One of the universe's most intriguing questions is that what happened before the Big Bang. Celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking revealed he has an answer.
There is no time before the start of time as time was always present, it was just different, Hawking said.
What Was Around Before The Big Bang?
"The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary. In order terms, the Euclidian space-time is a closed surface without end, like the surface of the Earth" the world-famous scientist stated on the Star Talk show. “One can regard imaginary and real time beginning at the South Pole, which is a smooth point of space-time where the normal laws of physics hold. There is nothing south of the South Pole, so there was nothing around before the big bang.”
Another noted physicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, asked Hawking to share his views on the state of the universe before the Big Bang for the National Geographic show Star Talk which will air on Sunday, March 4. Filmed at New York City's the American Museum of Natural History, the show features Tyson interviewing famous people from the field of science and popular culture.
Time Never Became Nothing Before The Big Bang
During the show, Hawking said that time was present in a bent state amid the nearly infinitely small quantum foam of the singularity before the Big Bang. Time was distorted along another dimension, it was always reaching closer to nothing but didn't become nothing.
In short, according to Hawking, there was never a Big Bang that produced something from nothing. It just seemed that way from mankind's point of perspective.
Hawking had previously said in one of his lectures that the events that occurred before the Big Bang have no consequences that can be observed, therefore they are not defined because there is no way to measure what happened.
"The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before," Hawking stated. "Even the amount of matter in the universe can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang."
The Big Bang Theory
The Big Bang Theory is one of the main explanations for the origin of the universe. In simple terms, it says that the cosmos as we know it began with a small singularity, which inflated over the next 13.8 billion years to the universe that is known today.
Most of what is understood about the Big Bang comes from mathematical models and formulas as the present instruments do not allow researchers to look back at the birth of the universe. Scientists can, however, observe the echo of the expansion through the cosmic microwave background.
