Another idea is from Stephen Hawking and James Hartle. Hawking proposed a description of the Universe in its entirety, viewed as a self-contained entity, with no reference to anything that might have come before it. The description is timeless, in the sense that one set of equations delineates the Universe for all time. As one looks to earlier and earlier times, one finds that the model Universe is not eternal, but there is no creation event either. Instead, at times of the order of 10^-43 seconds, the approximation of a classical description of space and time breaks down completely, with the whole picture dissolving into quantum ambiguity. In Hawking's words, the Universe "would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE."

The "It's a meaningless questions explanation" --  If the universe is everything, then there could not have been anything that caused it;  

"Look, while it may make sense to ask what caused this chair, it surely does not make sense to ask what caused the universe as a whole to exist. It seems to me that to ask for the cause of something is to ask what other thing within the universe brought it about. That is how the game of asking for and giving causes is played out. When I ask, for example, what caused that tree outside the window to exist, I am asking for you to identify some other thing or event within the universe that brought that tree into existence. But if to ask for the cause of something is to ask what other thing within the universe brought it about, then it cannot make sense to ask what is the cause of the universe as a whole. That would be to pursue the question of causes outside the context in which such questions can meaningfully be raised. For example, it makes sense to ask what is north of Scotland: Iceland. What is north of Iceland? The Arctic Circle. What is north of the Arctic Circle? The North Pole. And what is north of the North Pole? The question simply does not make sense."
 

What did the most intelligent man who ever lived have to say about the origin of the universe and of life?

THE ANIMATE AND THE INANIMATE

by William James Sidis

William James Sidis (April 1, 1898–July 17, 1944) was a highly gifted mathematician and a child prodigy in the United States of America in the early 20th century. Arguably one of the greatest geniuses of all time, he initially became famous for his precociousness, and later for his eccentricity and withdrawal from both the public eye and mathematics. He avoided mathematics entirely in later life, producing works on other subjects under pseudonyms, and today is largely unknown.  It is suggested that his IQ was somewhere between 250 and 300.

 Click Here: THE ANIMATE AND THE INANIMATE

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More Theories:

The String Theory is the newest theory to gain wide acceptance.  Read about it here.

K. Marinas' Cyclic Multiverse Hypothesis

Learn about Chaos and Fractals to see the design nature of the universe.

What happened before the Big Bang?

Where did all the matter in the universe come from?

The Most Up-to-Date Explanation - Quantum Foam:

Question

Given the First Law of Thermodynamics: that you can't get something from nothing. Where did all the stuff in the universe come from and how is it still a law if it was once broken?

Asked by: Rob

Answer

The law you cite, applies only to 'closed systems', i.e. where nothing can be added or subtracted from the 'specimen'. Obviously if you apply the law to an empty box, then open the box and dump in a handful of sand, or quarks, or energy, you don't expect the law to apply, because the system is not 'closed'.

It is not known whether the universe as a whole is a closed system now at present. As far as conditions preceding and at the very moment of the 'big bang', we can only speculate whether the universe was closed, or open (to another, larger system), or whether the First Law (or lots of other laws) even applies under those extreme conditions.

Answered by: Grant Hallman, Ph.D., Universtiy of Toronto, 1971/1967


In the macroscopic world, the domain of ‘classical’ physics, the laws of thermodynamics are, and have always been, true.

However, on the quantum scale, it is a very different matter. Hiesenberg’s uncertainty states that there will always be a level of uncertainty when you try to make measurements of particles and other quantum scale occurrences. You can never know everything about a particle’s position and motion at any one time. This is an intrinsic uncertainty, it is not due to limitations on our measuring devices. This uncertainty of the energy of anything of the Planck scale is size allows some very bizarre phenomena to occur.

To us, vacuums appear to contain nothing at all. But, it you were to look closely, very, very closely (to the order of 10^-35m), space is actually a foaming mass of quantum activity. This quantum foam is made of particles and micro-black holes popping in and out of existence, apparently in contravention of the second law of thermodynamics, they appear out of nothing with energy, then disappear again just as quickly. The key to this is the uncertainty principle. The disturbance is permitted to ‘borrow’ a tiny amount of energy and exist for a very short length of time, and then it must return the energy and disappear again. But, the more energy it borrows, the less time it is allowed to exist. These ‘temporary’ particles, called virtual particles, are not just theoretical, they have been proven to have real effects on scientific experiment.

The only thing that prevents these virtual particles from coming into permanent existence is a lack of energy. However, it is possible to artificially supply energy to the particles therefore promoting them into reality. This could be done in a lab by creating very strong electric fields, but these fields are very difficult to create. On the other hand, intense gravitational fields could also do the job.

It is possible that during the big bang, black holes the size of a nucleus popped into existence due to the quantum foam. The interesting thing is that the smaller a black hole is, the more strongly space-time is distorted around it and distortions in space-time imply the existence of very strong gravitational fields. Stephen Hawking has shown that the gravitational field around such a hole would give enough energy to the quantum foam to promote the particles into real existence. Calculations show that in the big bang the initial extreme conditions would also have been enough to create real particles out of the gravitational energy of the rapidly expanding universe.

And as for how the universe actually came into being itself, it is believed that also in the quantum foam, virtual space-time bubbles also continually pop in and out of existence, like virtual particles, only to disappear again. However, it is possible that one of these space-time bubbles, which is actually an unimaginably small universe, could avoid rapidly disappearing again and be promoted to a full size universe, such as ours. However, for this to work some sort of repulsive force is needed, a sort of anti-gravity. Many scientists believe in the existence of such a force at the time of the creation of the universe, but as I’ve answered your question and that’s a whole other topic, I think I’ll stop before I go off on too much of a tangent.

To summarize, due to the uncertainty principle, particles and space-time bubbles continually pop in and out of existence for short times depending on their energy, without breaking the law of conservation of energy as they disappear again. Think of it like an accountant (the universe) who balances the books at the end of every month. If someone (a virtual particle) was to borrow some money on the 4th day of the month (pop into existence) then put it back on the 8th day, (disappear again) then as far as the bookkeeper would know, nothing had gone amiss and no rules (or laws) had been broken. If a particle is to come into complete and real existence, it must take its energy from somewhere, such as a gravitational field.

Answered by: Simon Hooks, Physics A-Level Student, Gosport, UK

As to where everything came from, there is no conclusive opinion. One idea was that the Universe was created from vacuum. This is because according to quantum theory, the apparently quiescent vacuum is not really empty at all. For example, it is possible for an electron and a positron (a matter antimatter pair) to materialize from the vacuum, exist for a brief flash of time and then disappear into nothingness. Such vacuum fluctuations cannot be observed directly as they typically last for only about 10^-21 seconds and the separation between the electron and positron is typically no longer than 10^-10 cm. However, through indirect measurements, physicists are convinced that these fluctuations are real.

Did the Universe make itself?

January 1998
 

How did the Universe get going? The usual tricky question. All the answers are a bit messy (see The History of the Universe!).

New Stuff home

Universe home
 

What is most Philosophically viable view?

1) The universe is simply infinite and needs no explanation of its origin.

False: This can't be true because if there had been an infinite amount of time to traverse then it would have been impossible to ever have gotten to now.   In other terms: Nothing can actually "realize" infinity because infinity is boundless and time itself plus all matter and energy would have had to have actually realized infinity backwards in time to have gotten to the present.

2) The universe had a specific beginning and is finite in time.

False: This would mean that something came from nothing and that, philosophically speaking, is impossible: "If there was ever a time there was absolutely nothing there would be nothing now."

3) The universe is perennial or cyclic.

Possible: This is a possibility because physics shows us that time itself can have a beginning, thus a cyclic universe would not need to experience infinity, since time would cycle too.  However, the implication here is that everything would happen over and over just as before, which would seem pointless and even unfair to those how are handicapped, die young, etc.  A cycling identical universe is conceivable, but would just seem to render the whole affair utterly pointless.

4)  The universe cycles but does so in an ever evolving manner.

Possible, but with problems to consider:  Since in our experience things evolves, then it would be likely that the universe would evolve as well through its successive cycles.  Problem: If the cycling evolutionary process has gone on for an infinite amount of times then the evolutionary process would already be at its most possible evolved state.  The cycle previous to the one we are in would also have been preceded by an infinite number of cycles, so it too would have been at maximum evolution.  Paradox: if the previous cycle and this cycle both represent maximum evolution, then there could have been no evolution from the previous to the current cycle.  A paradox cannot occur, so this scenario must be false, unless there is no highest or perfect state.

5) The universe has not cycled either identically, or evolutionary for an infinite number of times.  There was a first cycle. 

False: This only leads us back to the problem encountered in #2 where something would have had to have come from nothing.  If the universe exists now, it must have always existed in some form.

7) There is an infinite multiplicity of universes. 

Most Likely:  This is really not different from the above scenario, but the infinite permutations of universes would just co-exist, rather than be linear.  An infinite amount of something is not like an infinite amount of time, which can't occur.  There, philosophically speaking, could be an infinite number of things coexisting.  This model helps in the understanding of how the right conditions could exist to produce us or anything imaginable.  All of the various universes would have to cycle just as one would, probably each creating various permutation, while co-existing with other permutations.  The universes could be viewed something akin to bubbles in a percolator - all going round and round, changing into steam and returning again in an endless variety of forms.  The only problem here is that  a multiple universe theory means that the other universes actually do exist,  so there in fact would be an infinite number of variations of us and what we are doing.  Though mechanistically  and philosophically possible this seems too incredulous to be true, but then again could offer an explanation for the phenomenon of deja vu which virtually everyone experiences..