29th June 2004, 12:50 PM
As I said, current models basically state that there is no time before the big bang, it's just one END of it, and time is more of a self contained bubble than anything else. Essentially, at the big bang end, or rather the INSTANT before where everything is one, it doesn't just collapse the 3 dimensions of space into infinite smallness, it ALSO collapses time itself into that point, forming a closed circle, and thus isn't really a beginning. Essentially, if nothing can change, there is no time. Time itself is the rate of change, so when things stop changing, time ceases to exist. Perhaps I'm not explaining it very well...
http://library.thinkquest.org/27930/time.htm Here's a link that I think does a decent job of it, but I didn't really search very hard to find it.
http://library.thinkquest.org/27930/time.htm Here's a link that I think does a decent job of it, but I didn't really search very hard to find it.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)