The Universe has always existed based on new evidence !

Well...it's not contracting and it's not static so I would guess it's expanding...

 

Unless it is static. In either case, the universe could be infinite. If is is infinite, it is not likely there ever was a Big Bang.

 

And if there was no beginning to the universe, then there is no reason for something to cause it to begin.

 

Point being, you can't assume you know the answers when you don't.

 

Something theists should consider.

 

The universe is still expanding faster than the speed of light, I'm not sure how that factors into this new theory.

 

Bam! It is expanding.

 

You're putting the cart before the horse.

We have to understand the nature of the embedding before we can overlay a Cartesian numbering system (or any other kind of numbering system) on it, and do useful math with it.

You speak of "singularities" - physicists refer to only a tiny subset of the meaning of that word. In math, a singularity is any place you "can't do math". For instance, it could be a slope that's infinite, or, it could be some other thing. Topologists "unfold" singularities so math can be done in and on them, by "lifting" the area in question into a different embedding - one where the singularity is "more nicely behaved" (either continuous instead of discontinuous, or whatever the case may be). After the math is successfully performed, the results are then projected back down into the original embedding.

Obviously, this can only be done for certain well behaved embeddings and dimensionalities. However there's more here than meets the eye. It's not as simple as group theory determining which embeddings are permissible. Fractional embeddings are also permissible, fractional dimensionality is ubiquitous in nature yet mostly disregarded by all but the most modern of math. The very nature of a "mapping" from one embedding to another may involve a "process" (for example, a space filling curve), and that process may be stochastic, and even so the math is entirely doable and the same methods can be used to unfold the singularity and fold it back down.

As far as "experiencing" anything, I'd venture to say that on a good day you probably don't "experience" a tear in the spacetime..... y'know....

 

Exactly. That's what I was trying to explain over in the Science forum. There's no "origin". No clock. Not even anything to define where "now" is, exactly.

The exact same principle applies in a neural reflex loop as applies in a Moebius strip: there is no origin. Any place you put a coordinate system is entirely arbitrary, and what you're really doing by doing that is defining a reference frame.

And, that reference frame has dimensionality, based on the topological embedding that you're dealing with.

For instance - I just mentioned fractional dimensionality. In math, "coverage" is a key concept. If you want to define a "basis" from which math can be done, you need to have sufficient "coverage" over the space in question. In ordinary 3-space the basis vectors are (1,0,0), (0,1,0), and (0,0,1), an "orthogonal set", and that "works" as a basis because you can generate any point in the space using a combination of those vectors. However what if the space in question is non-Euclidean, and what if there is no conveniently available orthogonal basis? Well, to answer that question, you have to go deeper than simple geometry. You have to go all the way down into set theory, and numbering systems, and measure theory. You can form a useful basis in ways other than "standard orthogonal vectors", the key requirement is that every element be touched and every element be distinguishable. You can derive a basis from enough "passes" of a very simple space-filling process, for example, if you were to sit there and splatter paint onto a canvas with your brush (just jettisoning it off your brush, never touching the brush to the canvas), then "eventually" you'd cover the entire canvas. That's a "space filling process", and, such a thing can be used as a basis to "cover" the space of the canvas (in other words, we are approximating a LOCAL nicely behaved geometry this way).

These types of considerations are very simple, yet very deep. Once you get away from nicely behaved Cartesian coordinate systems all kinds of crazy things can happen. Yet, the behavior is "intuitive" at a certain point, it's only non-intuitive for some people because they haven't been exposed to enough of it. What is intuitive, is if you throw enough darts at the target, eventually you cover the whole target. You can therefore create a basis on any disjoint set if you can find a process to fill its space. That's how we unfold singularities. Turns out you can unfold "most things", there's very few things that are so miserably behaved that they can't be somehow coerced into a useful topology.

 

Big Bang is valid whether the universe is infinite or not. It doesnt require either option. So why shouldnt we be confident?

 

Well if you can't answer the question of whether or not the universe is infinite with any confidence, I hardly see how you can say the Big Bang Theory is correct with any confidence.

All of these expert amatuer internet physicists keep talking down to me like know it alls, I would expect that one of them had the definitive answer.

 

Again, Big Bang theory does not predict the size of the universe exactly, it only implies, coupled with observations of large scale spacetime curvature, that it is considerably larger than the observable part. So yes we do know that Big Bang is correct and at the same time we do not know how big the entire universe is. Why you seem to have a problem with this simple logic is beyond my understanding.

 

So, not infinite? Still avoiding the question.

If we can predict the age accurately, why not the size?

 

The Big Bang theory only makes sense to me if there's a continual cycle of expansion and contraction of the universe.

 

"Considerably larger than the observable part" includes possibly being infinite. I am not avoiding the question at all.

We can predict the age of the universe because universes with different ages would look very different. But we cannot predict the size accurately because an infinite universe and an universe than is finite but still quite big would simply look the same to us. So we know the age accurately, but not the exact size, only a lower bound.

 

Wait, wait. You honestly believe we are at the center of the Universe? Please don't tell me you believe that on the basis of the red shift

 

You have to bear in mind that 'zero' is a human construct which at one point had to be invented so that mathematics would make sense. Furthermore once we delve into the world of quantum physics all bets are off. We are told that our current level of knowledge won't allow us to see beyond the singularity-the point at which the known universe came into being-and maybe we never will. If we do reach that point it will be a glorious day and religion, the creation myth and gods will finally be put to rest. We can but hope.

 

No it does not! There is no centre. Every point in the known universe is 'central' to any other point because everything is expanding away from every other point. It's a difficult concept to grasp, I know.

 

Indeed, and from what I have read there will come a point in time where everything we know has expanded so far from everything else that light will no longer exist, the universe will have become cold, dead and lifeless.

 

Because there is no 'size' in a continually expanding infinite state. But I do take your point; look, we can know when and how a baby was born simply by looking back at a timeline of events. We cannot, however, predict what will happen throughout his life, we can only speculate. The only certainty is corporeal death. I wish I had the intelligence to figure out this stuff so it makes sense to me!

 

Well...whether an event took place which ignited the expansion (BB) or there simply is too much yeast in the Universe, according to Hubble's Constant there is expansion. How long the expansion will last no one knows the answer to infinite or finite...

 

The BB has nothing to do with infinity? The BB got things going; how far they will go is another unrelated question. There's absolutely nothing wrong with not knowing the answer about infinity and certainly nothing wrong with theories put forth by cosmologists. We can't even detect the farthest galaxies in the Universe, and may never detect them if they continue racing away from us...but one thing for sure...they are racing away from us, not contracting, therefore expanding...

 

For the same reason no one can predict Oprah's waist size from month to month...it is expanding and until or if it stops will be the only time the maximum size will be determined assuming we have the technology to measure those distances. It is impossible to take a process which has been in effect for at least 13.7 billion years, which is still in effect expanding, based on limited knowledge and technology of short-lived humans, and answer a question about how big will it get?

 

Theories are not evidence.

 

You're confusing the map with the terrain it represents. All of your talk about embedding, singularities and dimensionality may make for very useful equations, but that doesn't mean reality necessarily follows suit, any more than shading a map blue for water and green for hills means all water is blue and all hills are green.