansion

What Made the Big Bang Go Bang? Part 1/2

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This is a little play on words. The Big Bang theory holds that the evolution of the universe started with an infinitesimal packet of near infinite energy (termed a “singularity”) that suddenly expanded and continues to expand. If this is true, was it big? No, it was infinitesimally small. Did it go bang? No, it expanded. Space is a vacuum, and it is unable to transmit sound waves. Therefore, there were no sound waves to make a bang noise. Granted, I was not there since it took place 13.7 billion years ago, and you are certainly entitled to your own opinion. I am only jesting, but the description above of the Big Bang theory is what the scientific community holds to be responsible for the evolution of the universe. However, a significant question remains unanswered: What made the Big Bang go bang?

Throughout the theories of science, there appears to be a common thread based on well-observed physical phenomena regarding the behavior of energy. That common thread states that differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential always seek equilibrium if they are in an isolated physical system. For example, with time, a hot cup of coffee will cool to room temperature. This means it reaches equilibrium (balance, stability and sameness) with the temperature of the room, which is the isolated physical system in this example. Readers familiar with thermodynamics will instantly attribute this behavior of energy as following the second law of thermodynamics. However, the same law, worded differently, exists in numerous scientific contexts. In the interest of clarity, I am going to restate this law, describing the behavior of energy, in a way that makes it independent of scientific contexts. In a sense, it abstracts the essence of the contextual statements, and views applications of the law in various scientific contexts as specific cases. I am not the first physicist to undertake generalizing the second law of thermodynamics to make it independent of scientific contexts. However, I believe my proposed restatement provides a simple and comprehensive description of the laws that energy follows, and it will aide in understanding concepts presented in later chapters. For the sake of reference, I have termed my restatement the Minimum Energy Principle.

Energy in any form seeks stability at the lowest energy state possible, and will not transition to a new state unless acted on by another energy source.

Consider these two examples to illustrate the Minimum Energy Principle.

1)   Radioactive substances. Radioactive substances emit radiation until they are no longer radioactive (they become stable). However, by introducing other radioactive substances under the right conditions, they can transition to a new state. Indeed, if the proper radioactive elements combine under the right circumstances, the result can be an atomic explosion.

2)   A thermodynamic example. Consider a branding iron fresh from the fire. It emits thermal radiation until it reaches equilibrium with its surroundings. In other words, once a branding iron leaves the fire, it will start to cool by transferring energy to its surrounding. Eventually, it will be at the same temperature as its surroundings. (This illustrates the first part of the Minimum Energy Principle: Energy in any form seeks stability at the lowest energy state possible.) However, if we increase the temperature of the branding iron by placing it back in the fire, the branding iron will absorb energy until it again reaches equilibrium with the temperature of the fire. (This illustrates the second part of the Minimum Energy Principle: It transitions to this new state by being acted on by the fire. The fire acts as an energy source.)

The Minimum Energy Principle is consistent with the law of entropy. To understand this, we will need to discuss entropy. In classical thermodynamics, entropy is the energy unavailable for work in a thermodynamic process. For example, no machine is one hundred percent efficient in converting energy to work. A portion of the energy is always lost in the form of waste heat. An example is the miles per gallon achievable via your car engine, ignoring other factors such as the weight of the vehicle, its aerodynamic design, and other similar factors. Several car manufacturers are able to build highly efficient engines. However, no car manufacturer can build an engine that is one hundred percent efficient. As a result, a fraction of total energy is always lost, typically in the form of waste heat.

Entropy proceeds in one direction, and is a measure of the system’s disorder. Any increase in entropy implies an increase in disorder and an increase in stability. For example, the heat lost in a car engine is lost to the atmosphere, and is no longer usable to do work. The heat lost is adding to the disorder of the universe, and is a measure of entropy. Oddly, though, the lost heat is completely stable.

In a given system, entropy is either constant or increasing, depending on the flow of energy. If the system is isolated, and has no energy flow, the entropy remains constant. If the system is undergoing an energy change, such as ice melting in a glass of water, the entropy is increasing. When the ice completely melts, and the system reaches equilibrium with its surrounding, it is stable. This has a significant implication. Entropy is constantly increasing in the universe since everything in the universe is undergoing energy change. In theory, the entropy of the universe will eventually maximize, and all reality will be lost to heat. The universe will be completely stable and static. I have termed this the “entropy apocalypse.” I know I am being a little dramatic here, but most of the scientific community believes the entropy (disorder) of the universe is increasing. Eventually, all energy in the universe will be stable and unusable, all change will cease to occur, and the universe will have reached the entropy apocalypse.

Based on the above discussion of entropy, we can argue that entropy seeks to maximize and, therefore, reduce energy to the lowest state possible. This is why I stated that the Minimum Energy Principle, which asserts that energy seeks the lowest state possible, is consistent with law of entropy.

How does this help us understand what made the Big Bang go bang? The Minimum Energy Principle, along with our understanding of the behavior of entropy, makes answering this question relatively easy. The scientific community agrees that the Big Bang started with a point of infinite energy, at the instant prior to the expansion. From the Minimum Energy Principle, we know “Energy in any form seeks stability at the lowest energy state possible and will not transition to a new state unless acted on by another energy source.” Since we know it went “bang,” we can make three deductions regarding the infinitely dense-energy point. First, it was not stable. Second, it was not in the lowest energy state possible. Third, the entropy of the infinitely dense-energy point was at its lowest state possible, which science terms the “ground-state entropy.” These three conditions set the stage for the Minimum Energy Principle and the laws of entropy to initiate the Big Bang.

By the very nature of “playing the tape” of the expanding universe back to discover its origin, namely the Big Bang, we can conclude a highly dense energy state. It will be a highly dense energy state because we are going to take all the energy that expanded from the Big Bang, and cause it to contract. As it contracts, the universe grows smaller and more energy-dense. At the end of this process, we have a highly dense energy state. I think of it as a point, potentially without dimensions, but with near-infinite energy. This view is widely held by the scientific community. If it is true, all logic causes us to conclude it was an infinitely excited energy state, and we would have every reason to question its stability—and to believe it was at the “ground-state” entropy (the lowest entropy state possible).

Our observations of unstable energy systems in the laboratory suggest that as soon as the point of infinite energy came to exist, it had to seek stability at a lower energy level. The Big Bang was a form of energy dilution. In the process of lowering the energy, it increased the entropy of the universe. Once again, we see the Minimum Energy Principle and the law of entropy acting in concert.

How long did the infinitely dense-energy point exist? No one really knows. However, we can approach an answer by understanding more about time.  We will discuss this aspect in Part 2.

This post is based on my book, Unraveling the Universe’s Mysteries (2012), available from Amazon.

 

A row of black server racks with multiple network cables and hardware components in a data center.

Are We All Just Trapped in a Self-Conscious Supercomputer?

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Are We All Just Trapped in a Self-Conscious Supercomputer?

Two words: Artificial Intelligence. Most people have heard about it. Perhaps you have read science-fiction books or seen science-fiction movies about it. What is it in the ideal fictional case? A computer that is able to learn and adapt on its own. If it becomes self-aware, it can legitimately be considered another life form or even another universe.

Science fiction? No! Look at real-life results from the last 15 years.

In 1997, IBM’s chess-playing computer “Deep Blue” became the first computer to beat world-class chess champion, Garry Kasparov. In a six-game match, Deep Blue prevailed by two wins to one with three draws. Until this point, no computer was able to beat a chess grandmaster. This garnered headlines worldwide, and was a milestone that embedded the reality of artificial intelligence into the consciousness of the average person.

In 2005, a robot conceived and developed at California’s Stanford University, was able to drive autonomously for 131 miles along an unrehearsed desert trail, winning the DARPA Grand Challenge (the government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency prize for a driverless vehicle).

In 2007, Carnegie Mellon University’s self-driving SUV called Boss made history by swiftly and safely driving 55 miles in an urban setting while sharing the road with human drivers. It, too, won the DARPA Urban Challenge.

In 2011, on an exhibition match on the popular TV quiz show, Jeopardy! , IBM’s computer “Watson,” defeated both of Jeopardy! greatest champions, Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings.

Today, we take artificial intelligence (AI) for granted. For example, computers and even smart phones have sophisticated chess-playing software. AI is part of the Xbox 360’s algorithms for games. However, have we reached the point where a computer replicates a human mind? Not yet. One test held as the “gold standard” for this is the Turing test, proposed in 1950 by Alan Turing, an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. Turing is widely acknowledged as the father of computer science and artificial intelligence. In fact, Turing developed an electromechanical machine during WWII that helped break the German Enigma machine’s code. The Turing test, which a computer must pass to demonstrate the computer replicates the human mind. The test requires that a machine (for example, a computer with voice synthesis) carry on a conversation with a human, and that other humans are able to hear the conversation (and not see the participants), and cannot distinguish the machine from the human.

Apple’s Seri application for the iPhone is a small step in that direction. If you see Apple’s TV commercials, people are talking to their phones, and phones are talking back. The conversations consist of the phone owners asking questions or giving simple commands to their iPhones. The commercial makes it appear that the iPhone passes the Turing test, but in reality, the conversations are limited to simple questions and simple commands. However, imagine what conversations with the iPhone will be like in about 20 years. The iPhone, and smart phones like it, will almost certainly pass the Turing test.

How close are we to a true artificial life form (similar to Lt. Commander Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation)? Most scientists believe we are extremely close. In fact, Ray Kurzweil (American author, scientist, inventor and futurist) has used Moore’s law to calculate that desktop computers will be equivalent to human brains by the year 2029. Moore’s law states the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. By 2045, Kurzweil predicts, artificial intelligence will be able to improve itself faster than anything we can conceive. If this is true, by the mid Twenty-First Century, we may appear no smarter than insects to those machines. This is sometimes the theme of “how-will-the-world-end” type of documentaries, science-fiction books and movies. This is the whole premise behind the popular Terminator movies.

Now, we will return to our main point of a supercomputer universe. If indeed, computers one day will replicate a human mind, one can postulate that with time, it can replicate millions and eventually billions of such minds, each with its own self-awareness and personality. The minds inside the “machine” think they are real, and are in a universe. As more time passes, the machine can create another “universe.” This scenario can continue forever, or until an unknown entity pulls the plug.

Could we be those people (minds inside a computer)? If you have a religious belief in a supreme being, in effect, we are those people in God’s computer. If you do not hold religious beliefs, we could be those people in a race of advanced aliens’ computer. In this scenario, a supernatural being or technology-advanced aliens gave the command to begin our existence. The command was simply, “Let there be light,” and the super-computer program, simulating our existence and reality, began to run. If this is true, do we exist? The answer to that question depends on your viewpoint. We do not exist in the way we think we exist. We are all part of a sophisticated computer program in a supercomputer. If this is our reality, we are trapped in a supercomputer capable of replicating human minds, and imposing the construct of a universe on those minds.

At this point, I am going back to Occam’s razor, namely, the simplest of two competing theories is to be preferred. With that as my guiding premise, I postulate our universe is real (exactly the way we experience it), we are real, and this post is real.

Source: Unraveling the Universe’s Mysteries (2012) Louis A. Del Monte

Image: Wikimedia Commons – The Blue Gene/P supercomputer at Argonne National Labruns over 250,000 processors using normal data center air conditioning, grouped in 72 racks/cabinets connected by a high-speed optical network

 

dark matter

Dark Matter Explained – Most of the Universe Is Missing!

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The most popular theory of dark matter is that it is a slow-moving particle. It travels up to a tenth of the speed of light. It neither emits nor scatters light. In other words, it is invisible. However, its effects are detectable, as I will explain below. Scientists call the mass associated with dark matter a “WIMP” (Weakly Interacting Massive Particle).

In 1933, Fritz Zwicky (California Institute of Technology) made a crucial observation. He discovered the orbital velocities of galaxies were not following Newton’s law of gravitation (every mass in the universe attracts every other mass with a force inversely proportional to the square of the difference between them). They were orbiting too fast for the visible mass to be held together by gravity. If the galaxies followed Newton’s law of gravity, the outermost stars would be thrown into space. He reasoned there had to be more mass than the eye could see, essentially an unknown and invisible form of mass that was allowing gravity to hold the galaxies together. Zwicky’s calculations revealed that there had to be 400 times more mass in the galaxy clusters than what was visible. This is the mysterious “missing-mass problem.” It is normal to think that this discovery would turn the scientific world on its ear. However, as profound as the discovery turned out to be, progress in understanding the missing mass lags until the 1970s.

In 1975, Vera Rubin and fellow staff member Kent Ford, astronomers at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, presented findings that reenergized Zwicky’s earlier claim of missing matter. At a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, they announced the finding that most stars in spiral galaxies orbit at roughly the same speed. They made this discovery using a new, sensitive spectrograph (a device that separates an incoming wave into a frequency spectrum). The new spectrograph accurately measured the velocity curve of spiral galaxies. Like Zwicky, they found the spiral velocity of the galaxies was too fast to hold all the stars in place. Using Newton’s law of gravity, the galaxies should be flying apart, but they were not. Presented with this new evidence, the scientific community finally took notice. Their first reaction was to call into question the findings, essentially casting doubt on what Rubin and Ford reported. This is a common and appropriate reaction, until the amount of evidence (typically independent verification) becomes convincing.

In 1980, Rubin and her colleagues published their findings (V. Rubin, N. Thonnard, W. K. Ford, Jr, (1980). “Rotational Properties of 21 Sc Galaxies with a Large Range of Luminosities and Radii from NGC 4605 (R=4kpc) to UGC 2885 (R=122kpc).” Astrophysical Journal 238: 471.). It implied that either Newton’s laws do not apply, or that more than 50% of the mass of galaxies is invisible. Although skepticism abounded, eventually other astronomers confirmed their findings. The experimental evidence had become convincing. “Dark matter,” the invisible mass, dominates most galaxies. Even in the face of conflicting theories that attempt to explain the phenomena observed by Zwicky and Rubin, most scientists believe dark matter is real. None of the conflicting theories (which typically attempted to modify how gravity behaved on the cosmic scale) was able to explain all the observed evidence, especially gravitational lensing (the way gravity bends light).

Currently, the scientific community believes that dark matter is real and abundant, making up as much as 90% of the mass of the universe. However, dark matter is still a mystery. For years, scientists have been working to find the WIMP particle to confirm dark matter’s existence. All efforts have been either unsuccessful or inconclusive.

This material is from Unraveling the Universe’s Mysteries (2012), Louis A. Del Monte.

end of the universe

What Made the Big Bang Go Bang?

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This is a little play on words. The Big Bang theory holds that the evolution of the universe started with an infinitesimal packet of near infinite energy (termed a “singularity”) that suddenly expanded and continues to expand. If this is true, was it big? No, it was infinitesimally small. Did it go bang? No, it expanded. Space is a vacuum, and it is unable to transmit sound waves. Therefore, there were no sound waves to make a bang noise. Granted, I was not there since it took place 13.8 billion years ago, and you are certainly entitled to your own opinion. I am only jesting, but the description above of the Big Bang theory is what the scientific community holds to be responsible for the evolution of the universe.

What initiated the Big Bang’s expansion?

Throughout the theories of science, there appears to be a common thread based on well-observed physical phenomena regarding the behavior of energy. That common thread states that differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential always seek equilibrium if they are in an isolated physical system. For example, with time, a hot cup of coffee will cool to room temperature. This means it reaches equilibrium (balance, stability and sameness) with the temperature of the room, which is the isolated physical system in this example. Readers familiar with thermodynamics will instantly attribute this behavior of energy as following the second law of thermodynamics. However, the same law, worded differently, exists in numerous scientific contexts. In the interest of clarity, I am going to restate this law, describing the behavior of energy, in a way that makes it independent of scientific contexts. In a sense, it abstracts the essence of the contextual statements, and views applications of the law in various scientific contexts as specific cases. I am not the first physicist to undertake generalizing the second law of thermodynamics to make it independent of scientific contexts. However, I believe my proposed restatement provides a simple and comprehensive description of the laws that energy follows. For the sake of reference, I have termed my restatement the Minimum Energy Principle.

Energy in any form seeks stability at the lowest energy state possible, and will not transition to a new state unless acted on by another energy source.

Consider these two examples to illustrate the Minimum Energy Principle.

1)   Radioactive substances. Radioactive substances emit radiation until they are no longer radioactive (they become stable). However, by introducing other radioactive substances under the right conditions, they can transition to a new state. Indeed, if the proper radioactive elements combine under the right circumstances, the result can be an atomic explosion.

2)   A thermodynamic example. Consider a branding iron fresh from the fire. It emits thermal radiation until it reaches equilibrium with its surroundings. In other words, once a branding iron leaves the fire, it will start to cool by transferring energy to its surrounding. Eventually, it will be at the same temperature as its surroundings. (This illustrates the first part of the Minimum Energy Principle: Energy in any form seeks stability at the lowest energy state possible.) However, if we increase the temperature of the branding iron by placing it back in the fire, the branding iron will absorb energy until it again reaches equilibrium with the temperature of the fire. (This illustrates the second part of the Minimum Energy Principle: It transitions to this new state by being acted on by the fire. The fire acts as an energy source.)

The Minimum Energy Principle is consistent with the law of entropy. To understand this, we will need to discuss entropy. In classical thermodynamics, entropy is the energy unavailable for work in a thermodynamic process. For example, no machine is one hundred percent efficient in converting energy to work. A portion of the energy is always lost in the form of waste heat. An example is the miles per gallon achievable via your car engine, ignoring other factors such as the weight of the vehicle, its aerodynamic design, and other similar factors. Several car manufacturers are able to build highly efficient engines. However, no car manufacturer can build an engine that is one hundred percent efficient. As a result, a fraction of total energy is always lost, typically in the form of waste heat.

Entropy proceeds in one direction, and is a measure of the system’s disorder. Any increase in entropy implies an increase in disorder and an increase in stability. For example, the heat lost in a car engine is lost to the atmosphere, and is no longer usable to do work. The heat lost is adding to the disorder of the universe, and is a measure of entropy. Oddly, though, the lost heat is completely stable.

In a given system, entropy is either constant or increasing, depending on the flow of energy. If the system is isolated, and has no energy flow, the entropy remains constant. If the system is undergoing an energy change, such as ice melting in a glass of water, the entropy is increasing. When the ice completely melts, and the system reaches equilibrium with its surrounding, it is stable. This has a significant implication. Entropy is constantly increasing in the universe since everything in the universe is undergoing energy change. In theory, the entropy of the universe will eventually maximize, and all reality will be lost to heat. The universe will be completely stable and static. I have termed this the “entropy apocalypse.” (Some physicists term this “heat death.”) I know I am being a little dramatic here, but most of the scientific community believes the entropy (disorder) of the universe is increasing. Eventually, all energy in the universe will be stable and unusable, all change will cease to occur, and the universe will have reached the entropy apocalypse.

Based on the above discussion of entropy, we can argue that entropy seeks to maximize and, therefore, reduce energy to the lowest state possible. This is why I stated that the Minimum Energy Principle, which asserts that energy seeks the lowest state possible, is consistent with law of entropy.

How does this help us understand what made the Big Bang go bang? The Minimum Energy Principle, along with our understanding of the behavior of entropy, makes answering this question relatively easy. The scientific community agrees that the Big Bang started with a point of infinite energy, at the instant prior to the expansion. From the Minimum Energy Principle, we know “Energy in any form seeks stability at the lowest energy state possible and will not transition to a new state unless acted on by another energy source.” Since we know it went “bang,” we can make three deductions regarding the infinitely dense-energy point. First, it was not stable. Second, it was not in the lowest energy state possible. Third, the entropy of the infinitely dense-energy point was at its lowest state possible, which science terms the “ground-state entropy.” These three conditions set the stage for the Minimum Energy Principle and the laws of entropy to initiate the Big Bang.

By the very nature of “playing the tape” of the expanding universe back to discover its origin, namely the Big Bang, we can conclude a highly dense energy state. It will be a highly dense energy state because we are going to take all the energy that expanded from the Big Bang, and cause it to contract. As it contracts, the universe grows smaller and more energy-dense. At the end of this process, we have a highly dense energy state. I think of it as a point, potentially without dimensions, but with near-infinite energy. This view is widely held by the scientific community. If it is true, all logic causes us to conclude it was an infinitely excited energy state, and we would have every reason to question its stability—and to believe it was at the “ground-state” entropy (the lowest entropy state possible).

Our observations of unstable energy systems in the laboratory suggest that as soon as the point of infinite energy came to exist, it had to seek stability at a lower energy level. The Big Bang was a form of energy dilution. In the process of lowering the energy, it increased the entropy of the universe. Once again, we see the Minimum Energy Principle and the law of entropy acting in concert.

How long did the infinitely dense-energy point exist? No one really knows. However, we can approach an answer by understanding more about time.

Discussing the Big Bang in terms of time, as we typically understand time, is difficult. It will not do any good to look at your watch or think in small fractions of a second. Stop-motion photography will not work this time. Those times are infinitely large compared to Planck time (~ 10-43 seconds, which is a one divided by a one with forty-three zero after it). Theoretically, Planck time is the smallest time-frame we will ever be able to measure. So far, we have not even come close to measuring Planck time. The best measurement of time to date is of the order 10-18 seconds.

What is so significant about Planck time? The fundamental constants of the universe formulate Planck time, not arbitrary units. According to the laws of physics, we would be unable to measure “change” if the time interval were shorter that Planck time. In other words, Planck time is the shortest interval we humans are able to measure, or even comprehend change to occur. Scientifically, it can be argued that no time interval is shorter that Planck time. Thus, the most rapid change can only occur in concert with Planck time, and no faster. Therefore, when we discuss the initiation of the Big Bang, the smallest time interval we can consider is Planck time.

The whole notion of Planck time, and its relationship to the Big Bang, begs another question. Did time always exist? Most physicists say NO. Time requires energy changes, and that did not occur until the instant of the Big Bang. Stephen Hawking, one of the world’s most prominent physicists and cosmologists, is on record that he believes time started with the Big Bang. Dr. Hawking asserts that if there was a time before the Big Bang, we have no way to access the information. From this standpoint, it is reasonable to believe time for our universe started with the Big Bang. This is our reality. This is consistent with Occam’s razor, which states the simplest explanation is the most plausible one (until new data to the contrary is available). For our universe, the Big Bang started the clock ticking, with the smallest tick being Planck time.

We are finally in a position to answer the crucial question: What made the big bang go bang?

The Big Bang followed the Minimum Energy Principle, “Energy in any form seeks stability at the lowest energy state possible, and will not transition to a new state unless acted on by another energy source.” The infinitely dense energy point, which science terms a “singularity,” sought stability at the lowest energy state possible. Being infinitely energy-dense, implies instability and minimum entropy (ground-state entropy). Thus, it required dilution to become stable, which caused entropy to increase. The dilution came in the form of the “Big Bang.” Since we were dealing with an unstable infinitely energy-dense point, it is reasonable to assert the Big Bang went bang at the instant of existence. The instant of existence would correlate to the smallest time interval science can conceive, the Planck time. This process is continuing today as space continues its accelerated expansion. 

Source: Unraveling the Universe’s Mysteries (2012), Louis A. Del Monte, available on Amazon.com