0

So, I've asked questions before that have been met with "Time (and our laws of physics) didn't exist before the big bang" and other answers to that effect. This is massively confusing to me, for reasons. While I understand that time could neither 1.) Be measured nor 2.) quantified, I want to intuitively assume that there was some non-zero amount of time during which the universe we live in now was an empty void. An absolutely perfect vacuum. It has no significant meaning, because in an empty and timeless void the probability of a big bang is apparently 1, but I can't help but see it as that.

So, I was wondering, if someone can clarify the statement and adherence to the phrase "Time didn't exist before the big bang". Whenever I ask about a question before it, I'm met with that statement (in a generally dismissive manner).

Sidney
  • 1,066

1 Answers1

0

For fundamental questions concerning time you might not forget that any coordinate time is deriving from proper time:

The definition of proper time does not depend of spacetime (= the time measured by a clock following the worldline of a particle) while conversely the coordinate time does depend of the spacetime metric/ the spacetime interval which is a direct function of proper time.

This principle must also be applied to massless particles (lightlike movements) whose proper time is zero: The observed coordinate time of massless particles corresponds to proper time zero.

As a result, your question should refer to proper time and not to coordinate time. A universe without proper time should be automatically a universe without coordinate time.

The underlying idea is that we cannot imagine what the nature of (coordinate) time. But we can imagine the existence or not of some particle with a given proper time.

Moonraker
  • 3,173