5 ms·
>Even in the distant past, during the period of cosmic inflation that occurred before the Big Bang, that background radiation was present What does "before the
by fasterik 3y ago
>Even in the distant past, during the period of cosmic inflation that occurred before the Big Bang, that background radiation was present
What does "before the Big Bang" mean? Don't space and time break down at the Big Bang singularity? Didn't cosmic inflation happen 10^-36 seconds after the Big Bang?
- ravenstine 3y agoYeah, it's hard to understand what that means because the furthest point back in time that we know of could be looked at as the beginning of the big bang, even if there was a delay of some kind before the most significant expansion.
- philipov 3y agoI think they think the big bang means the moment the cosmic microwave background was created, and are confusing the big bang with recombination (which made the universe transparent). Why else would they suggest that inflation happened before the big bang?
- edgyquant 3y agoI really don’t think it’s hard and basically everyone knows what is meant by this. Physicists just like to be pedantic about the technicalities of what “before” means.
- computerfriend 3y agoEx-physicist, which kind of muddies the water, but I'm not trying to be pedantic when I say "I don't know what this means".
- ravenstine 3y agoTotally off-topic, but what made you leave the physics field? If you don't mind me asking.
- fasterik 3y agoIf we're talking about a singularity, it's not pedantic. If you reverse time and go back to the Big Bang, it's not possible to define what happens after you hit the singularity, at least according to current theories. As another commenter pointed out, the article is referring to the "hot Big Bang era", not the Big Bang singularity, so that's what is causing the confusion. It is possible to talk about what happened during and after cosmic inflation.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]