• Question: what made the big bang happen???

    Asked by abbley to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 16 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by yassie.
    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      We don’t know. The physics we understand breaks down at the Big Bang. We can only explain the Universe back to a time about 10^-43 seconds (that’s a 0.000….043 – with 43 zeros in total) after the Big Bang. Before that gravity just couldn’t work in the way we understand it so all our models break down.

      So basically right now your guess is as good as mine (or even Brian Cox’s) as to what caused the Big Bang to happen.

      So what do you think?

    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      We don’t know! We probably never will.

    • Photo: Nazim Bharmal

      Nazim Bharmal answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      I don’t think we can say, partly because time started with the big bang so it doesn’t mean anything to say “before the Big Bang”.

      Perhaps it started at a really good party?

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      We don’t really know! All we know is that suddenly, nearly 14 billion years ago, everything that is in the universe today expanded out unbelievably quickly from a tiny unbelievably dense spot. I find just thinking about that scary enough, without thinking about how it might have been caused!

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