What existed before the universe?

[Fabadozer]

??

Or what existed before the big bang. I just can't imagine "nothing".

[SmallTownGuy]

Nobody knows. There's plenty of speculation - ranging from "nothing" to "endless repeating cycles of bang and crunch" and everything between - but there's no data. We have no way to test any ideas.

One idea you might ponder is that if time itself began with the bang, then the notion of "before" is hard to define. Whatever might have stood for "time" then did not have to behave the same way as time does today.

[Fabadozer]

SmallTownGuy

Nobody knows. There's plenty of speculation - ranging from "nothing" to "endless repeating cycles of bang and crunch" and everything between - but there's no data. We have no way to test any ideas.

One idea you might ponder is that if time itself began with the bang, then the notion of "before" is hard to define. Whatever might have stood for "time" then did not have to behave the same way as time does today.

I see what you mean. Like a lesser universe with hardly any physics and no "time" at all?

[SmallTownGuy]

Lesser, greater, it's hard to say. I'd be interested in hearing speculation on that topic, though. If "time" then didn't need to behave like time now, how might it behave instead? What would be the major repercussions of that?

[Vannak]

Here's one idea:
http://phys.org/news189792839.html

[Fabadozer]

Vannak

Here's one idea:
http://phys.org/news189792839.html

Interesting theory.

[CreativeEpithet]

No one knows and it is impossible to find out at this point in time, and will probably always be impossible. It is not even completely certain that the Big Bang actually happened, because if you go back that far, all you'll get are theories (of course it's still a huge possibility what with the expanding of the universe and all). Unless somewhere down the road we build a time machine and go back and watch, we'll never be certain of anything.

Vannak

Here's one idea:
http://phys.org/news189792839.html

Wow. That's pretty damn cool.

[Suicidesoldier#1]

ME! ninja

[Fabadozer]

We're being able to look further and further back into the universe, so you never know. Maybe one day we may find out something.

[Ask Jappleack]

Vannak

Here's one idea:
http://phys.org/news189792839.html

if thats true then for all I know that pocket our universe is in is like a pore for a supermassive entity or something.

[CuAnnan]

http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html

[Mike Riovanes]

I can believe we were once a single celled organism and we've branched from some genetic pool. How that Genetic pool came to be, I don't know. I mean hell, I came from a Sperm Cell on a hot night between my mom and dad. No Mystical Entity was apart of my growth, birth etc.

I see likenesses with animals and humans all the time, it only makes sense we came from something similiar in my eyes.

[Shokushu]

The nothing-est nothing we have any reason to think you'd ever get to (or rather come from? lul,) is the kind Lawrence Krauss talks about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

Mike Riovanes

I can believe we were once a single celled organism and we've branched from some genetic pool. How that Genetic pool came to be, I don't know. I mean hell, I came from a Sperm Cell on a hot night between my mom and dad. No Mystical Entity was apart of my growth, birth etc.

I see likenesses with animals and humans all the time, it only makes sense we came from something similiar in my eyes.

Evolution is a different subject than cosmological origins. But anyway the origin of genes isn't all that rough to work out in vague chemical terms. For a long time we thought organic molecules were the big stopping block but the Miller Urey experiment dismissed that notion (and subsequent experiments did a much better job of explaining the origin of organic molecules.)

Then you're stuck with how they came together to form a cell. Darwin pictured a warm little pool full of them just kind of coming together- a lot of the "large" parts of a cell would work here but it isn't such a good explanation for things like setting up RNA and proteins for metabolism. The hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean set up these harsh chemical gradients where you could get some of that working before having a cell proper, and the tree of life seems to point in that direction as well.

*Third option people bring up for "how did we get here" is that the first cell on Earth was an alien- that life came from some other planet. Might be the case but then you just move the root of the tree of life back and still have to answer how the roots began.

But anyway origin of organic molecules and then origin of metabolism are the two spots you'd want to look into.

[Fabadozer]

I like the multi universe theory.

[Darth Mortis]

Here is my Idea

Think of a soap bubble. Our universe is but one soap bubble in a vast sea of other soap bubbles. Some bubbles are in expansion and some are have popped out of existence. You have others with bubbles sprouting off others. This could also be interpreted as the multiverse theory.