Time may not exist before Big Bang from "summary" of A Brief History of Time by Stephen W. Hawking
According to the theory of general relativity, the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang about 15 billion years ago. Before the Big Bang, there was no space or time, as we know it. Time is a concept that is intimately linked with space. In the absence of space, time has no meaning. Thus, asking what happened before the Big Bang may be a meaningless question, just like asking what lies north of the North Pole. In the absence of time before the Big Bang, it becomes difficult to discuss the concept of cause and effect. Cause and effect are concepts that are deeply ingrained in our understanding of the universe. However, without time, these concepts lose their meaning. The concept of cause and effect may only make sense within the framework of time. Therefore, trying to understand what caused the Big Bang may be a futile exercise, as the concept of cause may not apply in the absence of time. One could argue that perhaps there was a state of existence before the Big Bang, but it may have been a state that is fundamentally different from what we now understand as space and time. It may have been a state of existence that is beyond our current comprehension. In the absence of empirical evidence, any speculation about what might have existed before the Big Bang would be purely speculative. Our current understanding of the universe is based on the laws of physics as we know them. However, these laws may break down at the singularity of the Big Bang, where both space and time become infinitely curved. At such extreme conditions, our current understanding of the universe may no longer hold true. Therefore, trying to apply our current understanding of time to a state before the Big Bang may be a futile exercise.
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