Expert: Ed - 5/14/2005

Question
What caused the big bang?

If there was no cause to bring it about, how could it have occured at all? Can we ignore the cause and effect law in this issue? If it happened musn't there have been something outside of it and prior to it to have caused it?

Thanks

Answer
Stefan,
I'm sorry I'm a little late answering this.  Sometimes I get lazy on the weekends.

That's a great question.  Astronomers, physicists and mathematicians are working on the answer.

String theory is believed to be a very promising area of research, in this topic.  Here are a couple of links that you could look at, to get better informed.
http://superstringtheory.com/cosmo/cosmo4.html
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/susskind03/susskind_index.html

I hope this is helpful.  Basically, there must have been SOMETHING that caused it, but no one is sure what it could have been, at this point.  They send up new probes every few years, to get better data.  They'll figure it out eventually, (I think).

Keep Looking Up!@
--Ed