Question from Niki:

Hello there and thanks for being here for us, I mean for us atheists.



I suspect my question has been already asked and answered, but I am not sure which link is the best for the best answer, so, here it is about the origin of matter in space.

I myself have some answers to offer, like it’s been there forever in the past, then I read that some scientists have come to the idea and rejected it, I don’t know exactly why. the other answer would be what Steven Hawking told us, that something can come out of nothing, like empty space containing nothing, and then something pops out of this nothing. in that case i would say that this Steven’s nothing is not my nothing, cos my nothing is really nothing, while his is kinda pregnant with something that the matter popped out of.



So, which link would be the freshest and best to tell me the present state of thought on the origin of matter? Or it isn’t known probably.

The other question has to do with gravity and other forces that are present in the universe, and in the matter itself. What about them, which are they and where did they come from? Probably unknown too.



Tied to this is the question of the moving of matter. I know that matter has never been stagnant in space, once it came out of the big bang. So, the first, original push of the bang, was the one that drove the matter into space. But, for space bodies to be formed, there had to be, and is still there, cos there is no traction of the environment in space, the circular movement of the matter so that it gathered together here and there and formed star or planets and suns.



BTW, does our sun rotate too, together with its planets, and us too with the earth?



Thanks, and sorry if I am too much of a dilettante in the field, but I know much more about Mozart. This minute I am listening to the fourth movement of his fortieth symphony. Delicious. lol



Answer by SmartLX:

You’re very welcome Niki, I have gradually gathered some feedback that our presence has been of use.



Anyway, my main article on the origin of the universe is my response to the cosmological argument, and it raises multiple possibilities. A universe that extends forever into the past is one option, and I know what you’re referring to when you say some scientists rejected the idea, but they didn’t really. I learned that while writing an article on the findings of Borde, Guth and Vilenkin. Something from “nothing” is another valid option, and in my article on that I refer to a book and online lecture by Lawrence Krauss who can explain it better than I can. As you imply, the meaning of “nothing” is slightly unconventional in this context.



The origin of the fundamental forces of the universe are as much a mystery as the origin of the matter in it. Again, they could have existed forever or emerged from nothingness, and that’s just two hypotheses of several. The origin of the universe’s movement isn’t so much of a mystery though, because if everything was moving outwards from a single point in a balanced way then the combined momentum of the universe was zero anyway. In one mathematical sense, nothing changed from when (or if) it started as a dot going nowhere. Spinning motions were largely caused by gravity; if two objects are drawn to each other in space but barely avoid a collision, for example, they will begin to orbit each other.



The movement of the Sun is rather interesting. It does rotate, but billions of years of being dragged upon by its own magnetic field have slowed its rotation until it’s probably turning slower than anything else in the solar system. It also moves around the Milky Way in its own 200 million year orbit. Relative to Earth, the Sun travels roughly in the direction of north, so that our orbit around the Sun actually traces a 3D spiral or spring shape through space. Here’s a simple model.



Enjoy your Mozart. Appropriately for this topic I’ve always loved The Planets suite by Gustav Holst, especially the plaintive, possibly jazz-influenced Venus and the sublime, haunting Neptune. (Look up what “sublime” actually means, folks, and then listen to Neptune while thinking of space.)

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