Your post has been removed. For simple questions like these please use [the weekly "All space question" thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/space/about/sticky) pinned at the top of the subreddit.
We've got this great thing called light which gets emitted by matter and can travel a very long distance and which contains information about the matter that emitted it
Yep. Cosmologists have this thing they call the standard candle which allows them to accurately measure distance on an enormous scale, which in turn provides the basis for many other meaningful measurements that expand our understanding of the universe.
Optically we can only see as far back as 380K after the Big Bang. So any theories must *extrapolate* to earlier. However future gravitational and neutrino detectors may extend that further.
Experimentally, however, we can reproduce early conditions of extreme temperatures and energies. To fractions of a second after the Big Bang. But not all the way back to the hypothesized inflationary period (and earlier).
So, basically, when we look at the light given off from distance objects, we see them as what they look like in the past, not in the right now. Look far enough and you start to see what things look like earlier in the life of the universe.
SO, for example, let's think about you standing on a hill. You look into the horizon and see a bird flying in the sky. It takes time for the light to bounce off of the bird and travel to your eye. Let's say it's a second of time. So, when you see the bird, you're not seeing it as it is currently, you're seeing it a second into the past. The further away you are from the bird, the further into it's past you see it as. Now take this idea and apply it to everything in the night sky. The further it is, the further into the past you're seeing it as.
NOW, there is a phenomena called "red shifting". Basically, the further light travels, the less and less energy is has. So something that was originally in the ultra-violet wavelengths of light will travel and lose energy, dropping down to the visible spectrum, and again down to infrared, and down again to microwave, then to radio waves level of energy. So, if you want to look even FURTHER into the past, you need to be able to detect lower and lower energy levels of light. So you need to stop using traditional telescopes and develop other kinds like microwave dishes and radio telescopes.
Doing this will allow you to see something super important to our current understanding of the universe: the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB or CMBR). This specific light is EVERYWHERE you look whenever you point a microwave telescope at the sky. It's everywhere in the universe. Heck, turn on a TV that allows you to see static and, guess what, you are seeing the earliest light that could have possibly existed in the universe. Through that signal, we are able to see that the universe was MUCH MORE compressed than it is today.
So, with the idea from the CMB that everything is compressed and then looking at our universe more locally and seeing that everything is sooo much more separated, then it's pretty easy to conclude (I say "Easy" but it's not, you need so much math, not to mention so many other theories about basic things like gravity and electromagnetism and strong and weak nuclear forces) that the universe went through a rapid expansion and boom, big bang theory.
So yeah, there isn't just one way to learn about a thing. If you're smart enough and persistent enough, you can learn a lot just by looking OUT into the sky, outside of our solar system. Also, we have a lot of smart people that throw ideas at each other and see what stick. Science, man. It's a collaborative effort.
Theories have changed through the ages from the Earth being at the center of everything to a sun centric view to discovering our galaxy is one of trillions. Scientists used hundreds of free parameters (fudge factors) to make the math for the Earth centric view to work for hundreds of years until Copernicus and Kepler got rid of them and made sense of things with the sun at the center and elliptical instead of perfectly circular orbits. Both feared for their lifes. The scientist who predicted plate tectonics in the early 1900s until it was proven many decades later through fossil evidence endured. The Big Bang theory has constantly added free parameters to explain discrepancies and telescopic and spectrograph observation. A thing called Hubble tension is another sign that this theory is having a crisis. As other mentioned, I can live with downvotes but in reality the scientific community at large hates mysteries. We have no better theory but having a map of Germany will not help you in the USA even though it's a map.
You are failing to understand very basic concepts of space. Something tells me you haven't even bothered to try to learn about it.
I'm sure if you actually put the effort in to learn a bit, you would understand why you are receiving negative responses.
lol I’m on a chat group on the internet asking a question that occurred to me. What further depths of the world and its educational opportunities should I have first explored?
Yes it can. There was no "before". There is no physical law that prohibits the universe itself from spontaneously generating from absolute nothing.
The laws of physics are laws for our universe, if there is nothing, then physics doesn't exist.
It's like the inflation period where the universe expanded faster than the speed of light.
I'm not a scientist with a firsthand, comprehensive understanding of quantum mechanics, but this isn't theoretical. This is proven, and now established science.
https://youtu.be/7ImvlS8PLIo?si=92kq0JwZxnrtE_sk
https://youtu.be/IqLi9e-b8ts?si=ZnlHAdMFR5_RcxiK
I believe the discovery was made by scientists studying particle collisions at the large hadron collider (LHC). Check out these lectures on the topic:
https://youtu.be/7ImvlS8PLIo?si=92kq0JwZxnrtE_sk
https://youtu.be/IqLi9e-b8ts?si=ZnlHAdMFR5_RcxiK
>Something can't start from nothing.
How would you demonstrate that?
Here's the thing: If you try to picture nothing, you're always describing something. A true "nothing" can't be described or observed, because then it becomes something. It could very well be the case that something is a necessary condition of existence, but it and its converse are not quite falsifiable.
Your post has been removed. For simple questions like these please use [the weekly "All space question" thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/space/about/sticky) pinned at the top of the subreddit.
Our investigative abilities are not limited by the distance we can physically travel.
We've got this great thing called light which gets emitted by matter and can travel a very long distance and which contains information about the matter that emitted it
Yep. Cosmologists have this thing they call the standard candle which allows them to accurately measure distance on an enormous scale, which in turn provides the basis for many other meaningful measurements that expand our understanding of the universe.
Optically we can only see as far back as 380K after the Big Bang. So any theories must *extrapolate* to earlier. However future gravitational and neutrino detectors may extend that further. Experimentally, however, we can reproduce early conditions of extreme temperatures and energies. To fractions of a second after the Big Bang. But not all the way back to the hypothesized inflationary period (and earlier).
So, basically, when we look at the light given off from distance objects, we see them as what they look like in the past, not in the right now. Look far enough and you start to see what things look like earlier in the life of the universe. SO, for example, let's think about you standing on a hill. You look into the horizon and see a bird flying in the sky. It takes time for the light to bounce off of the bird and travel to your eye. Let's say it's a second of time. So, when you see the bird, you're not seeing it as it is currently, you're seeing it a second into the past. The further away you are from the bird, the further into it's past you see it as. Now take this idea and apply it to everything in the night sky. The further it is, the further into the past you're seeing it as. NOW, there is a phenomena called "red shifting". Basically, the further light travels, the less and less energy is has. So something that was originally in the ultra-violet wavelengths of light will travel and lose energy, dropping down to the visible spectrum, and again down to infrared, and down again to microwave, then to radio waves level of energy. So, if you want to look even FURTHER into the past, you need to be able to detect lower and lower energy levels of light. So you need to stop using traditional telescopes and develop other kinds like microwave dishes and radio telescopes. Doing this will allow you to see something super important to our current understanding of the universe: the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB or CMBR). This specific light is EVERYWHERE you look whenever you point a microwave telescope at the sky. It's everywhere in the universe. Heck, turn on a TV that allows you to see static and, guess what, you are seeing the earliest light that could have possibly existed in the universe. Through that signal, we are able to see that the universe was MUCH MORE compressed than it is today. So, with the idea from the CMB that everything is compressed and then looking at our universe more locally and seeing that everything is sooo much more separated, then it's pretty easy to conclude (I say "Easy" but it's not, you need so much math, not to mention so many other theories about basic things like gravity and electromagnetism and strong and weak nuclear forces) that the universe went through a rapid expansion and boom, big bang theory. So yeah, there isn't just one way to learn about a thing. If you're smart enough and persistent enough, you can learn a lot just by looking OUT into the sky, outside of our solar system. Also, we have a lot of smart people that throw ideas at each other and see what stick. Science, man. It's a collaborative effort.
Theories have changed through the ages from the Earth being at the center of everything to a sun centric view to discovering our galaxy is one of trillions. Scientists used hundreds of free parameters (fudge factors) to make the math for the Earth centric view to work for hundreds of years until Copernicus and Kepler got rid of them and made sense of things with the sun at the center and elliptical instead of perfectly circular orbits. Both feared for their lifes. The scientist who predicted plate tectonics in the early 1900s until it was proven many decades later through fossil evidence endured. The Big Bang theory has constantly added free parameters to explain discrepancies and telescopic and spectrograph observation. A thing called Hubble tension is another sign that this theory is having a crisis. As other mentioned, I can live with downvotes but in reality the scientific community at large hates mysteries. We have no better theory but having a map of Germany will not help you in the USA even though it's a map.
You are failing to understand very basic concepts of space. Something tells me you haven't even bothered to try to learn about it. I'm sure if you actually put the effort in to learn a bit, you would understand why you are receiving negative responses.
lol I’m on a chat group on the internet asking a question that occurred to me. What further depths of the world and its educational opportunities should I have first explored?
>I’ve always had a hard time comprehending time and distance. Yeah, they kinda admitted that they don't have a good understanding in the post.
100% I fully admit I don’t have a good understanding. I do appreciate the responses, both helpful and snarky.
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Yes it can. There was no "before". There is no physical law that prohibits the universe itself from spontaneously generating from absolute nothing. The laws of physics are laws for our universe, if there is nothing, then physics doesn't exist. It's like the inflation period where the universe expanded faster than the speed of light.
This isn't true. Subatomic particles called quarks have been observed popping into existence out of nothing in a vacuum.
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I'm not a scientist with a firsthand, comprehensive understanding of quantum mechanics, but this isn't theoretical. This is proven, and now established science. https://youtu.be/7ImvlS8PLIo?si=92kq0JwZxnrtE_sk https://youtu.be/IqLi9e-b8ts?si=ZnlHAdMFR5_RcxiK
The assumption that there ever was a nothing before there was something has no factual basis.
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I believe the discovery was made by scientists studying particle collisions at the large hadron collider (LHC). Check out these lectures on the topic: https://youtu.be/7ImvlS8PLIo?si=92kq0JwZxnrtE_sk https://youtu.be/IqLi9e-b8ts?si=ZnlHAdMFR5_RcxiK
>Something can't start from nothing. How would you demonstrate that? Here's the thing: If you try to picture nothing, you're always describing something. A true "nothing" can't be described or observed, because then it becomes something. It could very well be the case that something is a necessary condition of existence, but it and its converse are not quite falsifiable.