Here's part of the article. Maybe you'll take the time to
read it.



The Myth of the Beginning of Time; May 2004; by Gabriele
Veneziano;
10 page(s)
File size: 268 KB


Was the big bang really the beginning of time? Or did the
universe exist before then? Such a question seemed almost blasphemous only a
decade ago. Most cosmologists insisted that it simply made no sense - that
to contemplate a time before the big bang was like asking for
directions to a place north of the North Pole. But developments in
theoretical physics, especially the rise of string theory, have
changed their perspective. The pre-bang universe has become the
latest frontier of cosmology.


The new willingness to consider what might have happened before
the bang is the latest swing of an intellectual pendulum that has rocked
back and forth for millennia. In one form or another, the issue of
the ultimate beginning has engaged philosophers and theologians in
nearly every culture. It is entwined with a grand set of concerns,
one famously encapsulated in an 1897 painting by Paul Gauguin: D'ou
venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Ou allons-nous? "Where do we come from? What
are we? Where are we going?" The piece depicts the cycle of birth, life and
death - origin, identity and destiny for each
individual - and these personal concerns connect directly to cosmic ones.
We can trace our lineage back through the generations, back
through our animal ancestors, to early forms of life and protolife,
to the elements synthesized in the primordial universe, to the
amorphous energy deposited in space before that. Does our family
tree extend forever backward? Or do its roots terminate? Is the
cosmos as impermanent as we are?