Since the birth of the universe, the history from the Big Bang to the modern universe remains full of mysteries. Although scientists have a detailed description of the evolution of the universe, there are still insurmountable theoretical obstacles to what happened before the Big Bang.
According to the current standard cosmological model, the age of the universe is approximately 13.8 billion years, and this history is divided into multiple stages. In the earliest period of the universe, the time scale was so short that even the effects of the four basic forces were difficult to understand in detail. It all began in a state of the universe close to time zero, called the Planck epoch.
During the Planck period, the temperature and energy of the universe were high enough to prevent the formation of subatomic particles, and even basic physical laws may no longer apply.
The Big Bang theory provides a framework for describing the evolution of the universe, but it also raises profound questions about the origins of time and space. The Standard Model relies on a theory called the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) metric, but these equations do not apply at infinitesimal scales of time and cannot effectively explain the fundamental reasons why the Big Bang occurred.
A core problem in quantum gravity theory is the inability to combine general relativity with quantum mechanics to explain the initial conditions of the Big Bang. Current models fail to describe events within the Planck time because the laws of physics may break down or become unpredictable in that extreme environment.
Many physicists believe that a deeper understanding of quantum gravity will help reveal the fundamental nature of the Big Bang, but there is currently no unified theory to explain this.
The scientific community's enthusiasm for discussions before the Big Bang has not diminished, but has increased with technological advancement. Various theories, including string theory, quantum cosmology, etc., try to explain the origin of time and the basic structure of the universe, but these theories still face challenges.
Looking back after the Big Bang, the universe has gone through many stages of evolution, each time revealing new facts. Our understanding of the stages from the early formation of elementary particles to the creation of structures caused by the expansion of the universe continues to deepen. Scientists can now measure the microwave background radiation from the early universe, which provides us with valuable information about the state of the universe shortly after the Big Bang.
Despite this, this information still cannot be traced back to the beginning of the evolution of the universe, and even for the era before the Big Bang, we still have few clues left.
When we explore the past of the universe, we are inevitably surrounded by questions. Can we really gain any substantive knowledge about the time before the Big Bang? Many scientists speculate that with the advancement of exploration technology, we may be closer to the truth of the mainstream theory of the universe.
In current scientific debates, whether at the forefront of theoretical physics or the philosophical significance of time, the state before the Big Bang remains a mysterious mystery. Should we accept that time itself may not have existed at all before the origin of the universe?