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bustedbuddha t1_ja7yv45 wrote

Space for the point of energy to exist in didn't exist before that point in time... it may not be something we can readily conceive of but the answer is "not at all".

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Chadmartigan t1_ja81qc2 wrote

Best answer, IMO. It's better to think of the big bang emerging from a state where space and time have no scale. That seems to be what our models tell us anyway. When we say things like "our models break down before the big bang," that's because at t=0, our various measurements of distance and time become nonsensical (infinite, undefined, negative when they can't be negative, etc.). You hear that state described in a lot of ways--a cosmological event horizon, an exotic form of symmetry, a singularity, and so on--but it seems to me that all those describe a state where time and space just sort of fall away.

Edit: And I'd liken the question "how big was the universe before the big bang" to "how long did the pre-big bang universe exist before the big bang?" They are kind of both senseless questions to ask about the state of the universe at that point. They both presuppose that the universe at that point had such properties, but that doesn't appear to have been the case.

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ferrel_hadley t1_ja7xs85 wrote

If the Universe is infinitely big then the point it came from was infinite.

Current the best evidence is that the Universe is (edited at least) 160 times bigger than the observable Universe. But there is no reason to suggest it is not infinite.

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ExtonGuy t1_ja7zt1s wrote

At least 160 times bigger. Anything from 160x to infinity.

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GXWT t1_ja7z0fq wrote

I ask out of curiosity, but what evidence points to this 160x figure?

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ferrel_hadley t1_ja80mn2 wrote

Curvature. We cannot see any in the observations we have and that places a lower bound on the size of a closed Universe, we would be able to detect curvature if it were smaller.

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phunkydroid t1_ja7zt2i wrote

I think it's important to add "at least" before 160. We can only set a lower bound on the size.

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Anonymous-USA t1_ja85s9z wrote

To clarify, the “evidence” is actually a probabilistic analysis of competing models. The lowest model is about 137 light years across (that is the “at least” 50% larger than observable) and the largest model (“at most”) is infinite. This isn’t a mean or average of these models, mind you, just a statistical probability placing the whole universe at a likely 250x the observable 92 ly.

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itsfuckingpizzatime t1_ja80vmq wrote

At the very beginning it was 0 dimensional, as there was no space or time before the Big Bang. It was an infinite amount of energy compressed into an infinitely small point.

And it’s not like there was this little point of energy just sitting there waiting to explode. There was nothing, no space, no time, no matter, and no energy, and then in an instant, there was.

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DarkGoron t1_ja7xur6 wrote

From my limited understanding, a single point. Then exciting all at once.

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FM-101 t1_ja807jb wrote

Nobody knows. Anyone who claims to know anything about what happened "before" the big bang are lying.

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Blue_my_eyes t1_ja8indg wrote

It's my understanding that nothing could have happened before the big bang. Space and time didn't exist until the big bang happened and unless there were previous iterations of the universe, nothing could have happened. Until it did.

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marriageisprison t1_jaa32za wrote

This is my favorite Cosmological ideal. The Big Bang and Big Crunch. The Universe is born, grows, then dies a cold death. Entropy eventually causes the expansion to slow down, stop, and finally reverse down to another singularity.

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Blue_my_eyes t1_jaa414x wrote

What really gets me with it is that there could be remnants of the previous universes outside of our own

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Klondike2022 t1_ja85qie wrote

It was sooo tiny bro like tinier than the tip of your hair

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Pale-Office-133 t1_ja8tz13 wrote

What happens after death? 《Insert your question》

《 No fucn clue》

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space-ModTeam t1_ja8unvr wrote

Hello u/ClassicSpurzy, your submission "How big was the point of dense energy before the Big Bang?" has been removed from r/space because:

  • Such questions should be asked in the "All space questions" thread stickied at the top of the sub.

Please read the rules in the sidebar and check r/space for duplicate submissions before posting. If you have any questions about this removal please message the r/space moderators. Thank you.

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jackvangump t1_ja879tm wrote

Probably just under the critical mass of Big Banging

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Don_Queso_Primigenio t1_ja7yzgk wrote

Nobody knows. Trying to know the past and something that is in a knowledge that can only be achieved by divinity itself is extremely arrogant. Only approaches are made.

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