Ask Ethan: Was the Universe “timeless” earlier than the Large Bang? | by Ethan Siegel | Begins With A Bang! | Might, 2025

Right here in our Universe, time passes at a set charge for all observers: one second-per-second. Earlier than the Large Bang, issues have been very completely different.

Way back to we will observe in our Universe, time at all times behaved in precisely the identical vogue we’re accustomed to: ticking away, relentlessly, on the identical charge for all observers. Carry your clock to the floor of the Earth? The underside of the ocean? Into orbit in area? Close to the occasion horizon of a black gap? Or dashing by intergalactic area at near the pace of sunshine? It doesn’t matter. The period of time it takes for normal occasions to happen — for a second to tick by, for an atomic transition to happen, for a photon of a particular wavelength to have one “wave” move by you, and so forth. — goes to be equivalent for any observer below any of these circumstances. Actually, the speed at which era passes for themselves, at one second-per-second, is one thing all observers can agree on.

Positive, relativity is bizarre in numerous methods, each if you transfer near the pace of sunshine or when the curvature of spacetime may be very robust. Lengths contract, time durations dilate, and completely different observers draw completely different conclusions for each other versus for themselves. However time nonetheless passes, and relativity…