What Was There Before The 'big Bang'?

[nailit]

I'm not scientifically minded so please be gentle with me here...
But can anyone please explain to me how an unimaginably large and complex universe came from nothing?
Theres enough religious fruitcakes on AB (and in real life) who would posit their own version of God as the source of creation but I have a real problem (as an atheist) with something (the universe) coming from nothing.
And if there was 'nothing' how could 'something' come from it?
(currently watching Horizon, Cosmic Dawn....these type of programmes always make me question.)
Thanks.

[Jackdaw33]

Before the Big Bang the universe was a giant balloon. Then one day God said, "I'm sick of looking at that bloody balloon, sod this for a game of soldiers", and stuck a needle into it There was an almighty bang, and the rest is history.

[jno]

I think you have the same problem as religious people in conceiving the idea that there was nothing before the universe, no time, no space, nothing.

Some scientists think there might have been previous universes; but that doesn't actually solve your problem, just pushes it back further.

[sandyRoe]

Some would tell us that before it there was absolutely nothing.
My belief in a seven day creation seems as logical.

[Old_Geezer]

Latest New Scientist says we don't know the answer for certain.

That aside. As I understand it, the Uncertainty Principle tells us particles can blink into and out of existence. Do that often enough and something that inflates as a universe will appear at some point and end up as home to life advanced enough to ask the questions. At least that's my crude take on it. No doubt the experts will be along soon to correct me :-)

[nailit]

///I think you have the same problem as religious people in conceiving the idea that there was nothing before the universe, no time, no space, nothing. ///
Hence my question, how can something come from nothing? A logical impossability.

[Old_Geezer]

BTW not being scientificly minded makes explanations difficult. The vacuum of space positively seethes with "virtual" particles coming into existence fron nothing because there is nothing stopping them.

[jno]

I'm just suggesting there's no point in calling people fruitcakes for their belief in a creator when you don't have a better answer yourself. (I don't either.)

[VHG]

But what are we inside?

As humans we know everything is inside something - our living room is in our house, our house in a street, our street is in a town, our town is in a county, our county is in a country and so on.

So what is the universe INSIDE?

If we went on forever and ever would we ever reach the end.

Scary

[douglas9401]

Given it was only more or less 6000 years ago, surely there must be a clue about somewhere.

[Peter Pedant]

// Latest New Scientist says we don't know the answer for certain. //
OG keep up
that is the answer for which one is correct ....

before the Big Bang ( courtesy of Fred Hoyle ) there was the ..... steady state theory

Einstein looked at his equations and realised that under certain circs it would expand so he put in a little adjuster to make it stay still
the cosmological constant
and he later called it the greatest mistake of his life

see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant

[jim360]

Well, either something came from "nothing" once, or something has been here literally forever. But then forever could have a weird meaning because time is sort of weird when you get close to the Big Bang anyway.

Honestly, I have no idea. I'm not even sure that asking the question makes sense. In a sense time did not exist, as we understand it anyway, so that there was no "before". At the very least, it seems likely to me that the Big Bang is such a massive event as to wipe out all information of what came before it.

[VHG]

Remember the huge explosion of an atom bomb comes from almost nothing.

If you strip away the outer casing of the bomb, what causes the actual huge bang comes from something very small.

[Togo]

Gravity and Hydrogen atoms formed H2. Bang nuclear fusion forms a star.

[nailit]

Perhaps I should have put this in R&S???

[Togo]

The star forms the first light. Let there be light.

[nailit]

//Gravity and Hydrogen atoms formed H2.//
And where did they come from?

[Togo]

VHG there is no inside no outside it is an almost unimaginable fold or wrap all is one, one is all.

[Old_Geezer]

We may be in the multiverse.

But we do not know everything is in something else at all. That is to limit out thinking to our life's experiences. But reality is more than that. It doesn't conform to our view of "common sense".

Clearly unless dimensions warp and something can hold another that in turn holds the first thing: then there has to be a limit to containers. It's not "turtles all the way down".

[Old_Geezer]

"And where did they come from?"

Initially, from nothing. Which was the question you asked.

[Togo]

H2 is only a double hydrogen atom formed when enough clustered due to the force gravity. H2 with O makes H2O water. When enough hydrogen atoms were compressed after billions of years their mass under immense pressure formed H2 and the conditions for fusion and the production for heavier elements during the basic atomic hydrogen fusion. Producing the first light and the building blocks for us. I would like to understand gravity itself. Isaac Newton was truly a genius.