This explanation
is made possible
because of something strange
about the principle
of cause and effect.
Our everyday experience makes us convinced
that everything that happens
must be caused
by something that occurred earlier in time.
So it's natural for us to assume
that something, perhaps God
must have caused the universe
to come into existence.
But when we're talking about the universe as a whole,
that isn't necessarily so.
Let me explain.
Imagine a river
flowing down the mountainside.
What caused the river?
Well, perhaps the rain.
Rain that fell earlier in the mountains.
But then...
what caused the rain?
A good answer would be the sun.
The sun that shone on the ocean
and lifted water vapour up into the sky
and made clouds.
Okay!
So what caused the sun to shine?
Well, if we look inside we see the process
known as fusion
in which Hydrogen atoms joined to form Helium
releasing vast quantities of energy in the process.
So far so good.
Where does the hydrogen come from?
Answer...
The Big Bang!
But here is the crucial bit.
The laws of nature themselves
tell us that not only can the universe
have popped into existence
like a proton,
and have required nothing in terms of energy,
but also that it is possible that nothing
caused the Big Bang.
Nothing!
The explanation lies back with
the theories of Einstein
and his insights into how space
and time in the universe
are fundamentally intertwined.
Something very wonderful happened to time
at the instant of the Big Bang.
Time itself.....
began!
