How did the universe begin?.

[DigglerII]

Do physicists know?

Nope. No clue.

You see, waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back when the Universe was 10^(-44) seconds old, the laws of physics break down. We simply cannot comment on what might be operative at times earlier than this. We call this limit the Planck time, and it is the time when gravitational effects become similar (in magnitude) to quantum effects. Basically, it is not clear whether “time” as a concept exists before this point (which is crazy…because then the idea of ‘before’ would not even have a meaning, since it is necessarily temporal). If we do not discover a quantum theory of gravity, then we may never know what happens before this time. If before is even a concept which exists then.

The person who does discover this will be very, very famous. And will be the recipient of many a blow-jobs or lickity-lickity (depending on gender), if you can smell what I’m stepping in.

Until that time, there appear to be at least these options:

• The laws of physics are simply incomplete, and once we “solve” the puzzle, we will have a full theory of everything (TOE) and be able to describe self-consistently the Universe at all times.
• The laws of physics breakdown at the Planck time, and a different set of laws become operative, which never merge with current laws. This means there are two sets of “physics” which are distinct and separate. Whatever this second set of laws mean…we may not even be capable of understanding it.
• The laws of physics breakdown at the Planck time, and no laws describe the Universe before then. It is a chaotic wasteland without describable pattern.
• God creates the Universe at (or before) the Planck time, and creates the laws of physics too. For some reason that makes sense to God.
• Universe-creating Pixies create the Universe at (or before) the Planck time, and creates the laws of physics too. Because reasons.
• Anything else creates the Universe. Reasons abound.

The last three options are identical with respect to the evidence which exists.

 

[ROBERTSON]

So how did "god" begin ?

 

[Skipper]

Devil?.

 

[nntsci]

will never know for sure what happened because we cannot go back in time to confirm our theories... same with the ultimate fate of the universe...we will never know for sure how it all ends because we cannot go into the future (not by enough to see it end and even if that was possible, we would not be able to report back to the present.

so at best theories about the beginning will remain unproven, but we can still understand a lot

its an exciting time because computers are now powerful enough to be able to computer many aspects of the universe and get close to the truth.

 

[God]

So how did "god" begin ?

With a big bang, just like the universe.

 

[Signingin]

With a big bang, just like the universe.

You never make any sense.

 

[ROBERTSON]

With a big bang, just like the universe.

So God's mother and a father had sex, and produced God , how were they created, and don't say with a bang.

 

[ROBERTSON]

For all we know, our universe is just an experiment on a petri dish for some greater life form to study.

Possible, but how did the "greater life form" happen to exist.

And don't say,... "with a big bang",...