What was there before the universe started?

[Becky72]

I was thinking...

If there was nothing before the universe began...then...how could the big bang take place if "nothing" cannot blow up? Doesn't an explosion require "something" to go boom?

[LeftyFingerPop]

1. A HUGE Sears store. n/t

[Iggo]

2. The Underverse.

[Juche]

3. I don't think they know yet

I have wondered this too. But even if there was 'something' before the big bang, where did that 'something' come from?

[ashling]

19. GO TO BED!

Don't make me come in there!
:rofl:

[pokerfan]

4. A very sick giant

The Bakuba (Congo) believe that the giant Mbombo, after feeling an intense pain in his stomach one day, vomited everything into existence.

[Becky72]

5. Who's Mbombo's father?

lol.

[pokerfan]

9. A giant cosmic turtle

[Goblinmonger]

6. William Burroughs did a bit similar to that

Bryon Gysin has the all purpose nuclear bedtime story.
The all purpose bedtime story, in fact.
Some trillions of years ago a sloppy, dirty giant flicked grease from his fingernails.
One of those gobs of grease is our universe on its way to the floor.
Splat.

[jobycom]

7. Lay of John McCain, he lost already. nt

[BlueJazz]

8. You can't judge what was "then" and what is "now" Our physical laws came...

...into being shortly after the Bang.

[ashling]

20. When did our fiscal laws originate?

hmmm?

[AllenVanAllen]

10. Expansion and contraction, oscillating universe?

Cosmos - The Edge of Forever

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6VMnXLpEo8

[GoddessOfGuinness]

11. The Omniverse?

Maybe the universe is just recycled: Big Bang, Big Suck, Big Bang, Big Suck.

[ashling]

21. I take it we are in Big Suck mode?

:shrug:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

40. I just hope it isn't Total Suck

:rofl:

[billyoc]

12. The Big Bang was just the beginning of this section of the Universe.

We're completely segregated from the other sections, but they were there before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-big_bang#Speculative_physics_beyond_Big_Bang_theory

[CrownPrinceBandar]

14. +1........

Branes are the answer.

[proteus_lives]

13. The previous universe.

It died and created the next universe.

[rcrush]

15. a salad bar.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

16. Probably something as strange and hard to understand

as E=MC2 would be for Australopithicus afarensis to deal with. I think humankind will have to evolve a greater mind and intelligence before it can comprehend what the ultimate nature of reality is, both before the big bang and since.

[krispos42]

17. The Localverse?

God fapping?

The Big Crunch, as the previous universe collapses upon itself before exploding again in an endless cycle?

[Kutjara]

18. Time is such a parochial concept.

No reason to think it's anything other than a purely local phenomenon.

[rcrush]

22. I was

I still am!

[armyowalgreens]

23. Read "The Last Question" by Asimov. It's a short story...

that will blow your mind.

[SCantiGOP]

41. thanks for that

Asimov and Arthur C Clarke were my two favorites as a kid. If I ever read that before it had been forgotten.
I remember writing a short story in high school; the instructions were to do it in a particular writer's style. I chose Asimov, and wrote of a convention of the various gods of all the different universes convening to discuss whether they could/should do something about a god who had gone insane. Instead of protecting and nourishing life in his universe, he had invented things like death, disease, war, racism, etc which no other god had ever conceived of.

[rug]

24. An asshole. They're everywhere.

[Orsino]

25. Locally-owned and operated miniverses...

...that were run out of business by Big Bang.

[Bertha Venation]

39. + 1

:thumbsup:

[stray cat]

26. Anybody on DU present before the world began that can give a concrete answer?

[peekaloo]

28. I have a confidentiality clause that prohibits me from responding.

*whispers* the Overlords get a tad twitchy when Underlings start asking these things.

[nuxvomica]

27. Causation is a function of Time

And Time didn't exist until the Universe started up so previous non-causal events were grandfathered. It was all perfectly legal.

[baldguy]

29. I don't know, but there's a restaurant at the other end.

When you get there, ask for Fenchurch.

[unpossibles]

30. linear time is a construct

but the answer is the Universe, just in a different form.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

32. Are you referencing energy?

inertia?

[BB1]

31. Why just one Big Bang?

Maybe there were more of'em. Like a string of firecrackers. Smaller Bangs.
So maybe there has been a form of Universe with the same set of Universal Laws since before we think the Universe began.

Besides, what is out there beyond the boundaries of our known Universe? Matrasses to cushion its fall? A waterfall? A sinkhole? Are we, and everything around us, the inside of a Black Hole? Bouncing around in a Brownian Motion against the insides of a singularity?

What will happen to The Field when all matter ceases to exist? Will it stretch or tear? If it stretches, will its energies draw it back? And if it tears, will all energy be lost, or will local pools of energy cluster up and recreate matter?

Or is the whole thing more metaphysical, and are people not only made of stars, but are stars itself sentient beings with minds far beyond our detecting abilities? If so, is our Sun a god manipulating life on earth, or are we nog significant enough? Maybe the sungod will only matter itself with ants, who might be the REAL conquerers of the earth.

And then again, the creationists might be right up to the extent of Douglas Adams's ideas. Some greater society created our local neck of the woods some eons ago and have forgotten all abot it in the meantime. What about the Sumerians, with their alleged superior knowledge of IVF?
It has been asked before: will anybody who was present at the forming of life on earth please step forward now? Thanks.

I read 'The last question' too. Prophetic stuff. As first designer of the machine, you'd be tempted to chuck some form of an Easteregg in it, to have you rejuvinated every millennium or two. I know I would. Jesus might be just a nerd like Bill Gates. What, Bill Gates might be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ!

I need a joint.

[SidneyCarton]

33. Stuff. n/t

[MilesColtrane]

34. Before the Big Bang?

The Big Foreplay.

[bif]

35. Dick Cheney

[guitar man]

36. A hot dense state

says so right here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhTSfOZUNLo

[guitar man]

37. delete

dupe

[Fleshdancer]

38. The Big Bang represented the beginning of the entire universe - mass, energy, space, and TIME....

Without time, the notion of "before" does not exist.

[Burma Jones]

42. Les Paul.......

[Ivan Sputnik]

43. It's not something our limited minds can grasp

There was no "before" -- concepts like "before" and "something" and "nothing" have no meaning outside of the universe we know and love.

[mdmc]

44. (posted before reading the replies)

Before our universe existed and infinite amount of sentient formless beings existed. They collectively created our universe in order to experience form. Our universe is a creation of their curiosity. They wanted to feel. They wanted to know what a limited existence felt like. So out of nothing, they created the universe.

[undeterred]

45. Cheerios and soap.

The fundamental particles.

[Orrex]

47. That's your answer for everything.

[Orrex]

46. You missed the discussion on Monday night

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=8977884