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We can assume that it was a ball. Was it equal to all of the mass of the universe? How did it get there?
One common misconception of the big bang is that it was an explosion IN space, like we're used to seeing with bombs or supernovae or whatever only much bigger. It wasn't -- it was an explosion OF space. The total amount of space was tiny, and all of the matter and normal energy that's in our current universe was crammed into that tiny volume.
So asking what shape the big bang was is asking what shape the universe was, which is a complicated question.
As for how it got there, current cosmological theory says that before the big bang we had "inflation", where space was expanding exponentially everywhere. Inflation stopped in some tiny part of that pre-universe space (quantum decay of a sort), and the area in which it stopped became our universe and was the big bang. If so, then it's likely that our universe isn't the only one, that inflation may well have stopped in many (perhaps infinitely many) other locations, but all of those universes still have "inflation space" in between them so there's no way for any kind of information or mass/energy to travel between them.
If you're interested in cosmology/etc but don't want to deal with the math required, the PBS SpaceTime youtube series does a great job of explaining it to the lay person. Here's the episode on inflation:
Started reading it, kept getting smacked in the face with straw man arguments. Stopped. JWST has opened the eyes of scientists and is forcing some to alter or abandon some of their presuppositions. That is all, and it's a good thing.
Was it equal to all of the mass of the universe? How did it get there?
The Big Bang Theory (and, really, all of cosmology) concerns itself with the physical process by which matter and energy were transformed and organized into what we today recognize as the universe.
Where that matter and energy came from in the first place, and what, if anything, existed prior to the Big Bang, is likely one of those un-knowable things. Only philosophy and religion have made any serious attempt at tacking that question, producing wildly varying answers which range from "God did it" to "That which exists has always been" to "The universe remains manifest for 4.32 billion years and unmanifest for an equal length. Innumerable universes exist simultaneously. These cycles have and will last forever, driven by desires." all the way out to "It cannot be proven that the universe does exist at all."
None of those are particularly helpful answers. But then... what really is the use of knowing the answer?
The Big Bang Theory (and, really, all of cosmology) concerns itself with the physical process by which matter and energy were transformed and organized into what we today recognize as the universe.
Where that matter and energy came from in the first place, and what, if anything, existed prior to the Big Bang, is likely one of those un-knowable things. Only philosophy and religion have made any serious attempt at tacking that question, producing wildly varying answers which range from "God did it" to "That which exists has always been" to "The universe remains manifest for 4.32 billion years and unmanifest for an equal length. Innumerable universes exist simultaneously. These cycles have and will last forever, driven by desires." all the way out to "It cannot be proven that the universe does exist at all."
None of those are particularly helpful answers. But then... what really is the use of knowing the answer?
None of those are particularly helpful answers. But then... what really is the use of knowing the answer?
I am just going to chalk it up to "Magic" and forget the whole thing.
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