is there really a beginning of time?

Question

if time is infinite, could there really ever have been a beginning. (this is questioning the big bang)

Answer 1

Very good question!

I have much love for Steven Hawking, but I must say the whole concept of a beginning of time is illogical to me. It fits the formulas for the Big Bang expansion equations nicely and that is primarily why he supports it.

However, the Big Bang theory is coming under new criticism following the very recent photos looking back 13.2 billion years and expecting to see the formation of galaxies only 500 million years after the Big Bang. What they found were mature galaxies for as far as they could see.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288827,00.html

Now scientists are stepping back and pondering that the universe may be much older than thought, or have no beginning, no boundary, and the expansion of the universe and the background radiation may be a local condition to our area of the universe and not relative to the universe as a whole.

What if we can see 14 billion light years back in time and this is no more than sitting in your backyard looking at the land within your fence, and believing it to be the whole world? Could we be this naive about the universe? yes.

Time is a factor of space-time and one cannot exist without the other. With the evidence mounting for a universe that has no beginning, I would say time also, has no beginning.

Answer 2

The problem is that you are starting with the false premise that time is infinite in both directions. It's like saying, "If green is red, what color is the grass?"

The fact is that current science supports the existence of a Big Bang. Supporting evidence includes cosmological expansion and the cosmic background radiation.

If time had a beginning, it cannot be infinite backward. However, it might move forward infinitely. For example, in mathematics, the positive numbers expand forward indefinitely, but have a definite beginning.

Whether time is infinite into the future will be determined by the Hubble constant. At this time, it looks like the Hubble constant is very near 50, the universe is flat, and time is infinite in the future.

Answer 3

YES, THERE WAS A BEGINNING OF TIME and YES< TIME IS INFINITE(in both directions)...

its not that, time did not exist before the big bang, just that to us the instances & events(if there were any) before the big bang do not matter, these events cannot affect the events after the big bang, so keeping a record is irrelevant (i mean thats what time is used for, right, keeping records of events), time is only relevant to us for perception, memory etc.

there is a chance that the universe wil someday stop expanding & evetually collapse again into a singularity of negligible diameter, again there will be a 'big bang', & to the people born in that universe our events won't matter, their time will 'begin' at that big bang...

Answer 4

This is going to be a weirder-sounding answer, since I'm a Big Bang believer who says that there in fact wasn't a beginning.

It all has to do with what you consider to have existed "before" a big bang; that is, what gave rise to it.

After having read work by Alan Guth, Stephen Hawking, Lee Smolin, and others, I'm personally of the belief that our little universe is one of an uncountable number that came from quantum fluctuations in a preexisting spacetime continuum - - and that there need be no "first" such continuum, meaning that time (which would be passing in any space"time" continuums) could extend backward and forward in time indefinitely, past singularities like the Big bang into other universes or realities.

Whoaaaa!!! Science is better than pot....

Answer 5

Well it depends cuz this question brings up many religious issues
If u are religious (Cristian) then we believe that there is no beginning of "time" because God is omniscient or timeless, he has and will always be.
People might say the Big Bang was the beginning but how there was time even before that. Also what set everything off from nothing? I believe there's only one answer and that's God so according to that then the answer to your question is, there was and is no beginning to time.

Answer 6

If time is infinite it can't have a beginning,a string of infinite length can't have an end.
The universe is a finite entity and time is required for it's existence.
When either one ends they will both go out of existence.

Answer 7

Time and space and beginning and end is something that exist on this planet, so we are stuck abiding within the laws of this primitive planet. Everyone knows that time is different in outer space. My own personal opinion is that there is no time and space in other realms like where angels and God live or even maybe aliens live. So they might not even age. No past present or future , just one space. All we know is what we see. There are things that exist that we arent even aware of or know about. :) Once we get out of these bodies we can get out of this prison we are trapped in.

Answer 8

Yes, and if time is infinite, then after it began, it continues forever without end.

When did it begin? When God created the Heavens and the earth.

Answer 9

The big bang is a load of crap.
A famous scientist once said, "Something can not come from nothing."

God created this earth, and all that it on it!
YES! There was a start!

Answer 10

To the best of our knowledge, time began about 13.7 billion years ago. However, there is a lot we don't understand about the universe at that point, so it is theoretically possible that there was time before that.