irwin@uiucdcs.UUCP (02/04/85)
Being an uninformed reader of this net (I find it interesting) and also agreeing with the big bang theory, what is to say that space did not exist before the bang? What is to say that all matter in our universe was not once a giant single rock with great gravity and internal pressures and finally exploded, starting the expansion process. The giant ball would have been an occupant of the space our universe now exists in, but would not have been expanding and time as we know it would not have existed, but space would have been there.
lindley@ut-ngp.UUCP (John L. Templer) (02/08/85)
> Being an uninformed reader of this net (I find it interesting) and also > agreeing with the big bang theory, what is to say that space did not exist > before the bang? What is to say that all matter in our universe was not > once a giant single rock with great gravity and internal pressures and > finally exploded, starting the expansion process. The giant ball would > have been an occupant of the space our universe now exists in, but would > not have been expanding and time as we know it would not have existed, > but space would have been there. According to current opinion, if you extrapolate backwards in time about 10 to 20 billion years, you reach a point where the universe was all contained in a "small" region. The problem is that the density of the universe at that time would have been so great as to crush the universe into a point. So, physicists believe that general and special relativity may not hold for arbitrarily high densities. But they don't have any ideas yet what conditions would be like in that case. -- John L. Templer University of Texas at Austin {allegra,gatech,seismo!ut-sally,vortex}!ut-ngp!lindley "and they called it, yuppy love."