You know, I've been watching a lot of videos on cosmology and how we understand our universe at this time.

First off, I was kind of surprised by just how little we actually know about anything. I find it incredible how earth's greatest minds managed to draw so much information about the universe using such a small amount of data. And even Einstein, 100 years later, is still being proven right!

Now, the general consensus is that time started at the big bang. And even if we were to try and think about "what came before" it's impossible to really know because all information prior to the big bang is gone forever. So it seems pointless to even look that far back.

But what eats at me is the fact that I just can't see time "Starting" at the big bang. The universe seems infinite, and so does time. To think of time having a start and end doesn't make sense to me, just like how trying to define the "edge" of the universe also doesn't make sense. (This is of course assuming we are in an infinite universe, which might not be the case - see closed universe theories and a super interesting theory to read about is whether our universe is actually inside a black hole, which is more plausible than one would think!)

Anyway, I think time didn't start at the big bang. I think something must have existed before. But what existed before? Well, the simplest thought would be that whatever existed before the big bang must have been capable of producing the conditions for the big bang. Simple enough right? Makes sense?

So then I look at our universe. The evidence is mounting and mounting that our universe is expanding. I don't think anyone disagrees with this now. It's basically proven. Now the implications this has on the ultimate fate of our universe is quite... Terrifying. If the universe is constantly expanding, and doing so at an accelerating rate, then eventually all that ever was will "break down" into their most fundamental particles and spread out across the universe so much that nothing will ever interact again. And then time will go on... Presumably infinitely and nothing ever happen ever again. That's fucking depressing. But it also kinda doesn't make sense to me and I will explain why.

If the ultimate fate of our universe is that nothing ever happens again, then why didn't this happen prior to the big bang? Whatever existed before, if it follows the same laws of physics, should be subject to the same natural and cosmological laws. But whatever happened before the big bang resulted in conditions that caused the big bang, so entropy was not the ultimate fate of whatever existed before.

So, assuming the laws of physics are indeed consistent pre-big bang and post-big bang, then we can take a pretty big guess that, if entropy was not the ultimate fate of what existed before, maybe entropy is not the ultimate fate of our universe either. But how is this possible when the evidence is mounting that we have an expanding universe?

The answer lies in Dark Energy. Dark energy is theorised to be causing the universe' expansion. And this is sort of where my understanding comes to an end. (That's if I am even making sense thus far XD)

What I found super interesting is a recent study came out suggesting that Black Holes are the source of dark energy. This needs a lot of review, we can't say this is solid, yet. But, for the sake of my comment let's run with it.

If Black Holes are the source of dark energy then entropy is FAR less likely to be the ultimate fate of our universe. Why? Black Holes sort of evaporate over unimaginable timelines. Which means the expansion is not infinite. Which means the universe will eventually stop expanding. If this is the case, then the only force that will be left at the end of everything, will be gravity.

Now, hopefully you can see where this is going: If gravity is indeed the only force at the end of our universe, then particles will move towards each other when the expansion stops. Over an even more unimaginable timeline, we could see everything in the universe slowly clumping back together. And now we can draw a parallel, remember when I said what must have existed before the big bang must have allowed the conditions for the big bang? Well here we are. Once everything gets pulled back together with gravity, perhaps there will be another big bang and the universe starts again. This makes sense to me far more than entropy and this helps to explain "what came before", addressing the fact time did not start at the big bang.

This is a known theory, I'm not being original here. I just wanted to point out that we have a potential study that supports the idea of cyclical universe, and not a universe that will end in entropy for infinite time.

For me that makes existence a little less depressing. I think it makes the universe infinitely more beautiful knowing it's a crazy infinite cycle of chaos and order. Who knows what's going to happen in the next big bang?