Did the Big Bang happen? 

"The Big Bang is the simplest explanation to the universe that we know, and it's probably wrong" (I love you Sabine! 😅)

I just finished reading your book, and while I can't claim to have understood everything (and at almost 82 I'm probably not quite as sharp as I once was), I can thoroughly recommend it to all the followers of your videos. This was another great video - they are always something to look forward to every Saturday.

I just discovered Dr. Hossenfelder and she is a hilarious buzzkill. Love it!

I have been blessed to live in a spacetime where/when Newton's ideas are still remembered and Einstein's are still playing out. The odds of that happening are as infinitesimally small as being privileged to watch Sabine make frightfully complicated subjects so accessible to a common mind like mine. Now subscribed.

Thank you for helping people see that there actually are questions where the correct answer is "We don't know" Understanding what we may not know is a huge foundation of continued learning.

The eyebrow joke was superb, always wondered the same!

You took me back to a lecture hall 64 years ago, when my professor commented "in the end, the only important questions are Boundary Value Questions". You have said what we all know, but do not say. It is one of your best, albeit not pure science, but slipping into philosophy.

Great video, Sabine! Clear and simple, humorous and cutting-edge sharp!

I love how everything in your videos is far from sensationalist and always cold fact. You're my hero, Sabine

this is an honest, and sober walkthough of a really complicated topic (as usual) you rock Sabine!

Thank you Sabine. I appreciate the raw honesty of your position (or velocity?). Stay well

Hi, I'm in the middle of reading your book Lost in Math, it's so good! I just searched your name on youtube and discovered you have an amazing channel too!

This was a terrific episode. My new favorite! Philosophy of science mixed with astrophysics.

Odd that Sir Fred Hoyle was responsible for the term 'Big Bang' (he used the phrase during a radio program because he couldn't think of another term that would describe the theory on radio) when he in fact disagreed with that theory.

I always love your very dry and sort of awkward sense of humor. Also... that many of your jokes are "smart" jokes. You have a good niche here. Thanks for the fun AND informative videos!

I only recently discovered you, Sabine, but you have changed the entire way I have thought about physics and the universe. Seeing you challenge the views that we've been taught to hold as truth has given me as a mathematician a very different view of reality. Thank you. You are truly amazing. Watching you and Michio Kaku - who comes across as so aggressively confident in his faith in supersymmetry / string theory - is such a refreshing breath of fresh air. I seldom read anything other than mathematics books, but I'm looking forward to reading Lost in Math, especially given how easy it is as a PhD mathematician to become so decoupled from reality and live in an internal world of the beauty of mathematics.

"We don't know" - the one thing we humans hate to admit when it comes to big questions.

Excellent work on this one. Clearly put, and filled with things I needed to hear. Thanks Sabine.

Probably the most thought provoking talk I have seen you do in the 5-6 years that I have been watching your channel. Thank you for translating gobbledygook about why we still have to speculate on how the current state of our universe came to be. I am a 70 year old who only made it as far as High School. I like Stephen Hawking's hypothesis, though. I don't think you can have time without matter.

You are absolutely brilliant on both the subject matter, and with respect to your ability to communicate your ideas. I am a huge fan.

Love the series you have done and your sense of humor - thank you for making some very complicated things easier to understand for people like me who have no background in these fields :)

You had a good observation available with the stone throwing metaphor that you didn't talk about. When you rewind the equations from the final state, you do not know when the initial state occured. If you rewind the thrown stone, you could conclude that it jumped out of the ground. That is not true, because the initial state was later in time. You can rewind the physical laws beyond the real initial state, but it doesn't give correct account of the past anymore. IMO rewinding the universe's evolution for as far as the laws we know allow, and even beyond that, suffers from the same issue.

I love you're videos! I love the honesty! Keep it going. Sending love your way!

Once again brilliant to the point explications.Thank you for such great breakdowns on very difficult subjects.

I'm very new to this channel but I really like it! I'm very impressed with how Sabine openly admits that we don't actually know how the universe was formed and that we may never know. She's also very funny!

Out of all questions we have about the big band, I find Karl Pilkington's the most interesting: "Was it really a big bang or did it just sound louder since there was nothing around to drown it out?"

I like the idea you have about the limit of our understanding about how the universe came about. Human understanding and its limitations is a fundamental subject and it deserves perhaps a scientific theory to specifically address this question.

Mindblowing ideas put forward by Sabine. THANK YOU! Sabine, what impact does the observations of the James Webb telescope so far , have on all these theories of the universe?

These videos really make my day whenever you release them. I find the topics interesting and your tone of presentation engaging. If more of science communication focused on what we don’t know instead of focusing on new knowledge, there would be a lot less need to embolden claims.

Thanks Sabine, for another great video! This is dovetailing nicely with your book which I'm enjoying very much!

Loved Lost in Math and just picked up Existential Physics as well. Looking forward to diving in.

Brilliant, as usual! And above all, HONEST. The same can be said about economics & economists as about cosmology and some cosmologists. For now at least, there’s only so much we can know and understand, and not more. The rest is either gobbledygook or charlatanism - both of which are taught in standard University economics courses. Econometrics is in theory about fitting models to data but in practice it’s about fitting data to models. Either way, you can achieve consistency but you can do so in many different ways, and choose the battery of statistical tests that works best for your initial assumptions or for your pet theory. The result is not unlike scholasticism or medieaval medicine: to show you can reason (and/or calculate) consistently about anything. And often forget about “reality” altogether. … Fun!

You are the best science communicator that I have come across! Clear concise honest and humble. Thank you for the education.♥️

I bought both of Sabine's books, and I heartily recommend both!

"We should not take these ideas seriously..." I agree we should not take the conclusion that they're accurate seriously, but it may be worth _considering_ them seriously to determine if through exploring the ramifications we can come to some new, _verifiable_ understandings.

"We don't know" is a great push to "we wish to know" and maybe "we will know if we..."

Thanks Sabine! Once again, please make a video on VSL (Variable speed of light)😉

Sabine, great explanation. I learned something and also enjoyed it. Your humor does a great job of making a point in a fun an engaging way. I am sure you are a great professor. BTW, while I was listening to your points, I was also thinking about the singularity at the center of a black hole and your points about singularity at the beginning of the Universe also apply.

Thanks for this clear explanation - saves me a LOT of time!

Explendid video, one of yours best one! Congratulations!

It’s really easy to see the appeal of looking for new models when the simplest best current one has features like singularities that we expect not to be real features of reality. Getting justified about any particular model may be beyond our experimental capabilities. Great analysis!

Fantastic video -- For me personally, I find the points you made to be profound and have given me a perspective on this that I can buy into, and that will stay with me. Thank you so much, Sabine...

Thank you Sabine, you have unscrambled my brain with one simple, honest, straight forward video, which has quietened all of those competing theories with one 'Big Smack'.

Why did it take so long for me to find this? It is like RU-vid does not want someone with a scientific background to be promoted if they are not buying into the social group think. Wish I had found this sooner.

Excellent and hilarious Sabine! Thank you for reminding us of what is known/works, what is not known/working and what is pure conjecture

Sabine, My theory of the expanding universe is that the expansion is actually part of a sinusoidal motion; wherein after a long period of time, the expansion will cease and contraction will begin. I maintain that the universe never had a beginning and has always been there.

Thanks Sabine, That was fun. My math disability prevented me from ever doing physics at anything more than undergrad level but you make things easy.

Your content is amazing, keep it up.

One of my favorite aspects of Sabine's videos are that she can show why some ideas are not good science without being condescending.

Thank you for your honesty, more scientists, physicists, and other professionals should learn when to admit, "they just don't know"

Thank you for the different views of the beginning of everything. Penrose's ideas always feel good to me. BTW apropos of nothing, that new hair style is very attractive in my view. Thanks also for your wonderful humor - I always get at least one good laugh from every show!

I love how sabine is so cool about not knowing sth thats the true spirit coz if u pretend to know sth u actually dont it ll keep you from wondering

Great catching your lecture at the Royal Institution last week Sabine!

This woman is a treasure in my life. Thanks for everything, Sabine and team.

Thanks for the education & entertainment. You are both an informative cosmetologist and an entertaining standup comedian combined. You are the best example of space, time, and matter the big bang has produced yet far.

There are many situations in which "I don't know" is the only honest and correct answer. Unfortunately, we have been taught from early in school that it is a dishonest answer that really means "I was too lazy to try to find out." We need to break old habits and learn when "I don't know" is the only correct and honest answer. That may be unsatisfying, but not everything in life is satisfying.

Thank you, Sabine. I love your sense of humour, also. Sublimely droll.

I’m glad Sabine has admitted to not knowing. I thought it was just me

Just found you. Loved it. You won one more subscriber

Hi! Sabine, you are so Cool. I have subscribed recently and learning so much from you

There's also the funky idea that maybe the rules have changed over time. We can only observe our _current_ set of rules, so we cannot ever rule out that there wasn't a different set of rules at an earlier point in the existence of our universe.

Yes! This is exactly why I love listening to SH, she tells the dirty truth without fear or favor. She unsnowballs the supposed consensus by delivering facts and reasonable conclusions based solely on the evidence at hand. Take note other scientists, this is how it is done.

I'm 35 , it's my first time hearing that we don't know. I've been lie to my entire life.

"we don't know" well that's simple and honest. love it

Imagine being Sabina's kid. "Hey sis, I think she knows about the chocolate again..."

Always enjoy your videos - thanks from the UK.

I love your honesty. Most leading science educators act as if science know it all. They always forget we only have mathematical MODELS .

Nicely explained, thanks.

4:45 I absolutely love Sabine’s comedic delivery, it’s genuinely very funny

Besides Einstein and Hubble, also George Lemaître deserves a mention for getting the idea of the 'Big Bang' ("primeval atom").

Yes !! Yes !! Finally honesty from a Physicist. A theory also needs to be testable. These are all conjectures and can’t reasonably be called Theories. That’s a huge misnomer.

So good to hear you again Dr. Hossenfelder. I am currently sticking to my home made NO bang infinity2 theory of existence which hit me about age 3. But like you I will never be able to explain why some women pluck off their eyebrows and paint them back on. Nor why people like me and your husband have such a high resistance to doing the garden.🙂

I find your Big Broccoli theory intriguing! Entertaining and educational content, as always.

15:00 - It's amazing how Sabine can do this with a straight face. 🤣

So clearly explained. Thanks.

A similar lecture to Sabine's should be included in high school curriculums.

You rule girl...keep up the good work ♥️👼

I love it! The best explanation is the simplest, and it probably wrong. How cool it must be, to be able to get paid to come up with unprovable theories! Great episode! … are podcasts episodic?

3:58 I had no idea people were thinking such deep thoughts in my reception room! 😅😂 (Dentist here).

Thank you so much Sabine. An honest scientist, who respects both the inherent beauty and practicality of science but also its inherent limits.

If Sabine didn't already exist someone would have to invent her! Brilliant explanation, as usual .

thanks for this fantastic video

LOL @ her joke at the end about women's eyebrows hahahah

GOOOODD JOB SABINE

Great video, i do agree. Below a couple of questions/comments on the parts of the video as food for thought for the viewers: Isn't the high energy density equation of state tested somewhat by observing neutron stars etc, at much higher energies than the LHC? We aren't seeing the final state but actually slices of past states when we observe the universe, right? In principle we can look back to quite a long way towards the initial state, with cmb, neutrinos, matter imbalances, etc. This doesn't go all the way back but there is more info out there to probe. On the question of simplicity: Aren't new hypotheses often posed as effective theories, so that they tend to have extra parameters? Isn't there some point in generating many ideas to see if there are ways to test them? As long as you can find a way to falsify it, it would make sense to do that. Of course I agree, in cosmology it has gone quite far, but if you would say to stop working on hypothesis exploration about another field that just got started it wouldn't make much sense. I understand that your point is that cosmology is not like other areas, since we try to describe the universe and a possibly unknowable initial state (though I think there could in principle be observable consequences of the initial state, otherwise we wouldn't be here either), not all effects might be washed out in some theories, just very hard to detect. Just a bit if devil's advocate, maybe. All in all i agree with the video.

Thank you Sabine. An honest and intelligent answer to the question of all things. "The Big Bang is the simplest explanation we know, and that is probably wrong, and that's it!" Such is the nature of all things we strive to understand. And we march on

I am beginning to understand these concepts thanks to your videos. So I appreciate them.

3 facts about our existence; 1. Most common human question - "Why?" 2. Most difficult human answer - "I don't know." 3. Question we may never be able to answer - "Why women pluck off all their eyebrows, and then paint them back on" 😂😂😂 Jokes aside, this was yet another amazing video 😊 Thank you!

Hi Sabine, can we see some of the evolution of the universe (over the past 13.7 billion years ) since Hubble and JWST are essentially looking back in time? They cannot see the initial state, but the models should have to agree with what we are observing in this evolution.

I'm so glad I found Sabine's channel. She's a real peach, and her blunt honesty is a breath of fresh air. I adore this channel 👍🏻

Thanks for an interesting presentation :)

“I don’t know” is always the correct answer when it’s true. Motivations of those insisting otherwise need to be examined. Great video!

+30 points for making Einstein say "Dang!" It's videos like this that keep me coming back. Rational discussions that include the limitations of our understanding, which are so often left out in the mainstream. That and she keeps getting cuter every video I watch. I think it's her sense of humor. The universe started as broccoli. :-D

4:09 This is the most honest statement I've ever heard. When I hear someone humble enough to admit they don't know something or admit they were wrong about something I tend to trust them more. Scientist should be the first to admit their fallibility, you're smart and there is a reason why theories are called theories. Even the most scientifically confirmed theories deserve scrutiny and so do the scientists working on them. We know enough to know we don't know everything. If you have all the correct answers to everything then you are exempt from such scrutiny; Right after your peer review, of course.

Just trying to combine what science can do with the best logic I can come up with, what makes the most sense to me is that a black hole is a singularity and Einstein's formula going backwards leads to a singularity means that a black hole becomes a singularity until it explodes into a new 'galaxy'.

This may be a long shot but if anyone can explain it, it's you. A long time ago much of Jungian psychology was concerned with the interconnection between physics and psychology. Carl Jung even went on to say that Physics and Psychology are more closely linked than many people of his time had realized. This was 60-80 years ago at this point. With your vast knowledge of phyiscs and what you know about psychology, neuroscience, etc., what are the contemporary links between Physics and Psychology? For reference, Marie-Louise Von Franz (an established Jungian analyst and student of Jung) wrote a book called Psyche and Matter in an attempt to further explain links between physics and psychology. Is it pseudoscience, or is there something to it? Thanks for all your work! Waiting for your new book to arrive in the mail this week.

15:26 "the big bang is the simplest explanation we know, and that is probably wrong. and that's it. that's all that science can tell us."

Right on, as usual. I’m wary of making the assumption that simpler is better and probably more accurate. Could be wrong. Maybe it’s crazy to even be TRYING to come up with reasonable (consistent with our limited data) theories of the origin of the universe, but I don’t think so. It’s good to explore and sort through the possibilities, keeps our minds exercised - as long as you keep in mind that that’s what you’re doing, just exercising your mind, and almost certainly the theories are wrong (but some might have kernels of truth; you may never know which those are).

Sabine, me has volado la cabeza, con muchas menos justificaciones pensaba lo mismo. Decir no lo se requiere mucha sobriedad, algo que no abunda. Durante tu charla me reí a carcajadas varias veces. Creo que te mereces algo mejor que el premio nobel. Tu aporte está a la altura de ese que nombras muy seguido en tus videos. Brillante Sabine Sabine, you've blown my mind, with far fewer justifications I thought the same. To say it does not require a lot of sobriety, something that does not abound. During your talk I laughed out loud several times. I think you deserve better than the Nobel Prize. Your contribution is at the height of the one you name very often in your videos. Brilliant Sabine

The Jens Felau callout had me rolling 😭