If Energy cannot be created or destroyed, how can there be a beginning to the Universe ?

Time/Space/Matter/Energy has always existed in some form or another. I cannot fathom how anything can exist without these four things present. There is zero evidence the Universe had a beginning.

 

That's just false on so many levels. A) Yes, energy can be created, through the transformation of matter in nuclear reactions (fission and fusion). B) Yes, there is evidence of the beginning of the universe, in background radiation. C) Space can literally disappear, in neutron stars and black holes. D) Time is stopped at the speed of light. If you could possibly travel at light speed (impossible, since it would take infinite energy to accelerate matter to that speed), time for you would stand still. E) We don't actually know what the master singularity that blew up to create the universe was composed of, whether energy or matter or something else entirely, so it's possible that one or the other or both did not exist at the beginning of the universe.

 

It's only energy which cannot be created. No such rule governs time or space or even matter. We can create matter, the LHC in Geneva does it all the time, from energy (matter is just one form of energy).

According to one theory, the net energy in the universe is zero. Matter is positive energy, but gravitational potentials are negative energy. According to this theory, they exactly cancel, i.e. when the universe started to exist, at no point did the energy not add up to zero.

According to another theory, conservation of energy is closely linked to the passage of time. If time started to exist, then there is no guarantee that conservation of energy held at that moment.

 

Detectable time starts when electrons move.

 

Right you are.
There are only 3 possibilities:

1. The universe has no beginning and no end

2. The universe was created

3. The physical laws of the universe, as currently understood, do not hold true under all circumstances

 

Time/Space/Matter/Energy, as defined by man, has always existed in some form or another. God and man are not equally yoked.

 

What? Also, how does that connect to my post?

 

There's no proof of God, only proof of Time/Space/Matter/Energy. God exists, at this point, simply by definition and your desire.

 

If energy is created "through the transformation of matter in nuclear reactions (fission and fusion)through the transformation of matter in nuclear reactions (fission and fusion)" that means there is something that existed before energy (or at least it was energy in an other form).

There is zero evidence that nothing can create energy.

 

Wait, they create matter? In what sense does that happen? I've never heard it before. I thought they just crashed particles together. How can smashing matter into other matter create more matter?

 

I think this is a question of perception. All the matter and energy making up you has always existed yet you had a beginning. What we call the birth of the universe is really just the point it developed it's current form. We don't know what happened "before" that or where the energy/matter came from but there is evidence of that key transitional point.

 

Ironic given that everything you subsequently posted is false.

E=MC2 means that energy is just another form of matter. Transforming from matter into energy does not "create" energy just as energy being absorbed by plants does not "create matter.

BZZZT Wrong! The background radiation is only "evidence" of the background radiation.

Define "space" and "disappear" in this context.

Time does NOT stop for the person traveling at the speed of light. Time only appears to stop RELATIVE to those who are not traveling at that speed.

No, it is not possible that both did not exist because then you have the problem of explaining the concept of "creation".

 

Oh wow. Evidence, by definition, has to be indicative of something other than itself. Otherwise, nothing could ever be known. There's just no way you really believe that. If you did, it would make no sense to ever disagree with anything.

 

You obviously know nothing about relativity, or physics in general. Energy is indeed created when matter is destroyed in nuclear reactions. It is completely different from the energy transfer process that occurs in chemical reactions such as those in photosynthesis.

Wrong, the background radiation was predicted by the Big Bang theory itself, so when it was discovered, it was evidence that the Big Bang theory was correct. Not proof, but evidence.

Space: the void that exists between particles of matter. In a neutron star, there is no space because all the matter has been crushed down into neutrons in contact with one another. In a black hole, there is no space period.

"Time stops when traveling at the speed of light through space."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/special-relativity-nutshell.html

We do indeed have the problem of explaining the concept of creation. The Big Bang theory only theorizes what happened, it doesn't theorize why or where it came from.

 

And yet, here we are. The "something from nothing" problem is an insoluble one in physics, since physics starts from the premise that every effect has a cause. If you start from the premise that the universe started out entirely as matter, where did the matter come from? If you start from the premise that the universe started out entirely as energy, where did the energy come from?

If that's not enough to boggle your mind, consider the "holographic universe" concept... scientists now believe the universe only exists because we're here to look at it. But if that's so, why are we here? How can we exist?

 

No, there is not something from nothing. You claim nothing existed and there is zero proof of that.

My point is, matter has always existed - no beginning, no end. The same with space, time, energy.

 

Energy may take different forms that have a "beginning," but the energy itself is eternal.

 

That second one is too weird.

We have matter coming in and out of existence all the time.

Suggesting those are "creation" events seems more than a little over the top, given what we usually mean by "creation" on a board involving religion and philosophy.

I wonder if it would help to have a word for the universe of universes. That is, one can't really just ignore the hole in our scientific knowledge concerning the possibility of other universes and how universes are created.

 

Quite possibly but we don't (and probably can't) know for certain. Just because you're incapable of imagining the energy that makes up our universe being created doesn't mean it can't have happened, especially given your imagination is entirely contained within that universe.

 

So imagination now suffices for evidence ?

 

you're saying there is no energy in matter ?

 

Evidence for what? I'm not making any definitive assertions. Quite the opposite, I'm specifically saying we don't know because we have insufficient evidence.

 

So it turns out that in collisions, more matter can be created. For instance, this diagram shows a process by which Higgs bosons are created:
https://www-cdf.fnal.gov/physics/new/hdg/results/smtautau_mar11/feynman/VBF.PNG
This is a Feynman diagram, it can be read from left to right, so two quarks, which are the constituents of protons, collide by exchanging a Z boson, and that Z boson gives off a Higgs boson.

There are plenty of processes like this, I just chose a Higgs one because they're quite popular, and in this particular one, the matter is quite easily counted, you start with two quarks and you end up with those same quarks plus a Higgs boson. Higgs bosons can then decay into more matter, in case you're more interested in "everyday" matter, like quarks and electrons. In this diagram, the Higgs boson decays to tau leptons.

There is also another cool process known as Hadronisation. Quarks cannot exist on their own, they have to come in groups of two or three (or four or five). If you take a group of two (known as a meson) and pull them apart, instead of existing each on their own, they create two new quarks to pair up with each of the original quarks, so instead of ending up with two half mesons, you end up with two mesons. In order for this to happen, you have to pull using a lot of energy, and the new particles are created using that energy, according to the famous E=mc^2. Again, there are many processes in which this can happen, I chose this one for its simplicity.

I should mention that this creates extremely small bits of matter, but it proves the principle correct, that matter can be created. In an event such as the big bang, it's plausible that huge amounts of matter would be created.

 

I would buy using the word 'assembled'.

E=mc^2 is merely an 'equivalency', it does not mean matter is energy.

 

I hope thats what he is saying.