Dear Antares 531:

On Jul 17, 6:00*pm, Antares 531 wrote:
On Fri, 16 Jul 2010 07:50:38 -0500, Antares 531

wrote:
Was the "Big Bang" an explosive event, similar to a
thermonuclear bomb, or was it a matter of unrolling
the three dimensions we now perceive as identifying
our space?

Unrolling the dimensions, from a perspective within
this universe, may have been a smooth, gentle
process that would not have produced the inferno that
most Big Bang ideas are built around.

I appreciate all the very insightful responses that I've
received on this subject. I am still trying to get my
thinking opened up enough to let me conceptualize
what went on when the spatial dimensions we now
perceive were in the process of being unrolled from
their initial "curled up to less than a Planck length" to
their present state of being uncurled...straight...still a
bit curled...infinite radius of curvature???

Without light, and time, distance means nothing. Radius of curvature
means nothing.

Was this dimension un-curling process actually
what we now describe as the Big Bang explosion?

*No* one calls it an explosion. They just call it the Big Bang.

That is, would a meter stick, if somehow contained
within that initial point have been discernable as a meter
stick from a perspective within that initial point?

It would not exist, and would have self-intersected a lot of times.

Would that meter stick now be what we perceive as
one meter long, or would it be galactic in size.

There was no force in the world strong enough to keep it together.

That is, was that meter stick shrunk down by the
curled dimensions such that it was the same length
relative to other objects in that initial point?

I don't think it can be answered. You imagine a physical object in a
very unphysical situation.

What I'm trying to get settled in my mind is, was it
an explosion,

No.

or was it an uncurling of dimensions, with no actual
explosion.

I think of it more of a "relaxation". With "clock rates"
accelerating, and distances then becoming greater. If you ask
yourself as Mach did where inertia derives from, then ask yourself why
the entire Universe has one clock rate for each successive now.

The uncurling effect would have produced the red shift
we now observe, just as effectively as an explosion
would have.

More effectively, since an explosion should have had much higher "in
group" velocities than we now see, at any age.

Think of a two dimensional surface on a spherical
balloon. Draw some images on the balloon's surface.
Next, inflate the balloon to a much larger size. All
those objects will have expanded by the same
percentage, and measurements of one object relative
to the scale of any other object would remain constant.

The difference is "binding to the balloon", and "binding between
particles". There are force systems at work, with "conservation of
energy" at play... at least in the small.

This should help:
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology_faq.html#SS

To clarify the above a bit more...draw a picture of a
child one meter tall, holding a meter stick in a vertical
position, by his side. After the balloon was further
inflated, this child would still be one meter tall, as
measured by the meter stick in is hand.

He would scream, and the binding forces that held him "so high" would
restore his shape. Or he would just stay the same shape.

David A. Smith