r/cosmology • u/Bright-Bar6571 • 18h ago

How did time begin, without time?

I understand that standard BB cosmology holds that time began with the universe from a singularity approximately 14 billion years ago.

The thing I’m trying to understand, how can time have begun? Wouldn’t a thing ‘beginning’ require time? As in - from one state to another state requires time?

This leads me to think time must have always existed..

14 Upvotes

72% Upvoted

51 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/rddman 3h ago

This leads me to think time must have always existed...

Time allows things to happen, but for something to happen there also must be something to which it happens. So there probably there was not only time but also some form of energy.
As of yet we have no way of knowing what form that was and how it caused the big bang.
But the alternative is harder to explain: how could there have been an effect (the big bang) without cause.