I find this to be an incredibly unsatisfying answer. What so you MEAN it's been around forever? where did it COME FROM, for fuck's sake? I'm fine with saying "we need to go completely back to the drawing board on our theory (big bang) because it doesn't work and makes no sense". I have no problems with that, I'm not attached to the theory and it's got gigantic holes in it anyways. However, this is not an answer. Matter can't be created, I know, but how does the answer "well, it's just always been there" satisfy anything other than a philosophical explanation? What about Entropy? if the universe has been around literally forever, shouldn't there have been a heat-death of the universe by now? This is like saying that Storks bring children.
Out of curiosity, what are the gigantic holes you're referring to? I've only heard of the arguments supporting the Big Bang theory, not much about anything detracting from it.
There was a really good issue of Scientific American that dealt with it. I'll see if I can find the article. edit: could find it, but found a few other links that might be useful. http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/cosmology/bbproblems.html --- can't get my other link to work. it was a scientific american search.
Calling those gigantic holes is maybe a bit hyperbolic, but I'll concede that not everything has been proven or explained.
the fact that space is mostly flat is kind of a big hole, and I say that as someone who's been pretty convinced that the Big Bang is a thing. That is in no way to say that it's not explainable - just that we don't have a great answer. But there's nothing wrong with saying "I don't know" or "we don't know". There's lots of shit we don't know.
It is possible to ask questions which make no sense or have no answer. The way the human mind works tends to revolve around things having a beginning or an end. We start life, we end life. Structures are created and detroyed. However, that's not how things work in the universe. Things do not become created or destroyed, and nobody has ever observed the creation of matter or energy outside of equal-and-opposite situations where you create antimatter and matter at the same time. We live in a universe where "creation" isn't a thing, and it may be well that the question of "when did the universe begin" is as odd and strange as asking "where is the top of a circle" or "what is north of the north pole" Not having a beginning does not necessarily imply that the universe has existed forever at any single point, AFAIK. Also the universe could be in a "cycle" where it starts and restarts, but without having a beginning or and end.What about Entropy? if the universe has been around literally forever, shouldn't there have been a heat-death of the universe by now?
But we KNOW that entropy is a thing. If the universe had no beginning, then how do we rationalize that with entropy, especially considering that it will result in an eventual heat-death of the universe? I'm a musician, Jim, not a scientist, so maybe I'm just being completely idiotic and dumb, but I thought that was how we got to where we were - That there must have been a single point of intense energy that has since moved into many points of lesser energy, until we get to a point where nothing has enough energy to do anything (a schoolgirl definition, i know). Like, How does everything we know fit into this new model with an chronologically infinite universe?