Did "time" ever have a beginning? How do we know it did/didn't?

Question

Ten points for the best answer! = )

Answer 1

Hey,

it's a pretty chalending question, because the answer ain't easy to explain. But here goes:

there's no such thing as time. :p What i mean is, time is not a physical matter, something u can find, something that starts.

Time is a physical unit, used to refer to an earlier state in space, or a further state in space.
In order for time to start, it should be able to stop. But time cannot stop. It can seem to go slower, if you go fast enough, but it'll seem slower to you, but to others, it'll keep on going on a normal rate.
For example: if ur desperatly waiting in front of the TV for the last episode of ur all time favourite TV-series (the oc, one tree hill, the osbournes.....), it would seem to you that time is soooo slow.
On the other hand, if you're sitting in ur classroom, writting down ur exam, most of the times, it would feel like there's never enough time to finish that exam (in this case time is passing by too quickly, again to you).
In both situation, ur next door neighboor (who doesn't even have a TV, and who's too old to go to school) feels that time is going at a normal rate...

Some would say time started with the creation of the universe, the "Big*Bang", but the big band was caused by the collision of the masses, therefore, time existed before the big-bang (the two masses had to move from point a to b to c....till they colide, which takes time....)

So, there is no beginning to time, as there's no end of time.... It's just a unit of referrence.

Answer 2

In my opinion, neither the Bible nor the Big Bang theory answer this question. I think it was only recently considered that time or space might have had a beginning. The Big Bang theories extrapolate the expanding universe to a single, extremely dense spot of mass and/or energy. But it says nothing about the source of this dense spot.

Answer 3

I only have a concept of "time" because I can remember things that happened in the "past", and I can imagine things that might happen in the "future". If I did not have a memory, then "time" would be meaningless to me. All I would have is the "here and now". Life would be like a photograph, a snapshot. My own experience of "time" came when I first began remembering things, so time began for me, then. Whether "time existed" before that, I can only assume that my concept of time is experienced by every human being who ever lived.

Humankind tends to apply our own experience to everything else in the universe. I believe this is one of humankind's biggest failings. Each of us is unique and we each live in our own universe.

Anyway, this is just a small part of........

Answer 4

Here's a real picture that we took recently of the beginning of the Universe:
http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/03/0217/

Here is an image of the spacetime fabric of the Universe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wavy.gif

Answer 5

Time and space began at the same moment, commonly known as the big bang.

Answer 6

Time, as we know it, began with the big bang. Unfortunately, we cannot peer back to the big bang or outside our universe to say what else might be time.

Answer 7

I think what you want to know is, when did time start being recorded and by whom. How was a set time agreed to? This sort of thing. I'm sure there are answers out there, but I don't know them. I think, however, you may want to clarify the question.

Answer 8

physics eh? then you know about how something can be matter and energy simultaneously and exist in more than three or four dimensions...time had a beginning from a point of view outside of our own dimension(s), yet from our view here we cannot comprehend it, simply because it is outside our consciousness of experineces (or memories)(or rememberability).

Answer 9

Everything has a beginning, everything has an ending. That's the way of the universe.

Answer 10

of course it did if it didn't start I wouldn't be answering this question right now