LogFAQs > #881638092

The top theories are:

Eternal Inflation:
We are a part of a much larger older universe. A region of this larger universe suddenly inflated, creating the universe that we see. This happened multiple times, so there are other bubble universes like our own floating in this larger universe like globs in a lava lamp. This larger universe itself can be just another glob itself in even larger universe, with universes inscribed in each other ad infitum. This whole universe inscribed in each other creating their own universe is called "fractal flow", because the inflation would look like a fractal.

Merged universes:
An extension of eternal inflation. Our universe is actually much older than the Big Bang, and the collision of our universe with another universe created the current universe. It's the lava lamp analogy, except two globs bump into each other and merge into a larger glob. The "Big Bang" is actually the point when these two universes collided. This theory came about to try to explain a mysterious cold spot in our earliest images of the universe (the WMAP).

Black holes::
We actually live in the interior of a black hole in a larger, older universe. The Big Bang is actually the final collapse that would create this universe. As well, black holes within our universe could be the exteriors of universes within our own. We would never be able to travel to them because we would be torn to pieces by tidal forces inside the black hole, and then crushed into nothing by the singularity that is blocking our way toward reaching this interior universe.

Quantum Fluctuation
There was a previous universe before our own that became heat dead an almost incalcuably long period of time ago. All matter an energy decayed so that all that was left was a vacuum in the truest sense with maximal entropy. Eventually, according to Poincare Reoccurence Theorum, the phase space of this heat dead universe fluctuated to a phase state where this dead universe has its lowest entropy. This resulted in another Big Bang. This will repeat with our own universe.

TL;DR - Either there was an empty vacuum with no matter/energy, or we were born in a larger multiverse that could have its own celestial objects along with other universes.
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