(March 14, 2013 at 1:31 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: From the beginning of time by Stephen Hawking.
Quote:At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. At a singularity, all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before. Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang.
http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html
Thanks for the info. I find Hawking's take on this too speculative. It leaves the whole question wide open for theists to twart it in such ways to support their own position.