The other night I awoke at 3 AM for my usual trip to the throne but when I tried to go back to sleep I found myself thinking about what is probably the most difficult problem in modern cosmology: can we know anything before the Big Bang? To put this in perspective we can trace back the behavior of the universe to 0.000,000,001 seconds after the Big Bang with a high degree of certainty and to 10 -35 seconds with laws of physics that at least make sense. The prevailing theoretical concept of the Big Bang is: it occurred as a tear in the fabric of space; but at the instant of the Big Bang space did not exist; at least for our universe. It therefore gives credence to the idea of a multi-verse (more than one universe) but that could not be true unless the universe had more than 4 dimensions; which supports Super String Theory.
The creation of the universe per the Big Bang requires a singularity which as we now know is common. For example at the center of every galaxy we have been able to study, there is a Black Hole which is by common definition a singularity. Another interesting speculation is: are the laws of physics the same on both sides of a singularity? Ex Is energy conserved? In our universe the sum of all energies equals zero because the gravitational force exactly cancels the mass of the universe!!! That supports the idea of the universe coming into existence through a tear in the fabric of space and explains how you get something from nothing. Unfortunately it doesn’t tell us anything about what preceded it.
Who else in this universe is pondering the same question? With 100+ billion galaxys each containing 100 + billion stars; there must be some other poor soul pondering the same question without being able to go back to sleep. If you have any ideas drop me a note.
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