What Caused the Singularity & Is There Anything Before the Universe?

[Chalnoth]

According to the law of the conservation of mass and energy, the total mass and energy of the universe must be the same after as before the creation of the universe. This shows the net energy and mass of the universe must be zero. This shows there must be a equal amount of antimass and antienergy out there for balance. Furthermore according to the law of conservation of momentum, the only way for the mass and antimass to separate is if the antimass is traveling backward through time.

Energy isn't conserved in curved space-time, except in some very special cases with particular definitions of energy. If our universe conforms to one of these special cases (which is by no means certain), then the negative energy comes from the potential energy of gravity, not from any sort of anti-mass.

And mass isn't conserved at all: we create particles with more mass all the time in collisions in particle accelerators, for instance. Anti-matter also has positive mass, not negative mass. And traveling backwards through time wouldn't allow for conservation of momentum in any event.

 

[jackmell]

You guys talk a lot about removing a singularity. May I give you my favorite example of removing a singularity which I feel may have relevance here? Consider the Euler sum:

\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}\frac{1}{n^s}

The Euler sum, breaks down (diverges) at Re(s)=1 and so fails to describe what the sum is. It is singular there. However, there is something which is exactly equal to the sum in its domain of convergence, yet does not have the (same) singularity. That is the zeta function. The zeta function has a larger domain than the Euler sum and is only singular at a single point. It is my personal hope that one day we will be able to do the same in Cosmology: remove the GR singularity (or maybe most of it) by a theory which is "larger" than GR, encompasses GR in GR's domain of convergence (our Universe), yet has a larger domain (includes the pre-existence) that it converges in.