[Vern]

That works pretty well with me yor_on. We have space, time, and stuff. Absent any one of those three, we have essentially nothing.

[Vern]

I don't see that we trash the laws of nature. We don't know for certain what those laws are, or even if universal laws actually exist. All we can say is that they appear to hold true for the visible universe. There may be regions (domains) outside our visible universe where the laws are very different.

You are correct; we don't know for certain; but we do know that we have never observed a violation of what we consider to be natures laws. We can imagine that nature is different than we have so far perceived it. But we may have perceived nature correctly, and just refuse to accept it in its natural beauty. []

I'm thinking of our need to get into string theory and such.[]

[DoctorBeaver]

Interesting   Myself I've thought of inflation as a 'topological defect' or maybe it's what came after inflation that is the 'topological defect' And that is as I think of space and matter as some kind of 'mirroring' of each other. So as soon we have 'matter' we will have 'space', and 'c'. But as I see it, that doesn't define what was before.

But how would you account for the fact that matter didn't exist in the very early universe. It was far too hot. Space was there, but not matter.

Drawing an absolute differentiation between matter and energy is a tricky proposition. Remember the famous formula? E=mc^2

But there plainly is a difference. You can stick your finger through energy, you can't do that to matter.

My point was that in the first 10^{-silly number} seconds there was no matter at all. It hadn't formed. I think in physics terms the moment when matter began to form is called de-coupling. But space already existed when matter & radiation de-coupled.

[Ethos]

But there plainly is a difference. You can stick your finger through energy, you can't do that to matter.

How would you then define matter, would the electron qualify?

[DoctorBeaver]

I wouldn't define it. I don't presume to know enough about the subject. I've seen timelines and read articles that say that matter began forming at 10^-n seconds after the BB. Maybe baryogenesis has something to do with it?

[Ethos]

I wouldn't define it.

Actually, Wikipedia defines it as:

Anything having both mass and volume. I believe that the electron meets both those criteria. Now we'll need to ask when the Leptons were created subsequent to the Big Bang won't we? Does anyone have this information here at Naked..................Ethos

[DoctorBeaver]

The quark epoch was between 10^-12 seconds and 10^-6 seconds. As they are the fundamental particles of which hadrons are made they can possibly be classed as matter.

[Ethos]

The quark epoch was between 10^-12 seconds and 10^-6 seconds. As they are the fundamental particles of which hadrons are made they can possibly be classed as matter.

Astute observation DocB, and about that judgement, I would have to agree. That is, unless some evidence to support an earlier form of matter becomes clear to science............Ethos