Isn't the quantum fluctuations explanation incompatible with the Big Bang Theory?

Question

I mean that quantum fluctuations cannot explain why the Big Bang occurred as I have heard many people say.

I will give you that the vacuum of space (really space-time) has energy and thus can spontaneously create then annihilate virtual particles. However, if before the big bang there WAS NO space-time, then how could virtual particles have come in and out of existence??

Furthermore, even the idea of quantum fluctuations explaining the Big Bang seems unreasonable. Ok, an electron and anti-electron spawn and then annihilate. First, this cannot happen without an initial amount of energy and second--they would always have to annihilate. I have yet to hear a satisfactory explanation on why there could be an asymmetry that might cause them NOT to annihilate such that they could cause the Big Bang. Even further, an electron and anti-electron possess virtually NO energy whatsoever (despite what anti-matter idiots act like exists), so how could such an asymmetric fluctuation give rise to all of the energy in the universe?

Answer 1

Firstly, the example of an electron and positron not having much energy is just one type of particle-antiparticle annihilation. There are other options with more energy. Secondly, scientists don't say definitively that quantum fluctuations caused the big bang. That is just one of numerous theories that are out there to try and explain the creation of our universe. Also the asymmetry mentioned has been noticed by physicists and they are trying to examine why this asymmetry occurred. They leading idea is that there are small differences in the antiparticles compared to the ordinary particles that could lead to this asymmetry. As for are they compatible, they can be. I concede that there are parts that don't seen to work, however all theories have problems when trying to explain why the universe came into being.

Answer 2

Virtual particles, sometimes they miss annihilating each other and a real particle is born. This is the premise that prof. Hawking based his "Hawking radiation" theory on, regarding black holes. Quantum fluctuations are key, because due to quantum uncertainty, energy may be borrowed from a "false" vacuum as long as it is paid back quickly. The more energy borrowed, the quicker it has to be returned (before anybody knows it's missing, so to speak). To borrow enough energy equivalent to the mass of the universe, it would have to be paid back quickly indeed. I'm guessing in about 10^-43 sec (the Planck time). It only had to happen once where a singularity came from that virtual nothing and defaulted on its energy loan.



This of course presupposes that nothing is something. I don't believe we have the necessary words and semantics to describe quantum weirdness. All we know is that quantum theory is very precise and extremely accurate in experiment, albeit absurd.



Your symmetry/asymmetry suggestion is actually the beauty behind it all. It was the symmetry breaking that enabled this one force to crystallize into the four forces which drive our universe.

Answer 3

From what I understand, the quantum fluctuation hypothesis is used only to explain the matter and energy in the universe, not the existence of space-time itself. According to the uncertainty principal, the energy state of any point in space-time cannot be exactly predicted. Therefore it must fluctuate. This also implies that it can not be exactly zero. This effect increases with the smaller the scale. So as space-time expanded rapidly, these fluctuations expanded with it. Since there are fewer fluctuations on a larger scale, whatever energy state existed at the time was more or less frozen, going from virtual energy to real energy. Look at the largest scale structure we can see in the universe today: sheets and filaments made of supergalactic clusters, surrounding huge voids of empty space. This was not created by gravity. It does resemble the foamy structure of space-time that is thought to exist near the Planck level, however.

Answer 4

YES you are correct.



Scientists say energy/matter always existed and hence quantum mechanics this sounds to be very CHILDISH concept. Of course many Scientists find this path easy to understand because they just don’t want to answer more questions like what was before the big bang. It is like they are filling the unkonwn thing with quantum mechanics.





First of all the big bang theory can be easily proved to be wrong



Because the cosmological red shift is due to the Compton effect rather than the Doppler effect.

Reber showed that the Compton effect was the cause of the red shift in order to explain the observations of bright, very long wavelength, extragalactic radio waves. Kierein used the Compton effect explanation to explain quasars and the red shift on the sun.



Quasars are much closer than their red shift would indicate if they have an "intrinsic" red shift due to being surrounded by a 'fuzzy' atmosphere containing free electrons and other material. This concentration of electrons produces the unusual red shift as the light travels through it and loses energy to these electrons per the Compton effect. If quasars are nearby, they may even exhibit proper motion in the sky as the Earth travels around the sun. Such a proper motion has been seen.

Answer 5

The universe is the way it is, whether you like it or not. There's no reason that the universe has to conform to what you'd like or what makes sense to you.



Quantum fluctuations are at the root of the origin of the universe. Quantum mechanics shows that "nothing," as a philosophical concept, does not exist. There are always quantized particle fields with random fluctuations. Quantum mechanics also shows that events can occur with no cause.



There are many well-respected physicists, such as Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, Sean M. Carroll, Victor Stenger, Michio Kaku, Alan Guth, Alex Vilenkin, Robert A.J. Matthews, and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek, who have created scientific models where the Big Bang and thus the entire universe could arise from nothing but a random quantum vacuum fluctuation in a particle field -- via natural processes.



In relativity, gravity is negative energy, and matter and photons are positive energy. Because negative and positive energy seem to be equal in absolute total value, our observable universe appears balanced to the sum of zero. Our universe could thus have come into existence without violating conservation of mass and energy — with the matter of the universe condensing out of the positive energy as the universe cooled, and gravity created from the negative energy.



I know that this doesn't make sense in our Newtonian experience, but it does in the realm of quantum mechanics and relativity. As Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman wrote, "The theory of quantum electrodynamics describes nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with experiment. So I hope you can accept nature as she is — absurd."



For more about the Big Bang and its implications, watch the video at the 1st link - "A Universe From Nothing" by theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, read an interview with him (at the 2nd link), or get his new book (at the 3rd link). And, see the 4th link for "The Universe: Big Bang to Now in 10 Easy Steps."

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Answer 6

The key is grasping a understanding that string theory predicts there are "other" dimensions.

Also we gauge "time" past present and future....when you hear stories of the big bang there are spots that we say time = 10^-42....this in itself is something that happened before time started at time = 1.

There is much we also need to learn about Entropy, because that is what "vibrates" stings in sting theory to create our unique quantum fluctuation..

Now I'm not saying I'm right, most of the stuff is theorist by people way smarter than me, and I'm sure I'm not explaining it the best way ether I'm just trying to help.

Answer 7

There are many ideas about what caused the big bang. here's one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membrane_(M-Theory)

It's going to be a while before we know the whole story.