Big Bang Questions: How Far, How Long, Possible?

[guitarphysics]

How long did the big bang last (initially)? How far did everything travel in that time? I was under the impression that it all happened in a fraction of a second and some things went many light years. If I'm right, how is that possible? (Traveling faster than the speed of light). If I'm wrong, what actually happened? Thanks

 

[Chronos]

Well, the early universe doubled in size about 80 times before settling down in the boring old radiation/matter/expansion version we now observe. And, all that happened in only a few ticks on the Planck clock

 

[bapowell]

And when Chronos says "doubled in size about 80 times..." he means that space itself expanded by this amount. Imagine a rubber sheet that starts stretching at the time of the big bang and continues to stretch today -- this is expansion. Light still travels at c during expansion.

 

[skydivephil]

How long did the big bang last (initially)? How far did everything travel in that time? I was under the impression that it all happened in a fraction of a second and some things went many light years. If I'm right, how is that possible? (Traveling faster than the speed of light). If I'm wrong, what actually happened? Thanks

I think its right to say the "big bang" refers to a theory that the universe expanded from a very hot dense state. That expansion is estimated to have began about 13.7 bio years ago. But of course is still going now, it has never stopped since that period.

I think what is being discussed here is the inflationary period. This is the theory that the unvierse went through a period of very rapid expansion. Nobody knows how long it lasted, but if my memory serves me correctly (feel free to correct me if I have it wrong) but somehting like a doubling every 10^-37 seconds and at leats something like 60 doubling times. This number is estimated from the amount of doubling which are reuiqred to solve some difficult problems found in the standartd (without inflation ) big bang comsology.
Read here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_(cosmology[/URL])

To answer the question how could space have moved faster than light? Reltavity forbids obejcts to pass each other through space faster than light. But it has no restriction on how fast sapce can expand.
Did inflation happen ? there is good evidecen that it did but we are still waitiing for one more key test, read here:
[url]http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090415/full/458820a.html[/url]

I think until that test (read the article) is done there is still room for doubt, but at the moment I think most astronomers would put their money on inflation being right as it has passed many tests so far.

 

[sardar]

The Big Bang theory is a well-supported scientific model that explains the origins of the universe. However, there are still many unanswered questions and ongoing research in this area. One of the most common questions is how long did the Big Bang last initially and how far did everything travel in that time.

Based on current evidence, the initial expansion of the universe during the Big Bang is estimated to have lasted for just a fraction of a second. This rapid expansion is known as "inflation" and it is believed to have occurred in the first 10^-36 seconds of the universe's existence. This is an incredibly short amount of time, and it is difficult to comprehend just how fast everything was moving during this period.

In terms of distance, the universe is estimated to have expanded from a singularity (a single point of infinite density) to about the size of a grapefruit in just a fraction of a second. This may not seem like a significant distance, but it is important to remember that the universe was expanding at an incredibly rapid rate during this time.

It is true that some objects in the universe today are many light years away from us. This is because the universe has continued to expand since the initial Big Bang. The expansion of the universe is not limited by the speed of light, as space itself is expanding and not just objects moving through it. Therefore, the distance between objects can increase faster than the speed of light.

While it may seem counterintuitive, this expansion is not in violation of Einstein's theory of relativity, as it is not objects moving through space at faster than the speed of light, but rather the space itself expanding.

In summary, while the initial Big Bang lasted for a fraction of a second and the expansion of the universe since then has allowed for objects to be far apart, this is not due to objects traveling faster than the speed of light. The universe is a complex and fascinating place, and there is still much to be discovered and understood about its origins.