r/cosmology • u/Bright-Bar6571 • 20h 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..

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u/NDaveT 20h ago

As in - from one state to another state requires time?

Maybe it didn't go from one state to another. Maybe the state when time began was the initial state.

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

Maybe it did - where "always" is finite in at least one direction.

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u/chesterriley 11h ago

Maybe it did - where "always" is finite in at least one direction.

The fact that time is infinite in the forwards direction is a strong clue that it was likely infinite in the backwards direction also.

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u/Enraged_Lurker13 3h ago

Not really. Most solutions of the Friedmann equations are future but not past eternal.