What prevents scientists from being able model what was before the Big Bang?
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Modern technology gives us a great way to explain this.
Imagine an entire universe has been modelled in a game called “Super Apendica Universe.” In that game, physics are different than our physics. Time runs faster. People can jump higher. Walking through a door can lead to another “level” that’s not physically connect to the room you were just in. Put on the right hat and your abilities completely change. If you die, you get reloaded. You have a *score*. Things are just *different* from what we consider to be reality, but for Super Apendica, it IS the universe. Those ARE the rules of physics. There’s not anything “outside” of the Super Apendica Universe, because that universe isn’t actually connected to our universe in any way. It’s just a concept, unto itself, and its reality IS reality to its inhabitants.
In the same way, there’s also nothing “before” Super Apendica Universe. Time in that universe began the moment the game console was powered on. What time even *is* in that universe follows a set of rules that were created and operate based on how that console and the software running on it work. Their time is not the same thing as our time. You can’t “go into” Super Apendica Universe, and its inhabitants can’t “come into” our universe.
Therefore, if Super Apendica puts on his Scientist hat and attempts to calculate what happened “before” the big bang in his universe, he’ll discover that there actually *was nothing* before the big bang. The rules that make up his universe, including time itself, did not exist until that big bang occurred. *There was no existence before the big bang.* At all.
In our universe, we’re *probably* not software (some scientists have serious scientific doubts about that), but what we currently observe calculates back to meaning “the physics of our universe, including time itself, *did not exist* until the big bang occurred.” Whatever created the conditions that made the big bang happen are not conditions that could occur within the laws of physics as we currently understand them because they cannot occur *inside* our universe.
So, whatever made the universe start was *separate from the universe* and didn’t follow the rules of the universe, including the flow of time itself. So we have no idea how to even *guess* at the nature of those conditions any more than Super Apendica could calculate why humans can’t warp to the castle entrance once we’ve visited it for the first time. He can’t even calculate what we’re like, or that we even exist. “When” we exist is meaningless to Super Apendica. Our universe is not “before” his universe. It’s separate. Even though we created his universe at some point in our own timeline, his universe still has an origin that starts at the beginning of *his* time. Just like ours does.
There was no universe before the big bang. The physical reality of it came into existence at the moment of the big bang, both in ours, and in Super Apendica Universe. In either place, you can’t model what was before the big bang, because there literally *wasn’t* a before.
At least, that’s the currently accepted view among scientists. Who knows, maybe there’s something fundamental we’ll discover that will change all of that. As for me, I’m looking forward to that Flying Hat.
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