What was it like before the Big Bang?
475751
An analogy may be in order. Model spacetime by a \nsphere with time being  represented by going down \na longitude line and space for a fixed time being\nrepresented by a latitude line. The Big Bang would \nbe represented by the north pole. In this model, \nspace expands until we get to the equator and then \nstarts to contract again until we get to the south \npole, which represents a 'Big Crunch'.\n\nIn this model, ask what is north of the north pole. \nThis is *exactly* like  asking what is before the Big \nBang. There is no real answer because the question\nassumes that time exists before the Big Bang, but \nin fact, time is part of the structure of the universe \nand began at the Big Bang.\n\nWe could also ask what space is expanding into. By \nlooking at our model, we see the question is either \nmeaningless, or just has the answer 'into the future'.\n\nIn the real world, the spacial part is three dimensional, \nnot one dimensional like in our model (the circles of \nlatitude). Also, it is likely that the universe\nwill expand forever, so instead of a sphere, a \ntrumpet shape may be more appropriate. But the actual \nmodels used by scientists are generalizations and\nelaborations of models like this toy model.
296836
um     you can wonder a lot of crazy things about the universe when one takes the big bang into consideration...\nsay, one might imagine that all the matter that is us and our cosmos, was once one tiny particle- could it remain entangled?
420014
the big bang happened 13.7 billion years ago.  also, i have something else for you to think about.  the universe is 13.7 billion years old, yet we can observe parts of the universe that are about 46 billion lightyears away.\n\nhttp://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=0009F0CA-C523-1213-852383414B7F0147
590066
I recommend reading "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawkings (think that's how you spell it.) He discusses the big bang quite a bit. It seems like an intimidating book, but it is really very easy to read.
230650
I think the Big Bang is actually another universe budding off. There were mulitple Universes (Parralel Universe Theory) before the big Bang. Yet, what do u define as a universe? If it is a "world" of intelligent being maybe not (who knows). So the answer is yes and no depending on ur definiton of a universe.
482700
My current belief is that there was time before time as we know it. Something "had" to exist before the cosmos as we now understand it. The Big Bang wasn't the first, nor the last. In order for that to occur, yes, I believe that it was the result of a black hole to end all black holes reaching its limit. It's a thin, untested theory, but it is what I am with until something better is derived. This is consistent with my answer to your later question. That is I haven't thought about the possibility of one universe existing within another. It is plausible in my mind though and interesting enough to think about it for years to come.
206889
Unfortunately the logic in that link you posted is seriously flawed. It's completely illogical to talk of the universe as "being created", as this implies that the universe exists in time. It fails to realise that time is a part of the universe, and thus the universe has necessarily existed for all time whether or not time is infinite or finite. There is no point in time that the universe didn't exist. The phrase "before the big bang" has absolutely no meaning, any more than "north of the north pole" does. Forcing "common sense" onto the universe is doomed to failure whenever you stray from the common surroundings here on earth. So much of what science has shown about the universe goes very much against common sense or logic. I don't believe in a god myself. A god may or may not exist, but i'm afraid that article certainly isn't proof of it :)
1101336
This is a matter of pure speculation since we have no evidence to work from. With that said, there are several possibilities.\n\nThe first uses general relativity directly. It points out that time is part of the universe and so began when the universe did. Because of this, there is no 'before the Big Bang'. It is sort of like asking what is north of the north pole. More specifically, the mathematics of general relativity predicts a 'singularity' at the Big Bang which doesn't allow the time coordinate to be extended past that singularity.\n\nThe problem with the answer from general relativity is that it doesn't take into account quantum mechanics. When attempts are made to allow for this, several possibilities arise. One is that the singularity stays there with the same result: there is no 'Before the Big Bang'. \n\nAnother is that the universe came out of a high energy vacuum (I know that sounds strange, but that is what the math says in this situation) that decayed into a lower energy state with matter in it and that this gave rise to the Big Bang. \n\nFinally, it is possible that the singularity is 'washed out' by quantum effects and the 'before the Big Bang' was a 'Big Crunch' from a previously existing universe. In other words, there was a 'Big Bounce'.\n\nThe particular prediction depends on which version of quantum gravity you use to make the prediction. Since we have no good, coherent, theory of quantum gravity, all of these are consistent with what we know. The upshot is we don't know and probably won't for quite some time.
838357
Current theory places the Big Bang at 13.7 billion years in the past, with a possible error of 100 million years.  This is based on the Hubble Constant, studies of formation of galaxies, distribution of quasars, all sorts of arcane things in astronomy.   Telescopes can pick up things dating from 300,000 years after the Big Bang, but theory suggests space would be opaque to visible light earlier than that.
751203
Another way of asking that same question is what existed before the Big Bang?  Did space even preexist then?  The Big Bang is believed to have originated from a singularity (similar to the center of a black hole) that included all the energy and matter of the entire universe.  The "dot?" containing the universe was so dense that none of the laws of physics as we know them likely existed.  Therefore, was it possible for space as we know it to exist?.  We know that space can be bent by nearby mass which is the reason the moon orbits the earth without a string attached like spinning a model plane.  Would a singularity so immense bend and suck in all the space?  The fact that we can measure out a cubic space with a yardstick merely means that we can create a mathematical model of a space or a practical space to fill but does not mean that we know the origin of the space or complete nature of the space.  It is likely that the Big Bang created its own space and it extends no further than the matter and light energy that has expanded to fill it.  Hope you don't want proof.
846148
From what I have read, what happened before the big bang has no effect on the universe and therefore can not be theorized about.\n\nOr, as Stephen Hawking said in "A Briefer History of Time"\n\n"All our theories of cosmology are formulated on the assumption that space_time is smooth and nearly flat. That means that all our theories break down at the big bang: a space_time with infinite curvature can hardly be called nearly flat! Thus even if there were events before the big bang, we could not use them to determine what would happen afterward, because predictability would have broken down at the big bang.\n\nCorrespondingly, if, as is the case, we know only what has happened since the big bang, we cannot determine what happened beforehand. As far as we are concerned, events before the big bang can have no consequences and so should not form part of a scientific model of the universe. We should therefore cut them out of the model and say that the big bang was the beginning of time. This means that questions such as who set up the conditions for the big bang are not questions that science addresses."
363213
1 and 3 cant be answered other than by speculation\n\n2-According to current theory, the first physically distinct period in the Universe lasted from "time zero" (the Big Bang itself) to 10-43 second later, when the universe was about 100 million trillion times smaller than a proton and had a temperature of 1034 K. During this so-called Planck era, quantum gravitational effects dominated and there was no distinction between (what would later be) the four fundamental forces of nature – gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force. Gravity was the first to split away, at the end of the Planck era, which marks the earliest point at which present science has any real understanding. Physicists have successfully developed a theory that unifies the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces, called the Grand Unified Theory (GUT). The GUT era lasted until about 10-38 second after the Big Bang, at which point the strong force broke away from the others, releasing, in the process, a vast amount of energy that, it is believed, caused the Universe to expand at an extraordinary rate. In the brief ensuing interval of so-called inflation, the Universe grew by a factor of 1035 (100 billion trillion trillion) in 10-32 seconds, from being unimaginably smaller than a subatomic particle to about the size of a grapefruit.\n\nPostulating this burst of exponential growth helps remove two major problems in cosmology: the horizon problem and the flatness problem. The horizon problem is to explain how the cosmic microwave background – a kind of residual glow of the Big Bang from all parts of the sky – is very nearly isotropic despite the fact that the observable universe isn't yet old enough for light, or any other kind of signal, to have traveled from one side of it to the other. The flatness problem is to explain why space, on a cosmic scale, seems to be almost exactly flat, leaving the universe effectively teetering on a knife-edge between eternal expansion and eventual collapse. Both near-isotropy and near-flatness follow directly from the inflationary scenario.\n\n\nElectroweak Era (10-38 to 10-10 second)\n\nAt the end of inflationary epoch, the so-called vacuum energy of space underwent a phase transition (similar to when water vapor in the atmosphere condenses as water droplets in a cloud) suddenly giving rise to a seething soup of elementary particles, including photons, gluons, and quarks. At the same time, the expansion of the universe dramatically slowed to the "normal" rate governed by the Hubble law. At about 10-10 seconds, the electroweak force separated into the electromagnetic and weak forces, establishing a universe in which the physical laws and the four distinct forces of nature were as we now experience them.\n\n\nParticle Era (10-10 to 1 second)\n\nThe biggest chunks of matter, as the Universe ended its first trillionth of a second or so, were individual quarks and their antiparticles, antiquarks – the underlying particles out of which future atoms, asteroids, and astronomers would be made. As time went on, quarks and anti-quarks annihilated each other. However, either because of a slight asymmetry in the behavior of the particles or a slight initial excess of particles over antiparticles, the mutual destruction ended with a surplus of quarks. Only because of this (relatively minor) discrepancy do stars, planets, and human beings exist today.\n\nBetween 10-6 and 10-5 second after the beginning of the Universe, when the ambient cosmic temperature had fallen to a balmy 1015 K, quarks began to combine to form a variety of hadrons. All of the short-lived hadrons quickly decayed leaving only the familiar protons and neutrons of which the nuclei of atoms-to-come would be made. This hadron era was followed by the lepton era, during which most of the matter in the Universe consisted of leptons and their antiparticles. The lepton era drew to a close when the majority of leptons and antilepton
1106252
speaking in all logic terms all religon aside.  The universe always was it and it always will be here in one way or another.  But before the "big bang" the universe was smaller, much smaller infact than it was before this catastrophic event.  After the big bang everything that was once very very dense and all close together, is now moving apart from eachother at a considerable rate, leaving more and more area of what we call "space".
196817
The second answer above is dead wrong. Well, not all of it ; )\n\nThe big bang DID create sound, although they are termed "acoustic oscillations" but they work just like sound does, with overpressure and underpressure but just on a larger scale. The "sound" of the big bang also had harmonics, just like any other sound does.\n\nThe big bang itself was likely an inflation of a high energy vacuum state and subsequent decay. That is why it is possible that it did not require any matter or energy to begin with, just virtual energy. We see this virtual energy in vacuums all the time, because our universe' vacuum state is non-zero.\n\nSo in short, the idea is that energy and matter decayed out of a vacuum state, and the acoustic oscillations, complete with harmonics, is visible in the CMB, so there was sound. How about that?
705974
We can see the cosmic background radiation. Contrary to what many would say this is not the big bang itself, but the moment the first atoms formed (when protons bonded with electrons) and photons of light could freely travel through space. This happend about 300,000 years AFTER the big bang. The universe was about the size of the Milky Way Galaxy at that time.\n\nWe cannot see before this moment in time. Before this, information in the form of photons could not propagate. The actual moment of the big bang will forever be beyond reach.
619711
The earth (and its chemical reactions) wasn't born until about 8 billion years after the Big Bang ... things had slowed down a bit by then.
219551
God.  At the place and point just prior to the Big Bang.