What is before the big bang?

Answer 1

It's not certain that there is an answer to this question. The big bang was the beginning of the universe... not stars and planets and stuff. but of the universe itself. The very question of what was "before" may well be meaningless.

Answer 2

AnswerAccording to the emerging "membrane" theory also known as "M" Theory, it might very well have existed. Membrane theory, or "brane" theory, is a development of string theory from its merging with Super Gravity theory placement of 11 dimensions rather then 10 dimensions (as stated by "string" theory). When these two theories began to coincide and then solve one anothers complex theroms; What emerged was "Membrane" theory. Our universe can be described roughly as a membrane (at least within the context of the 11 dimensions that are apparently necessary to support it). Membranes are not flat; they are rippled and bumpy. Universes come into existence when two already existing membranes collide. The collision would be that universe's "big bang". As some have correctly pointed out, the big bang theory deals with the expansion of the universe starting from a point in time when all matter and energy was gathered up in one place. The theory does not in and of itself explain how this package of energy came to be, what was going on before it took form, how long it existed before expanding or exactly what triggered the theorized expansion. We don't yet have the knowledge or technology to explore these ideas with any kind of depth. The big bang is a convenient event for us to use as our universal starting point, but we don't really know that time did not or could not exist prior to it. The idea of parallel universes, now being seriously considered by mainstream scientists, does offer possibilities that not only time, but many other universes may exist very close to our own, but inaccessibly (at present) locked into dimensional warps. AnswerI have yet to read the "membrane" theory. When I do I will certainly have more insight, but as for the Big Bang, all four basic forces of nature were united in what is sometimes called a Superforce. Gravity, electromagnetics, and the strong and weak interactions (forces) were all thought to be one thing. Time did not exist yet, nor did space. So time didn't start until the Big Bang.

If we had the faintest clue what time was we could have a slightly educated guess!! But as time is slowed by gravity, (relativity) and if all the mass in the universe was at one quantum point before the big bang, there would be far too much gravity for time to exist. in theory of course it doesn't even exist in a common or garden black hole, as it's directly related to the speed of light, and light has 0 speed in a black hole.

AnswerNo, time did not exist before the Big Bang. Neither did space. The Big Bang created the space and the time into which it expanded. It wove the fabric of spacetime, and it was into that construct that the Big Bang delivered its energy. Answer

As these answers show, nobody really knows anything about it. My theory is that the universe goes in infinite cycles of big bang, to big crunch, to big bang, you couldn't get more simple. Gravity sucks the black holes back into one supermassive black hole, which cannot support itself, and the collapsed atom splits and creates another big bang. That is the most logical, and rational explanation.

It explains why the big bang happened, and it does not contain any crazy ideas. What goes up must come down, energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared, and mass equals energy divided by the speed of light squared.

Answer 3

Answer

These kinds of questions elude even some of the smartest scientists, and the truth is, we may never know for sure. But if you think about it, space and time supposedly originated at the instant of the Big Bang, so this question makes little sense. If time originated at the moment of Big Bang, that means there was no "before the Big Bang"

Confused? Don't feel so bad. Even the most brilliant scientists are confused. If the Big Bang had a cause, something had to have come before it. But if time did not yet exist, how would this "something" have functioned? Most would agree that the cause of the Universe had to have been from a different dimension, one that functions completely different from what we imagine. Did the Universe even have a cause? Of course most of us would say it had to, but does cause and effect apply to everything or can certain things occur spontaneously? These are the mind boggling questions we may never be able to answer conclusively.

Answer

It is at this point unknown what was around before the Big Bang. Indeed, due to the nature of the Big Bang, we may never know.

It is important to note however, that the question itself may be inherently flawed. General relativity tells us that time and space are the same, and that they are merely two separate aspects of a single entity, the fabric of space-time. Since the Big Bang was the origin of space, then it would also be the origin of time. As difficult as this is to grasp, there may not have been a "before" the Big Bang.

Another Answer.

Before the Big Bang there was nothing. No time, no space and no stuff. There was nothing. It is impossible for human minds to imagine a state of nothing, and that isn't at all surprising because there's nothing to imagine. This answer may seem to most people to be too flippant but it isn't. It is the only answer which doesn't contain meaningless phrases like "mind boggling" and "cause and effect". It's the correct answer - "There was nothing".

Answer 4

Nobody knows the answer. In fact, we don't really know anything about the 'singularity' that is theorized to exist right before the event. We can only speculate about what was happening immediately following the expansion that we call the big bang. Our speculations are based on what we observe to be true today, and our extrapolations backward in time to what we suspect must have been true in order to arrive at the present. Some of the theorists working with Membrane Theory suspect that a new universe comes into being when two previously existing membranes (universes) collide. It is possible that the expansion of our universe happened in this way. These collisions are not like what we observe galaxies doing. The universes (membranes) that collide actually overlap. They occupy the same space as our own galaxy. Membrane Theory is a development of String Theory; some think that Membrane Theory might be the elusive Theory of Everything.

Answer 5

We can never see the Big Bang or what happened around that time, because photons were not free to travel through the universe yet.

It is also important to realize that the word "universe" implies a totality of existence; it is everything that has, does, and ever will exist. So you can't say there is "another" universe - if it exists to us, then it is part of the universe.

Answer 6

Setting aside the issue of evolution and looking just at the Big Bang, the Big Bang created both space and time. It created the fabric we call spacetime in modern physics. It's not like the Big Bang happened in an "empty universe" that was here already with time passing in the void. No, the Big Bang actually "created the space" in which it now expands. And it created the time, too. These ideas are consequences of the Big Bang theory, and it is currently the best scientific way we have to explain the universe, explain how it formed and became what we can see all around us. So, basicly, NOTHING exsited before the big bang. It seems confusing that the Big Bang could have happened even though there was no matter or energy in the universe. But really, scientists speculate that there could have been a time before matter, energy, and time itself even existed. The "Big Bang" is a term that describes the event that created the universe. It goes like this: There was no time, no energy, and no matter. basicly, NOTHING existed. Then, a tiny volume of space, smaller then the head of a pin, suddenly expanded and grew to an enormous size. As the volume of space expanded, it created all the energy and matter in the universe. It created nebulas and galaxies of stars and planets. (and many other things, of coarse.) This is when time began to flow. There is plenty of evidence to support that this theory is true. The big bang would have been such a huge event that the waves of energy it created are still traveling in space today! People have actually detected these waves with a device called a spectroscope. Not only this, but scientist think that the universe is still expanding. basicly, the Big Bang is still happening today. We know this because astronomers have noticed that the galaxies of our universe are all moving away from eachother. They are all moving away from the centre of the universe, where the big bang started. The universe is still getting bigger to this day.

Answer 7

There is a religious point of view that there is no such thing as the Big Bang, or if there was it's cause would have been God, and God would have had to exist before the Big Bang. Different religions take different views of the formation of the universe. But the question asked us to assume the Big Bang, so let's move to a scientific approach, which probably isn't much better.

From a scientific point of view, we do not know about anything before the Big Bang; we have no possible way of knowing. We can only say there was "nothing" before that, or that we cannot know or understand what existed before. The key issue for science, and the answer to the question that was asked, is that there was no universe before the Big Bang. It's not like there was a big empty universe waiting for something to be put in it. The Big Bang brought with it spacetime, which is the fabric of the universe, and it also brought the other "stuff" that became that which we observe about us now. End of story. The fact that the universe is expanding now has something like the Big Bang as a best possible explanation for how our "now" could be the way it is. But prior to that, in the dark "before" time, we cannot point to anything, except perhaps to say that there was no universe before the Big Bang.

Answer 8

Given that the conditions of the big bang are entirely theoretical, it is unfortunately not even possible to theorise much on what was there before.

At the moment of the big bang all matter in the universe would seem to have been part of a 'singularity'. This singularity must have been incredibly small and incredibly dense but is as yet (and maybe always) beyond our understanding.

Answer 9

Before the Big Bang theory, most scientists believed the universe was static, or infinitely unchanging.

If you mean what existed before the event of the big bang, we can never observe that.

Answer 10

There was no 'before'. Time was created in the first moment of the Big Bang, thus there can be nothing before. Not even darkness or emptiness; the time simply does not exist.