• Question: what was before the big bang

    Asked by kypc8785 to Artem, Caroline, John on 21 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Artem Evdokimov

      Artem Evdokimov answered on 21 Jun 2012:

      There is no real agreement between scientists as to what happened before the big bang. Part of the problem is that big bang was supposed to have started the time itself, as we perceive it – so ‘before’ is a sketchy concept that involves additional dimensions 🙂

      Some speculation as to what was there before the Bang suggests that the Universe is cyclic – it goes from expansion to contraction and then back to expansion again. So according to that theory, before the Big Bang there was a Universe more or less like ours, and then it slowly decayed until there was no more energy left of any kind, elementary particles decayed and black holes evaporated or merged… gloomy and desolate thought, brr…

    • Photo: John Short

      John Short answered on 22 Jun 2012:

      Good question – no one knows as in theory, time and space did not exist before the big bang. It would be impossible to know, unless we are somehow able to travel outside this universe, but that presents its own problems if we can actually do that.

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