lamont
Contributor
Rick Murchison:The lack of time prior to the big bang is consistent with Einstein's theory of relativity.
In General Relativity, space and time are just the 4 dimensions of a 4 dimensional manifold. Time has no definition outside of that manifold. Talking about time before the big bang is kind of like taking a balloon and asking about the part of the balloon that exists outside of the balloon...
That's relatively easy for me to picture....
What keeps me awake at night is thinking about the possible multiverse and alternative universes with different dimensions (that might be connected to ours). I can sort of picture universes with single time dimensions and 1 to N spatial dimensions... I can also sort of picture a universe with only spatial dimensions -- it would have no passage of time, it would just sort of pop into existance fully formed like a picture. I don't know how to picture a universe with two time dimensions and N spatial dimensions though... That one is difficult to wrap my head around...