You can consider the big bang taking place on a cut-open spatially 4D torus. The torus is cut open on the outermost outpart. The down and upler part are extended to infinity to function as the underground for the two 3D universez emerging from the Planck-sized mouth of the torus. Like that there can happen multiple big bangs after one another. Look at them as circlez of matter forming from field fluctuations (virtual particles) around the ultra tiny mouth wbere the space is enormously negativeky curved.

So time is eternal. But from where this whole construction came? From nowhere when it is eternal ir maybe it was created by the gods. But how create time if there is no time in the first place? Maybe with god-like imaginary time as Hawking proposed to address exactly this questiin. But who set that imaginary time in motion?

At the moment I am reading 'The Matter With Us: ' by John Rawles, and he suggests,
'In the beginning was the Big Bang. The Big Bang is, of course, a metaphor. It is a metaphor for the moment when the whole mass of the universe exploded from an infinitesimally small point, whose density was infinitely great, and temperature unimaginably hot. The '"Big" of Big Bang is therefore symbolic, representing not size but important...The Bang, too, is metaphorical, because a Bang is a sound, a pressure wave transmissable through a gas, which can be heard at a distance as a sudden noise.' I think that the idea of the Big Bang being seen as symbolic is worth thinking about rather than seeing at a literal reality in the way which people often thought of the creation story.

Of course, I realise that your question is really looking more at the underlying causation. In his analysis, Rawles is looking at the scientific method is a human construction and he also queries the way we think about causation in itself, and he suggests that cosmology can become too concrete.

moment — Jack Cummins

It didn't all came from a point. Like I suggested in my question that would give the problem of what happened before the bang. What was the kick before? How could there have been a kick if there was no time yet? Was it the unmoved mover? I dont think so. The only way out is the quantum approach. The whole spatially 3d universe once existed around the Planck-sized mouth of a spatially 4d cut-open torus. There were field fluctuations (virtual particles) only. Time went to and fro or up and down. Then BANG!!!. Every virtual pair was driven outwardly on both sides of the torus. In 2d there two circles of matter, normal and anti, inflating away from the mouth. To become real shortly after. Like that multiple bangs can occur. Bang bang bang...

This is a pop-science description of the Big Bang model. The standard cosmological model of a hot Big Bang is nearly universally-accepted, on extremely strong empirical/observational footing... and doesn't include anything about a "beginning of the universe".

The hot Big Bang model merely posits a hot, dense early state of the universe some 13.8 billion years ago, from which it has since been expanding + cooling, leading to the present state of the universe which we observe. And the primary pieces of evidence for this are:

- the observation that space is expanding
- the observation of nearly uniformly-distributed leftover heat from this early state, the cosmic microwave background radiation
- the observation of the relative abundances of elements predicted by the big bang model

The tl;dr version is that we observe that the universe is expanding, and has this leftover heat glow. If the universe is presently expanding and cooling, then it follows that at some prior time it was denser and warmer. You rewind the cosmic clock backwards as far as you can go, and you're left with a very hot, very dense early state. This is the Big Bang; a hot dense early state of the universe, almost 14 billion years ago.

But we can only rewind the clock back so far, before our theory (general relativity) breaks down and ceases to be a good description of physical reality- at some point, quantum effects become significant, and general relativity is not a quantum theory. But we don't have a good alternative, because we do not currently have an accepted theory of quantum gravity (there are a variety of candidates, like string/M-theory, loop quantum gravity, and so on). And when we rewind the clock all the way to a hypothetical time "t=0", we get an absurdity: various physical quantities run to infinity- the "initial Big Bang singularity".

Some people, especially in popular science journalism or lay discussions, refer to this as a "beginning of the universe"... but this is dubious, because the fact that our theory predicts an apparently absurd result (i.e. infinite physical quantities, curvature pathology, etc) at precisely the point where we expect it to cease to be applicable (because quantum effects become significant, and GR is not a quantum theory) should tell us we're probably encountering an artifact of a broken theory, not something physically real. To be able to say what, if anything, preceded this state, we would need a successful quantum theory of gravity. Until then, people are free to speculate... but we just don't know either way. But there is no equivalence between the BBT and theistic creation myths- the Big Bang model, at least the part of it that is well-tested and widely-accepted, does not say anything about how the universe began, and unlike various religious myths, is corroborated by a large body of observational evidence.

The standard cosmological model of a hot Big Bang is nearly universally-accepted, — Seppo

Nearly. But one different model is enough to make it shake at its fundaments.

No, the fundamentals- of a universe expanding/cooling from a hot dense early state- are as close to unshakeable as you get in observational science. These elements are so firmly established on the observational evidence that any competitor would need to include them.

The only parts that are legitimately in question are the details, particularly regarding the very earliest stages where gravitation would be significant on the quantum scale.

Which is why, rather than alternative models, we mostly have extensions to this core idea, like inflation, cyclical models (CCC, LQC, etc), and so on, because the core idea is on such solid footing.

The only parts that are legitimately in question are the details, particularly regarding the very earliest stages where gravitation would be significant on the quantum scale. — Seppo

The only parts? Thats the essential part. A new theory could handle it. And I have one.

No, the essential part is the hot dense early state of the universe, from which it expands and cools, and no, you don't. Well, you might have a pet idea or theory, but not a serious competitor to the BBT, because there are none, and certainly not from randos on an internet message board.

Should have known this thread would be crackpot-bait, smh.

Should have known this thread would be crackpot-bait, — Seppo

How do you know I'm a crackpot? The universe has shown itself to me. Sometimes it all falls in place. Without pressing, stressing, or consciously contemplating it. Of course you have to have knowledge first of QFT and GR. And I have both. It came Naturally.

I dont deny the HBBT. But I found a way to make it start.

I mean, you're not exactly being coy about it, you've probably already racked up about a 50 on the Baez crank index between those two posts alone. And I've been around the interwebz long enough to know the signs. I wish you the best of luck with your "theory", though.

I already expected such reaction. You big bang guys are so predictable. Thanks for wishing me luck tough.

If matter is energy or force than it can come from nothing. Substance in the philosophical sense doesn't exist

Even if matter is more than force or more than energy, we could posit that time is beyond something we can know fully about from physics and that it started somehow along side the first motion of activity between substances, whether this is fromnmagnetism or what ever. You simply have the series of motions going to the Big Bang and the series of time moving along with it. There was nothing before the Big Bang

There was nothing before the Big Bang — Gregory

There is something rather than (just) nothing because in the beginning there was nothing to prevent something from spontaneously coming to be (i.e. BBT). :smirk:

The universe is eternal. Its easy to speak about time before the big bang. The big bang that preceded ours has already accelerated away to infinity on a 4d curved space. Negatively curved that is. This is the reason that the universe SEEMS to expand. The distances between the galaxies grow because they move away from each other on a negatively curved 4d space (or 5d spacetime). Thats the funfact of negatively curved space. It gives repulsive gravity. The question is: what curves spacetime negatively? If matter/energy curves positively, then what curves negatively?

It is ASSUMED in GR that curvature is internally only. But space can be part of a larger dimensional one. If matter sticks only to 3d space it can expand in a 4th. This is not-done or not-said or non-spoken off though. But there is nothing to principally forbid this. But saying this costs your job.

What, if anything, preceded the Big Bang remains an open question. Not only open, but necessarily so, given that we lack a theoretical framework to talk about what happens past about 10^-42 seconds after the hypothetical "t=0", when the observable universe was smaller than the Planck length (and so requiring a quantum theory of gravity to adequately describe the physics at that time). General Relativity can't tell us either way: neither geodesics nor any sort of causal relations can be traced backwards past the initial singularity (which is itself very probably an artifact of GR breaking down at these scales). Not necessarily because there wasn't anything before that, but because GR has ceased to be a good description of physical reality past this point: our theory has broken down, or been pushed past its proper domain.

So we need a new theory, in particular a theory of quantum gravity; and candidate quantum theories of gravity do extend back past this point- both string theory and loop quantum gravity/loop quantum cosmology describe, essentially, a cyclical cosmology where the Big Bang expansionary phase follows a prior contractionary phase. Cosmic inflation, which is widely accepted despite its lack of observational confirmation, also describes a time before the Big Bang.

So one way or another, it seems quite implausible that "there was nothing before the Big Bang", both in terms of the actual physics, as well as any sort of conceptual coherency to this idea.

Man!!! Show some imagination. "There is no theoretical framework". Non true.

"it seems quite implausible that "there was nothing before the Big Bang"

There WAS something before the big bang. Or better, way ahead of it.

Its not a matter of imagination, but of what is the case. And it is the case that we don't presently have a successful theory of quantum gravity. Maybe one of the present candidates like string/M-theory turns out to be that, but we will have to wait and see.

Yeah I'm not interested in making shit up, I'm interested in what can observationally be shown to be the case... or at least theoretically, within a theoretical framework that is observationally corroborated on other grounds. And the question of what preceded the Big Bang (if anything) remains open for the reasons I mentioned.

Yeah I'm not interested in making shit up,

Thats clear! You only repeat existing shit!

Yeah I'm not interested in making shit up

From what I've seen, that's all you're interested in doing here.

And what have you seen? I cant help it that you dont understand.

"that's all you're interested in doing here."

Whats all?

All that standard bullshit lays far behind me already. Show some courage. Calling something just bullshit before even trying to comprehend is the most irrational thing to do. But I understand.

There was a big bang because we can't divide by zero.

There was a big bang because we can't divide by zero. — TheMadFool

This is exactly the reason there could NOT have been a big bang!

There was a big bang because we can't divide by zero.
— TheMadFool

This is exactly the reason there could NOT have been a big bang! — Prishon

Bah!

All that standard bullshit lays far behind me already. Show some courage. Calling something just bullshit before even trying to comprehend is the most irrational thing to do. But I understand. — Prishon

Instead of courage, why don't you show us some math? You present your theory as if it was fact without anything backing it up. You didn't observe it, you can't observe it and even if you could, observing it would not tell you the underlying mechanics of what is happening.

The standard model is accepted because it checks out. It is backed by math. Everytime we did notice it doesn't check out, we adjusted it theoretically until the math works out again. Then we went and probed the theory in reality, eventually finding evidence to support the math.

Without any shred of evidence you can present, your theory is about as valid as the Egyptians claiming that their creator god Atum simply spat and sneezed out the universe.

Yes I already expected that question. Let me say this. The math is easy. It merely describes the idea of whats going on. Im way past of the math description. And this is not the place to show it. If you want I can show you a small wordly explanation. But Im not giving away here the whole math description.