What Was Before The Big Bang? Unveiling The Mystery Of The Infinite Void

7th Jan 2025

The Big Bang theory, which originated in the late twenties of the 20th century, explained the origin of the Universe to humanity and has been generally accepted ever since. However, the question of what was before the Big Bang remains one of the most mysterious and debated questions in modern cosmology, to which scientists do not yet have a clear, unambiguous answer. In this article, we will consider various hypotheses and theories that are trying to unravel the mystery of what existed before the Big Bang.

What Is Our Entire Cosmic History As We Know It?

history of the universe — Our entire cosmic history from the beginning until nowadays. Credit: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

According to the Big Bang Theory, about 13.8 billion years ago, the matter and energy of the Universe were concentrated in a single point of infinite density and temperature, known as a singularity. Then, the Big Explosion occurred, and the Universe underwent inflation – an instantaneous process of expanding several trillion times.

As the universe expanded further, it began to cool down, allowing elementary particles such as quarks and gluons to form. These particles gradually combined to form protons and neutrons.

About 380,000 years after the Big Explosion, the temperature cooled enough for protons and neutrons to combine with electrons to form the first atoms of hydrogen and helium. Over time, gravity began to pull on gas clouds to form stars and galaxies, giving rise to the universe as we know it today.

Is The Big Bang Theory Proven?

Surprisingly, this seemingly fantastic story has been repeatedly confirmed by observational data. In 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that galaxies were moving away from each other, which proves the Universe’s expansion. In 1965, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered cosmic microwave background radiation, which is the residual heat from the Big Explosion. Since then, the Bing Bang theory has been the most widely accepted model of the Universe’s origin, continuously confirmed in modern research. However, like any theory, it has gaps and weaknesses. For example, singularity.

If we accept the existence of a singularity, it means that the space before the Big Bang was squeezed into an infinitely small and dense point. But this is clearly absurd, indicating that our current set of tools for understanding the Universe is not good enough. In other words, we need a new physics that would allow us to fill in the gaps in our understanding of the creation and existence of the world. But until we have one, we will have to content ourselves with current theories and hypotheses.

What Created The Big Bang?

There are several theories about the origin of the Universe, which, in turn, partially give us an understanding of what was there before the Big Bang. Let’s consider each one separately.

Theory Of The Cyclic Universe

The cyclic hypothesis suggests that the universe goes through endless cycles of expansion and contraction. Each Bada Boom is followed by a period of expansion, followed by contraction, leading to another explosion.

Friedmann Model

The cyclic model was first proposed by the Soviet physicist Alexander Friedman in 1922 and was the first to satisfy the equations of Einstein’s general theory of relativity and assume the universe’s non-stationarity. However, in 1934, Richard Tolman pointed out the inconsistency of Friedmann’s theory due to the entropy problem. According to the second law of thermodynamics, entropy can only increase. This means that each subsequent cycle of “renewal” must be larger and longer than the previous one, which leads to problems with the infinity of cycles.

Steinhardt-Turok Brane Model

Cyclic model of the universe — Cyclic Universes. Credit: Universe-Review

In 2001, Princeton University theoretical physicists Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok proposed their version of a cyclic universe based on the theory of branes, hypothetical multidimensional physical objects, the dimensionality of which is less than the dimensionality of the space they reside in. A 0-brane is a point, a 1-brane is a line (a one-dimensional object), a 2-brane is a two-dimensional object, and so on.

What did the universe look like before the Big Bang, according to the brane theory? As a three-dimensional object (a 3-brane) floating in a higher-dimensional space. In that space, there are other 3-branes like ours that may exist alongside our brane. According to the Steinhardt-Turok theory, 3-branes periodically collide with each other, causing a huge release of energy that we call the Big Bang. After the explosion, our universe begins to expand. Over time, the expansion slows down, and it begins to contract. Eventually, the branes collide again, and the cycle repeats.

This model has received more support than Friedmann’s model, as it is based on the mathematical models of string theory and M-theory, as well as on observations of the anisotropy of the background radiation in space. However, the problem of increasing entropy remains unsolved.

Quantum Fluctuations Or How Did The Universe Begin From Nothing?

In quantum mechanics, the vacuum is not empty but contains virtual particles that can spontaneously appear and disappear. Think of the vacuum as a bubbling cauldron in which bubbles (virtual particles) are constantly appearing and disappearing. One of these bubbles could have “exploded” and become our beginning. In other words, vacuum fluctuations could have created the conditions for the Universe to emerge from “nothing.” In this context, “nothing” does not mean the absolute absence of everything but rather a state in which time and space, as they are understood by modern physics, are absent.

Physicist Lawrence Krauss popularised the idea of the universe emerging from nothing in his book A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing. Stephen Hawking and James Hartle also made significant contributions to the theory with their “no-boundary proposal,” which suggested that quantum effects such as quantum tunnelling could have triggered the Big Explosion.

Agullo model of the universe — Universe evolution according to the Agullo model. Credit: APS/Alan Stonebraker

Scheme of the Universe evolution according to the model of Agullo et al., based on a loop-quantum-gravity (LQG) extension of the inflationary paradigm (figure is not to scale). LQG is used to describe the early Universe of the Planck era. The authors show that their theory smoothly connects with conventional inflationary cosmology, delivering similar predictions regarding the observable cosmic microwave background. The model is based on a “big bounce” instead of a Big Bang: a transition from a contracting to an expanding phase of the Universe.

The theory that the Universe arose from quantum fluctuations is, to some extent, supported by cosmological inflation. After the Big Blast, the fluctuations were amplified by the exponential expansion, leading to the formation of initial irregularities that later became the seeds of galaxies and other large structures.

Multiverse Theory

The multiverse theory suggests that our universe may be one of many ‘worlds’ existing in parallel. In this case, the Big Explosion could result from a collision or interaction between different these ‘planes.’

This theory is also supported by the idea of ”eternal inflation” proposed by Alan Guth and Andrei Linde, suggesting that the process of universal expansion could be infinite.

The downside is that there is no direct evidence for the existence of the multiverse. For now, the concept remains in the realm of theoretical assumptions and hypothetical models. However, scientists continue to look for indirect evidence. For example, they study distortions in electromagnetic radiation left over from the early stages of the universe and investigate some special types of black holes.

Sprung From The Void

So, the question of what was before the Big Bang remains open, causing a lot of debate among scientists and others. We have yet to find out whether we came from the void or are constantly travelling from one Universe to another. But to do this, we will have to expand our understanding of physical laws because the physics we use as a basis seems to have hit a ceiling. And while scientists are looking for new approaches, we offer you answers to a few more questions about the origin and existence of the Universe that concern you the most.

What Came First, God Or The Big Bang?

Some religious teachings suggest that God created the universe, including the Big Bada Boom. Others claim that it arose on its own without the intervention of a higher power. Stephen Hawking denied the involvement of the Almighty in this serious matter, and we’re inclined to believe Stephen Hawking, if only for the simple reason that no evidence of God’s existence has ever been found.

Did Oxygen Exist Before The Big Bang?

Space before the big blast had no oxygen nor any other elements as we know them. The first atoms of hydrogen and helium formed a few minutes after the Explosion, and heavier elements, including oxygen, formed later in the stellar depths.

Will The Universe Collapse?

Modern research shows that the rate of universal expansion is not decreasing but increasing. This means that, theoretically, the end in the form of a “collapse” is nowhere close. However, the mysterious dark energy, which makes up about 68% of the entire cosmos, can at any moment surprise us with a sharp slowdown in expansion, which will be the first step towards the beginning of the end.

What If Our Universe Is A Simulation?

coding a universe — Image Credit: uniladtech

The idea that our universe may be a simulation is known as the simulation hypothesis. This concept suggests that what we perceive as reality may actually be an artificial simulation, like a highly advanced computer program.

This hypothesis was popularised by philosopher Nick Bostrom in 2003. He suggested that future civilisations might have the technological capability to create detailed simulations of their ancestors, and if they did, the number of simulated realities could greatly exceed the number of any single “real” reality.

While this idea is fascinating and has been explored in various forms of science fiction, such as The Matrix movie, it remains highly speculative. Elon Musk, for example, believes that humanity would be better off if we were created by future humans or an alien race as a giant simulation. In any case, there is no empirical evidence to support or refute the simulation assumption.

And what do you think? What was before the Big Bang? Did it happen at all, or did someone just launch a computer program?