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I'm more of the belief that time as we know it is more of an illusion. Something did happen, as we see it, around 14 billion years ago though.
I think of our universe as post big bang, so 14 Billion. There are many different theories of time warping under the heavy gravity of black holes. There are also many theories of anti-time since the discovery of anti-matter. Using the Law of Conservation, Matter, Mass; I believe it formed from its own end. If that makes any sense.
Many theories abound on when the universe began. The Big Bang Theory currently says the universe began about 13.8 billion years ago. But even though it's the leading theory, there are problems with it, e.g. it doesn't say what set off the big bang in the first place. And there is a significant minority who say the universe has been around forever.
I feel that better instruments may help to clear up the mystery. Due to all of the theories, I'm sure that many will have their own ideas. So when did the universe begin?
The Big Bang isn't even a valid theory anymore. It was discredited years ago.
The most plausible theory is that the universe has always existed. Which is pretty much the only scientifically valid argument. To think that the universe was created from nothing is tantamount to believing in creation.
The Big Bang isn't even a valid theory anymore. It was discredited years ago.
The most plausible theory is that the universe has always existed. Which is pretty much the only scientifically valid argument. To think that the universe was created from nothing is tantamount to believing in creation.
The universe has always existed. Sounds awfully like religion's "God has always existed" to me.
Our began 13.8 million years ago, but I think the universe is never ending and it was an explosion resulting from the implosion of a previous universe.
I used to agree with all that myself. That is...this current version of the Universe indeed began with the Big Bang about 14 BYA. But this current version is only one of many in a series of BB's. Each of them following the same basic pattern: Bang....Expansion.....slow-down.....brief static state....and then a continual and gradual contraction, finally leading to a total implosion, or a Big Crunch.
But about a decade ago we discovered something called "Dark Energy" which is causing the galaxies, especially those farthest away from us, at the outer regions of the Universe, to accelerate away from each other, and us, at a much-faster than previously determined, or hypothesized rate. With this new cosmological information, I think it somewhat lessens the chances of a Bog Crunch. Nowadays, more and more Cosmologists--including Stephen Hawking, who also used to believe in a "Big Crunch"--to surmise that the Universe will finally just stop expanding as the Dark Energy dissipates, and then will slowly die out in a "Big Freeze."
If the latter scenario proves correct, I think it will also undermine the idea of our current version being merely one in a series. Because, how would the Universe start over, if it just stops and freezes out when all the stars die?
So....my current belief is that this current Universe is the only one that ever existed or will exist, and when it dies, in tens of billions of years or so, there will be nothing.
BTW, on a quick side note, as I am a total Cosmology junkie, I DO also believe the Universe is teeming with intelligent life, and we are simply one of probably millions of civilizations. I don't believe we have ever been visited, however, as the distances are simply too vast. (Over four light years to the nearest star system!)
Pretty obvious there is much we don't know. In 500 years it will be like thinking the earth is flat.
There is a theory of a holographic flat universe where 3D is an illusion. This is a current theory, if the universe is flat, my guess is the earth is flat too.
Almost any aspect of science has active questioning with new challenges and theories being debated often, except one are of science, the only one that is settled.
Something happened 13.8 billion years ago. It isn't clear to me if it was a big bang, or something else. The problem with the big bang, is a universe has to come out of nothing. Causality is violated in this case. This seems to require at least one miracle to scientifically explain what happened after the first effect. The expansion we see evidence of, may have gone on far longer, even to this day, but will never be visible to us. Our visible universe could be very tiny compared to the universe we can't see.
It doesn't violate causality. There wasn't a time before the big bang, because time is a property of the universe. Time wasn't a thing before the universe - and time - started existing. We also know stuff about the big bang because we can see the cosmic microwave background radiation of the universe, a "fingerprint" from that event. Most cutting edge theoretical physics examines what might have happened at various fractions of the first second. Physics itself, and physical laws, it seems are very likely to have been different in those conditions, with forces of nature we know today and physical concepts that seem immutable being fused with one another. Of course, we don't understand why the universe began, and we know for a fact that we don't have a complete picture of physics, but this is still the context in which to think about this.
The answer is we'll never know since each hypothesis will be what started that, then what started that, and so on.
It's not philosophy. We have some information from cosmology and theoretical physics, and there's probably more we have yet to discover. The date itself is well established at 13.8 billion years. That's established by multiple, different astronomical facts.
Yes but who what initiated that start? No one knows. What we're experiencing now could have been an off shoot of another universe and and another before that.
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If that makes any sense.
