Energy Question

[AWandererAmongstThem]

I love watching the science channel specially when Dr. Michio Kaku is on or anything that has to do with cosmology. So I was watching TV and I found out that the laws of physics break down at the big bang. if the laws of physics as we know break down, then how do we know that the laws of thermodynamics is true? How do we know that energy can't be created nor destroyed? Now logic tells that well nothing can't create something like 0=1 is impossible so there put have been something before the universe. i was wondering if you guys could elaborate on this and provide some sources about the matter at hand. Thanks!

 

[e2iPi]

It is quite dramatic to state "the laws of physics break down," it is also misleading.
Physics is like a puzzle where we are constantly finding new pieces and how they fit together. Sometimes, we have a piece that doesn't seem to fit anywhere then someone comes along with a new piece and things fall into place. For example, special relativity and universal gravitation are united under general relativity and does an excellent job of describing the universe we see, until we start looking inside the atom. General relativity and QED do not implicitly contradict each other, but they have yet to be pieced together, largely due to their separate experimental domains, but we believe that they DO fit together.
The answers quite probably lie in those opening femtoseconds after the big bang, between the Plank epoch and about 10^-11 seconds. It is believed that at this high energy density gravity may very well be on par with the other fundamental forces, perhaps even unified with them into a single fundamental force. The search for the holy grail continues.

-1

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

That isn't a problem as todays total energy of the universe ammounts to zero.
And he Universe dosn't break down, our methods of analysis is what doesn't work. It is undeterminated point, i.e. singularity (a mathematical term)

 

[GoodKat]

That isn't a problem as todays total energy of the universe ammounts to zero.

Has that been adequately substantiated?

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Has that been adequately substantiated?

This one of the leading theories regarding the birth of our universe, altough I'm not an experted at it to be able to tell you about the degree of certainty to wich that is known or hypotisized, but I do know there are very good reasons for it to be so.

 

[GoodKat]

This one of the leading theories regarding the birth of our universe, altough I'm not an experted at it to be able to tell you about the degree of certainty to wich that is known or hypotisized, but I do know there are very good reasons for it to be so.

So it's likely, but shouldn't be considered a fact, correct?

 

[Squagnut]

It's right to say that the laws of physics break down at the big bang, altho' as e2pi said, that isn't the most helpful way to put it. The BB is a singularity event, like black holes, where the laws of physics are also said to break down. In the case of black holes, this is because we don't know how so much matter can fit in such a small space, and we have no way to find out. It seems very improbable to me that the 1st law of thermodynamics stops applying, however - black holes emit x-ray radiation when they're feeding.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

So it's likely, but shouldn't be considered a fact, correct?

Yes, even beause it is nothing to do with observation, you can not measure all the energy of the universe. But then again neither gravity is a fact, a fact is something that you directly observe that happens. A fact is something happened this way, when I droped a ball, it and the ground got brough togheter that is the fact. Facts are not that helpfull as one might think.
Altough there are hypotisis/laws/thoeries that we believe that holds up to the factual observations, like gravity.
If you ask me if what I have said about energy has as much a degree of certainty or a confirmed and firm underlying bases like gravity has, then I would have to say No.