Where does the matter in the universe come from if there was nothing before the big bang?
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Looking at some of the comments I ( not in any way an expert) get the feeling that people are sometime looking at this from the wrong perspective perhaps. It’s not that we are starting with whatever we define as the big bang and moving forward but that we are observing the universe now (and further back in time through telescopes) and *extrapolating* backwards to earlier states.
What we see now (expansion and background radiation) tells is that the universe was once smaller and denser ( but it was still *all* there was and even possibly infinite in some sense , I think). If we extrapolate far enough we might presume a singularity of infinite mass in a infinitely tiny point *but* as far as I am aware scientists are not all convinced that is necessarily actually real. We can also observe conditions now that are best explained by an early massive and fast inflation.
We are limited in our ability to describe the earliest conditions because , if I have it correctly, the laws of physics we know break down and we can’t work our way beyond the Planck Epoch to say anything reliable. We theorise that at some point time itself is no longer a useful concept along with our ideas of ‘before’ or even causality as we know it.
As far as where that energy/mass came from we can only speculate with hypotheses. But it’s have considered , I think, that it may in some way just have existed , or been some sort of inevitable quantum event , or be a product of a wider multiverse from which universes kind of foam up. I have read one who considered that quantum physics suggests that infinite universes are a sort of potential and those which have certain possible conditions must resolve into actual existence.
But the answer is really *we don’t know* – but it’s probably at least too simplistic to say there was *anywhere* for it to come *from* and certainly wrong to suggest there was a *nothing* or indeed that there was a *before* in any way we normally mean by those words. So unfortunately and frustratingly perhaps , your question itself just may not make sense when we consider the earliest universe. But I would say that for some reason we seem to have some natural preconceptions that we can’t actually rely on such as existence of something being somehow unlikely when maybe it just is the only possibility.
Apologies in advance to anyone more knowledgeable than me who spots an egregious error or miscommunication.
Edit: sorry I really didn’t think about the ELI5 aspect but perhaps hopefully my last substantial paragraph covers that?
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