Thursday, September 25, 2008

Scientists explore what happened before the universe's theoretical beginning





Respected scientists have proposed a flock of theories to describe what might have happened before the birth of our familiar universe of space and time.

The concepts have fanciful names such as "the big bounce," "the multiverse," "the cyclic theory," "parallel worlds," even "soap bubbles." Some propose the existence of multiple universes. Others hold that there's one universe that recycles itself endlessly, rather as Buddhists believe. Judeo-Christian theologians may have difficulty accepting any of these notions.

Most of the hypotheses are variations on an older idea that the universe has no beginning and no end, contrary to the big-bang theory, which says that our universe originated at a specific point and will end sometime in the distant future.


Although divine creation makes an appearance, the Simulation Argument gets no mention at all.

3 comments:

mister ecks said...

True, but with the Simulation Argument you still have to account for the universe that created the Simulation!

Mac said...

Ecks--

Exactly. But the same thing goes for "God did it."

Chris said...

Well it's a hell of an improvement over when I studied cosmology, when the question "what came before" was met with a contemptuous unbelieving stare that someone could ask such a meaningless question. Every student quickly learned that it was THE QUESTION THAT MUST NEVER BE ASKED. I'm glad people continue to, anyway.