Science Memes

11081 readers

2729 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
Keep it rooted (on topic).
No spam.
Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

[email protected]

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

383

Evidence (mander.xyz)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

90 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 60 points 4 months ago (31 children)

“Before” the Big Bang is nonsense. It’s equivalent to saying “head north from the North Pole.”

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (2 children)

It's not so much that we know there was nothing before it, but that we can't figure out what was before it.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (2 children)

No, in our current best-supported model of the universe (Lambda-CDM) the concept of “before” the Big Bang is meaningless. It is the apex of the spacetime “bell” from which everything emerged.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (3 children)

But something must have triggered the big bang. The model might not support this, but this only means the model is insufficient to describe what goes beyond our known universe.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

But something must have triggered the big bang.

That's a separate claim you'd have to prove. We have no evidence of something triggering it, we don't even know that it would need to be triggered. All of our observations occur inside this universe, therefore we have no idea at all if cause-and-effect even applies to the universe as a whole. The short answer is: we don't know and have no reason to posit the need for something else.

What does it mean for something to be "beyond" everywhere or before time?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

I wish we could see beyond our universe, I want to know so much.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

That’s a philosophical question, not a scientific one, since it’s by definition beyond the ability of science to answer. It suffers from the infinite regress problem which many people invoke God to solve (the uncaused cause) but that’s not very satisfying, is it?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Obviously God did it. /s

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

It is incoherent that sonething could suddenly exist out of nothingness.

Clearly the universe does not exist, this is all an elaborate statistical artifact.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Seems like a distinction without a difference, I sort of assumed the OP meant that is all I mean. We don't know anything before the beginning after all. Like you said.

load more comments (28 replies)