This is a very good question. Cosmologists assume that the universe was in a state of quantum fluctuation when it was less that 10^-33 seconds old. This ended when the Big Bang started. But how is it that the laws that govern 'quantum mechanics' and the behavior of these fluctuations seemed to pre-exist before our familiar space and time came into existence?
In his book, Perfect Symmetry, the late physicist Heinz Pagels wonders where and how could the laws of physics be written into the fabric of the void state that existed prior to space and time?
Some physicists such as H. Nielson and J. Iliopolis have pursued a theory called Chaotic Gauge Theory in which the universe began as a completely incoherent 'something' lacking any laws or cause-and-effect relationships whatsoever. This is very different from a prevailing belief that the universe started out in a state of 'perfect symmetry'. In chaotic gauge theory, there are no initial laws at all, but as the energy of this state declines, relationships slowly begin to emerge that we now recognize as laws of nature, such as the constancy of the speed of light, the dimensionality of space, and the direction of time.
Space and time seem to be the common currency of every known law that we have ever observed, even quantum ones. It is a complete mystery where these qualities came from. Even the so-called 'Theory of Everything' must be codified in terms of space and time, though perhaps admitting that the universe may have more dimensions of them than we now experience. To step beyond the Big Bang state, we will need something more that even such a theory; and that 'something' may not strictly speaking be recognizable as a scientific theory. Remember, around the turn of the century, the mathematician Goedel said that every mathematical system has at its roots a set of propositions which are beyond the system to prove. This makes every logically consistent system, fundamentally incomplete. The much vaunted Theory of Everything will doubtless be just such a system; the last stop at least for a scientific understanding of why the world and its laws are the way they are.
Copyright (C) 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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