What do we mean, when we speak “Universe”? What do words mean “The universe is expanding”? Was there “Big explosion”? And if there was, what was “next to him”?

Universe. The words, the words… How many different words we say without thinking. And not only in everyday life. Quite often in physics, some, and even very many, seemingly well-defined words, used incorrectly and out of place… And one of these words – Universe. As a result, you have to hear so many statements., that would never have been done, if people always thought carefully, what exactly do they say. AND, may be, and the general public would not have any questions, meaningless. But why blame the general public, even if specialists, whom God himself commanded, often they themselves do not understand exactly, what they say. This is especially noticeable in discussions of such a popular topic., as the emergence of the universe as a result Big bang.

What is the meaning we put into the word “Universe”? Clear, that there are quite a few variations in the meaning of this word. Especially in everyday speech. And that's ok. “I drove the whole universe…” Who cares about the hyperbole in this line of the song? This is not what this is about. But in relation to physics, and in books or articles popularizing physical theories, I would like to see certainty, lack of ambiguity in the sense of the word. Perhaps, no one will argue with me especially, what basic word function “Universe” in physics – designation of all things, without exemptions. Only many people understand this very specifically.. And the reason is, how is our education formed at school?concept of space and time as receptacles, where we ourselves and the things around us exist. This view automatically expands from our little world to more and more, the space surrounding this world, captures all the wider and his past, and the future. This creates a view, model of existence in space of successively larger islands of existence – person or object, cities, country, planet earth, Solar system, Galaxies, Metagalaxies and… The universe. This is where the core of the problem lies., this view becomes a barrier to correct understanding and interpretation of the Big Bang as the cause of the birth of the Universe, so much less common features, black hole. I'll do one thing now “self-evident” statement and try to explain, why can't it be right.

Statement: Universe, as the totality of all things in existence, taking all together some space, exists in time. Everything is wrong here. Furthermore, in this form this statement, even if it only applies to some small, compact part of the universe, only approximately true. What time I have already mentioned. But here the meaning of the concept of time is key, critical to understanding the issue. Therefore, I will repeat briefly. Time – this always sequence of events image. Events can be different, therefore, the time for some compact, a sufficiently large area of ​​the world can be defined in different ways. Therefore, there are many times for each such selected part.. It could be like time, definite (measured!) as a sequence of events of any of the smaller parts of this area (eg, watch on hand, time standard in Moscow, London or Paris), so is the time, defined as a sequence of events global for the entire region — for planet Earth, these can be seasons (year) or some average, reference time, spread to the whole planet by means of radio synchronization. In this way, existence in time for an arbitrary part of the world — it is in a sense a tautology, since time itself is defined as existence. but, because of, that there are many times, the idea of ​​precisely existence in time arises and is affirmed, in time of the neighboring part of the region and, which is much more natural, in time, common for the whole region. The presence of smaller parts in the area under consideration, its constituents are also created by the idea of ​​space, this area of. Here the idea of ​​existence in space also arises, an example of the implementation of which is the existence of any, smaller part in space, associated with the space of the entire area. Since the world naturally highlights the sequence, matryoshka more and more areas, containing the previous ones as small parts — man or stone, city, country, planet, galaxy — then the idea of ​​some common, containing it all, comprehensive, space and time. The passage to the limit is made from such a finite sequence, which is quite real, to a much less grounded notion of infinite space and time, which will contain everything that exists, no matter how we expand our horizons. Instead of the concept of time and space as ways of describing the relationship between events, there is an idea of ​​them as substances independent of anything. I want to emphasize, that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the emergence of the idea of ​​containing everything and all space and time. On the contrary, the idea of ​​enclosing spaces in itself is very fruitful and very useful in studying the properties of spaces, placed in them. Such a room sometimes makes clear those properties of spaces., which from an internal point of view can only be described formally, using one or another mathematical (physical) ratios. In principle, this possibility is guaranteed by mathematics.. For anyone, any exotic mathematical space, you can find some of its containing Euclidean space. truth number of measurements such an enclosing space will be deliberately large, often much more than the number of dimensions of that space, which needs to be accommodated. I'm just going to illustrate many of my comments in this way., placing model Of the Universe into a 3D space familiar to the reader. It is only important to understand, that just because, that we ourselves are parts of the universe, really that look “from the side” the universe is not available to us. But look from the side at model The universe we may well. If we remember, that these are just models, not corresponding to the original exactly, and even very inappropriate. Let's return now to the statement at the beginning of this section.. Let's focus on words first “The universe as a collection of all things exists in time”. Let's remember, what is the time? Time is a sequence of events. But herself Universe — these are ALL events, without any exception. In what time can the universe exist?? Where are they, those events, what set the time scale for the WHOLE Universe? And what are they? They are not part of the universe.? Why then are they a part? These simple questions have only one reasonable answer. – the idea of ​​time for the universe as a whole does not make sense. Time makes sense for parts of the universe, but not for the whole. Also, like space. The universe as a whole can only be thought of as space-time, single object, but not as something in space and time. So the statement at the beginning of this paragraph, to make sense, can and should be reformulated only in this way: “The universe exists, as a collection of all things, forming a single whole – space-time“. So think about it, do the statements make any sense “The universe is expanding”, “The universe was created by the Big Bang” or a question “And what happened before the Big Bang, if time started at the moment of this explosion?” In relation to the universe, it is simply pointless to make such statements.…

You ask, how so?! Is it all physics lies?, they say the universe is expanding, and this is proved by such experimental facts as redshift, relic radiation and something else there? Take it easy. I am not going to refute all these and other experimental facts.. The only thing, what I stand for, so that physicists and popularizers of science do not mislead the reader with misused words. And myself too. Because I have such a big suspicion, that very often those, who write about these topics themselves do not understand well, what do they write… “Extension” there is, just not the universe, although it would be more correct to call this phenomenon not an extension. May be. But they have already named. The redshift is, but it can be interpreted in many ways. Big Bang, as a kind of special area (and even a point!) in the universe could be, but it might not be. Etc.

We can pose as Lord God and explore the possible properties of the universe, as a kind of solid object, mathematical construction, space-time. How much imagination is enough. Suddenly it will become clearer, what exactly is expanding, and what can this talk about? This is what I will do now.. And to illustrate such possible properties I will use the model, placed in three-dimensional Euclidean space. Clear, that such models will not be accurate. But I still hope for their usefulness.. To fit into three-dimensional space, my models must be at most two-dimensional., ie. surfaces. In two dimensions, one will necessarily represent time and only one dimension remains for the image of space. In these models, of course, you will not see the difference between temporal and spatial coordinates., although she, generally speaking, essential.

Everyone knows one more or less closed world, which may well serve as a good model of the universe, if you strain your imagination a little. It's about our planet, more precisely, its surface. Here is a 2D image of the Globe, as seen from the outside. I took this image from the program Google Earth. Our imaginations are already quite accustomed to associating such a two-dimensional image with a sphere in three-dimensional space.. Images of three-dimensional objects on a plane have long become commonplace., cinema and television have taken good care of this in our time. Sure, that the majority saw this sphere from the outside, at least as a school aid – globe. For brevity, below I will call this my model of the Universe a spherical surface Globe.

And on a flat image of the Earth (maps), and on the earth's globe, in addition to the contours of continents and islands, which are integral parts of the earth's surface (in fact, they are the most earthly surface), as a rule, special lines are applied – parallels and meridians. These lines help you navigate the surface of the sphere.. it grid lines. So on my Globe, I also want to have a coordinate grid. But if on the earth's globe and along the parallels, and lengths are measured along the meridians, distance, then on my Globe I need the coordinates of two fundamentally different varieties. I need lines of time and lines of space. Besides, space of my universe, Globe, will be one-dimensional, unlike the space of our universe.

As an outside observer for the Globe, I can overlay a grid on it completely arbitrarily. I will do it the same way, how geographers do for the earth's globe. Wherein I will always consider meridians as timelines, and parallels will then give me instant spatial sections of my universe, which are naturally considered as an instantaneous state of space, as a whole. Notice. “Space” in my model there are no more, but also no less than a section of space-time made in a certain way, not something that exists on its own. Namely, section is done orthogonal to the time line at any given point. And it would be possible to make the section differently. But I want it this way. Insofar as Globe is a sphere, then cover it everywhere with one single orthogonal coordinate grid of lines “time-space” impossible. If you still want just a single coordinate grid, then it must inevitably have two singular points, poles, where all timelines intersect, and space as such is compressed to a point, ie. actually disappears. Me and you, as external observers, quite obvious, that these poles are nothing special about the Globe. This is nothing more than the overhead of our way of gridding the sphere.. Poles – singular points of description, not Globus, as such. Similar, how is this true for the earth's surface. Yes, on the earth globe, the grid poles are placed at two really special points on the globe, which are highlighted on its surface by an imaginary passage through it of an imaginary earth's axis. The axis is imaginary, but the rotation of the Earth as a whole takes place. So some feature at the Earth poles, North and South, undoubtedly there. Besides, these points are very far from habitable. therefore, it is convenient to place the poles of the grid of our geographic coordinates there. But not necessarily. On the earth's globe, all geographers draw a grid of parallels and meridians always the same precisely because, that the poles are all placed in the same places. Initially, there are no such special places on my Globe, therefore, it is easy to imagine many such grids, with poles in arbitrary places of the spherical Globe.

Let's see now, what time and space look like for an observer from my Globe. Let it be a very advanced master (or ma'am), who was able to collect complete information about the Globe space in his past. Not only in that past, where he existed. But throughout that area of ​​his universe, our Globe, which in his the timeline was to him. How did he manage it, we will not ask. We see everything from the outside and so at once. This gentleman also describes his time and space., how he sees them from the inside, using a coordinate grid, in which at each point the line of space orthogonal timelines. Not hard to understand, that the coordinate grid, built by him, and there is exactly that grid of coordinates, which we have imposed from the outside on the Globe. More precisely, one of the many such similar grids of meridians and parallels. And that means, all, what our master can say about his universe, we will see immediately, we speak the same language with him. Time existence this gentleman, naturally, is part of some meridian of the Globe. I marked it with a piece of black line somewhere in the Pamir region. Direction of time, to the future, indicated by an arrow. Respectively, the past of this gentleman is tracked along the meridian towards the North Pole. AND “space” in his past it is nothing, how are all parallels, located in this direction.

Easy to see, that every parallel, which is a circle orthogonal to the meridian (timelines), when retreating into the past, it has less and less length. The space of our master in his time scale and direction is expanding! Now let's remember, that we tend to identify the space around us with the Universe. I already said, what is wrong, but we are doing this. To distinguish this “wrong universe” from the correct universe, I will write it with a small letter. So our lord also identifies his space with the universe. And screams: “O! My universe is expanding!!!!” And indeed it is. Thus defined space, his universe, expands with the flow his time. And his whole real universe, our Globe? Out of the Globe, not related to the time and space frames of this master, we clearly see, what to say about the expansion of the Globe in its terms does not make any sense. His terminology is unfortunate. For him the Globe, his universe, just exists, all times and spaces together, just like space-time. I would like to draw your attention to one more important fact.. The place on the globe for my advanced researcher I chose at random. Draw an arrow on the globe yourself for another such gentleman in any place and direction, bind a new one to it, its own grid of meridians and parallels and everything will look exactly the same. So any observer of the Globe will come to the same conclusions.. Okay, you say, now we understand, what is really meant, when we hear or read, “the universe is expanding”? truth, you understand? And what is this property of the Universe, which manifests itself this way? Have guessed? Yes, this curvature. It is the presence of those huge regions of space-time (space-time as a single object, and not for space or time as its separate sections), which are available to us for observation, and most often called the universe (so be it, but with a small letter!), some overall average positive (ie. spherical type) curvature and manifests itself for us as an expansion of our space over the course of our time. Well, I hope with understanding, what could lie behind the words “the universe is expanding” we figured it out a little.

And now next in line Big Bang. Logic, according to which all theories of the Big Bang are built, discouragingly simple. The universe is expanding? Yes, empirical facts say just that. Matter – matter and radiation together – as known, persists. How much matter is there now, so much of it was in the past. What follows from this? What used to be, in a space smaller than now, the matter was denser, just because, which took up less space. Looking at the Globe. When our lord looks into his past right up to the point in time, falling on its meridian to the north pole, what he discovers? Oh!!! The space has shrunk to a point!!! There is no time either!!! Big Bang!!! Or vice versa. The universe was born in a Big Bang, time has gone, space appeared and began to expand… This conclusion can be drawn by our observer in the Globe. Are you a reader, observing Globe from outside? What conclusion will you make? Of course, that all this is fiction, the result of extrapolating our master's ideas about the structure of his Universe from his small neighborhood there, where they no longer have a place. Compounded by inaccurate terminology besides. You know for sure, that in the Globe, the North Pole is absolutely no different from any other point on the sphere. It's all about the grid, which has a feature. I emphasize, feature is, but in the way of describing the Universe Globe, and not in the structure of it. And over time, and with space in this area of ​​the Globe, as in any other, absolutely nothing happens. Good times can also be identified locally., and good space. Just you coordinates, which our master uses, good in his field, cannot be extrapolated with impunity to either pole. Why? Because, that the Globe spacetime is curved. By the way, due to the lack of a real feature in Globus, question “what happened before the Big Bang?” may seem quite meaningful. After all, the meridian passes through the pole without problems. That's just the trouble, the Big Bang itself is simply not in our model.

Big Bang is not in our model. Is it possible to come up with a model of the universe, which has a feature, which can be called the Big Bang? You are welcome – cone surface. Its pinnacle simulates the Big Bang.. And there is even some semblance of an expanding space.. But such a model still agrees much worse with those experimental data., from which physicists have learned about the expansion of our universe, than the spherical model. The thing is, that the directions on the cone are clearly not equal, whereas in our Universe they seem to be equal, looks like, as is the case on the sphere. As a matter of fact, almost all experimental data tell us, what average the curvature of the space-time of our Universe for all areas accessible to our observation corresponds to the curvature of the spherical type. We do not know, how much does it change from place to place, but does not change his type. And this suggests, what the part of the universe we observe tends to, to keep the whole closed. This is the conclusion that can be drawn from the observed phenomenon. “expanding space”.

And now again about the Big Bang. We are well aware, what events, forming the fabric of the universe, which we call matter, seeing them as connected chains, fill the universe, at least, part of it known to us is by no means uniform. Where is dense, and where is empty. And there are places, where oh how thick – stars, nuclei of galaxies, eg. That's why I'm talking about the average curvature of space-time. And if you put the question like this – “is there such a region in the Universe, where, indeed, when approaching some of its points, the density of matter tends to infinity?”, then in this form the question of the reality of the Big Bang becomes quite meaningful. And the search for such areas in the universe, which we, of necessity, can only lead in the past, become meaningful too. Observing the correct terminology, of course. It should be noted, that apart from the Big Bang, this question also covers another fashionable product of the uncritical use of the results of the General Theory of Relativity. I'm talking about black holes. There, too, time disappears, object space (thank God, not the whole universe) shrinks to a point, and the density of matter rushes to infinity. The truth is, that in the case of black holes in their vicinity everything is very similar to, what we just covered above? One to one. I am not going to question the possibility of the existence of regions in the Universe., where the density of matter can reach enormous values. Such areas are known to exist. I have already mentioned the stars, nuclei of galaxies, I can also add quasars. But in my opinion, most likely, that in the Universe in any region the density of matter can reach only finite values. I'll explain a little below, why i think so. As I already said, invent continuous space-time (The universe), singular, yes, even an infinite number of them does not pose any problem. Even my Globe example can be modified like this, that a special point will appear in it. Take Globe to the North Pole, and pull it out like this, so that from this side the Globe is no longer quite a decent sphere, and one part of it turned into a sharp navel, like a cone with a fairly sharp top. Here is an almost spherical model of the Universe almost everywhere., which has a real Big Bang. As you understand, and in any such model, questions, “what happened before the big bang?”, “was the universe born as a result of the big bang?” also remain incorrectly set. Because the questions “to” and “after” do not make sense in relation to the Universe, regardless of its device.

I will now dwell on those reasons, which make me believe, that in our Universe the presence of a Big Bang-type feature is unlikely. For me fabric, substance of the universe, space-time is not repository anything. Events, matter – fields and particles – are not in space-time, but they form it, are its constituent parts, in the limit – its points. And with this view of things any event is nothing more than singular point in the fabric of the universe. And those points, where there are no events (Well, even if there are no particles) – ordinary, non-special. So that, if big bang point, then how this particular point differs from all other special, but such ordinary points? Maximum, what can be said about this, that the Big Bang is not the point, and the region of such points, very closely located, thickening continuously to one point, which then we will call the Big Bang. If not continuously, then the density in this area will be finite. Continuously. And where to put the achievements of the twentieth century, quantum theory? God be with her, with theory. But the results of experiments, from which this theory grew, we are told – events are separable from one another. There are no continuous chains of events. That is why it seems to me that reasoning about the infinite density matter at one point, be it the big bang, or black hole, the result of extrapolation of the classical concepts of the continuity of events to the region, where these views just don't make any sense. To the same extent, as a view of the universe as just a part of something else.

© Gavryusev V.G.
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