Time MINI mini series Part IV: Time and the Big Bang

When did time actually begin? Some argue that time is infinite and others argue that it is finite.
Others argue whether the Big Bang is where it all began or if time existed prior to this event. The latest in the field of brane cosmology explains The Big Bang as an occurrence of two giant membranes colliding, thus birthing our universe. Perhaps the best explanation, in my opinion, is from none other than Steven Hawking. He discovered time within our universe began with the Big Bang.

In A Brief History of Time and elsewhere, Hawking says that even if time did not begin with the Big Bang and there were another time frame before the Big Bang, no information from events then would be accessible to us, and nothing that happened then would have any effect upon the present time-frame.

Scientists have come to some agreement on descriptions of events that happened 10−35 seconds after the Big Bang, but generally agree that descriptions about what happened before one Planck time (5 × 10−44 seconds) after the Big Bang will likely remain pure speculation.

Superstrings and spacetime dimensions and ahhhh no I'm not making this up...I swear!

Superstring theory seems almost improbable but it strives to explain particle interactions with various forces of nature by modeling them as vibrations of super symmetric strings.

An excellent example is a violin string vibrating and resonating sound. Superstring theory claims reality consists of strings (Planck Length) which vibrate at certain resonant frequencies. Every one of these strings has a unique harmony and these different harmonies determine different fundamental forces.
Perhaps the most radical aspects of Superstring theories are their perceptions of space/time dimensions. Our physical space is believed to have 3 dimensions plus a 4th dimension- time. In contrast- string theories perceive space-time to have up to 26 dimensions.

Superstring theories depend heavily on topology- an extension of geometry and set theory that investigates the structure of a space. Today there are up to five dominant superstring theories- all of which are unified by M- theory. I will discuss M theory briefly in a later post.

Here is an interesting fact: there is a guy whom I believe is my distant cousin and works at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. Damn, if only I could figure this out! What are seriously the odds, dear, of a guy with the last name Buchleitner who is a cosmologist?