Stephen Hawking on the Big Bang
A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988), pp. 8-9.
Hubble's observations suggested that there was a time, called the big
bang, when the universe was infinitesimally small and infinitely dense.
Under such conditions all the laws of science, and therefore all
ability to predict the future, would break down. If there were events
earlier than this time, then they could not affect what happens at the
present time. Their existence can be ignored because it would have no
observational consequences. One may say that time had a beginning at
the big bang, in the sense that earlier times simply would not be
defined. It should be emphasized that this beginning in time is very
different from those that had been considered previously. In an
unchanging universe a beginning in time is something that has to be
imposed by some being outside the universe; there is no physical
necessity for a beginning. One can imagine that God created the
universe at literally any time in the past. On the other hand, if the
universe is expanding, there may be physical reasons why there had to
be a beginning. One could imagine that God created the universe at the
instant of the big bang, or even afterwards in just such a way as to
make it look as though there had been a big bang, but it would be
meaningless to suppose that it was created before the big bang. An
expanding universe does not preclude a creator, but it does place
limits on when he might have carried out his job!
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