We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know • Hacker News Board

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#51

Post by flatiron » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #31

ThinkBeat wrote: post #25

I dont think we can get there. First, we would need to solve time. I am not sure if we are able to grasp it. Then we must figure out what happened at T-1 or T-2, which I think will be simple once we understand time. The theory creates a start and then explains the progress from there. but not what caused it. In theory of the cylinder than the universe travels to that is good but it does not explain how everything cam…

Why does there have to be time before The Big Bang? IIUC, the hypothesis is that everything was packed into one super-dense black hole. Wouldn't there not be any time?

The way we currently view time there was no time before the Big Bang. No space = no time

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#52

Post by me_me_me » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

conviencefee999 wrote: post #34

ThinkBeat wrote: post #25

I dont think we can get there. First, we would need to solve time. I am not sure if we are able to grasp it. Then we must figure out what happened at T-1 or T-2, which I think will be simple once we understand time. The theory creates a start and then explains the progress from there. but not what caused it. In theory of the cylinder than the universe travels to that is good but it does not explain how everything cam…

Please stop construing your religious beliefs with sciences. Sometimes the answer is simply we do not know.

the god of gaps is more and more god of cracks

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#53

Post by jb1991 » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

vouaobrasil wrote: post #48

I think one thing that humans have not come to terms with is the possibility that some fundamental fields are essentially dead in terms of possible new discoveries that most people will care about. That doesn't mean that there's nothing left to do. There are minor details in some fields but they are more like engineering problems. Physics may be one of those fields and I certainly think math is as well. However, it's…

I quite disagree with this. Visionaries come along to unseat centuries of limitations, raising the ceiling forever. Those visionaries are rare, but there will be more.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#54

Post by sagivo » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 2:36 PM UTC

Looking at a static stone and deducing where it fell from may work based on the current rules you know today but no one tells you these are the only rules. We have to look at science as best guess for the moment and not as absolute truth.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#55

Post by yewenjie » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

Any theory of everything has to fall into one of the options of Agrippa's Trilemma - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#56

Post by kretaceous » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

734129837261 wrote: post #23

"We don't know how fire comes to life, and we will never know." "We don't know how to defend ourselves against beasts, and we'll never know." "We don't know how disease spreads, let's just hug it out, we'll never know." "We don't know how to fly like a bird, we'll never know." "We don't know how to land the booster of a rocket, we'll never know." "We don't know how to cure that form of cancer, and we'll never know."…

I agree that the title is kind of defeatist and I'm not against scientific research on finding the source of universe, heck I optimistically hope humans find it within my lifetime. That said, all your examples are really miniscule and dare I say, easy, as compared to the scale of understanding the universe.

You present an interesting semi-fictional point on simulation.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#57

Post by me_me_me » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 2:40 PM UTC

ThinkBeat wrote: post #25

I dont think we can get there. First, we would need to solve time. I am not sure if we are able to grasp it. Then we must figure out what happened at T-1 or T-2, which I think will be simple once we understand time. The theory creates a start and then explains the progress from there. but not what caused it. In theory of the cylinder than the universe travels to that is good but it does not explain how everything cam…

Unlike in Genesis, the light was not created before sun.

Grafting god onto science by cherry picking things that were guessed while throwing away all the incorrect statements is a bit disingenuous, no?

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#58

Post by Victerius » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 2:40 PM UTC

chiefalchemist wrote: post #49

But isn't Webb calling the BBT into question? Even if we answer how it began there is still: 1) Why? 2) What was there before that? 3) And before that? 4( And before that? And so on. It's the rabbit hole only hallucinogens can fill.

My pet theory: Something has always existed. There was no beginning. No origin. No first cause. No t=0. No start. It's always been there. What was before that? That. And that. And that. Always that.

And the Second Law of Thermodynamics is not absolute and can be broken.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#59

Post by vouaobrasil » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 2:43 PM UTC

jb1991 wrote: post #53

vouaobrasil wrote: post #48

I think one thing that humans have not come to terms with is the possibility that some fundamental fields are essentially dead in terms of possible new discoveries that most people will care about. That doesn't mean that there's nothing left to do. There are minor details in some fields but they are more like engineering problems. Physics may be one of those fields and I certainly think math is as well. However, it's…

I quite disagree with this. Visionaries come along to unseat centuries of limitations, raising the ceiling forever. Those visionaries are rare, but there will be more.

Maybe, but if you look at the list of famous unsolved problems in math, it has been dwindling for a long time. The list used to contain problems that undergrads could understand. Biology is still like this -- you can take quite a few interesting unsolved problems in biology and explain it to most people.

Math has a few left like the Riemann hypothesis, but the vast majority of new work that has been coming out is more like refinements (I say this as a PhD in math who as actually read them). We look at history and expect it to repeat itself, but if you closely examine math history you can actually see a decline. Take the time to truly examine "visionary" things that have happened in math and those events are actually getting fewer and fewer. I seriously doubt there is much left to do that is of interest to more than 5-10 people in each subfield.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#60

Post by brightball » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 2:44 PM UTC

elevaet wrote: post #6

jacquesm wrote: post #2

"The issue is that physicists can’t accept the scientifically honest answer: We don’t know, and leave it at that." This sentence jumped out for me. Is there some kind of crusade going on that I have missed the beginning of? This feels like a strange sentence in this piece and feels like a (misguided) attack.

The purpose of science is to try to understand the world. Even if we never can answer how the universe began, I hope we never give up trying.

Agreed completely.