How Can the Universe Not Have a Beginning? | Roger Penrose

Roger Penrose is an English mathematical physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. He is author of The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe, a comprehensive guide to the Laws of Physics, as well his own theory on the Penrose Interpretation.

DELVE DEEPER

[arnoldrimmer]

Us trying to understand how the universe works is like cavemen trying to understand how the iphone works

[ModernPlague]

The contradiction between the universe having a beginning/end and not having a beginning/end is one of Immanuel Kant's "antinomies" in his _Critique of Pure Reason._ It would seem that one or the other must be true, and yet neither makes logical sense---this paradox highlights the limitations of logic & human reasoning, and our inability to understand the ultimate nature of reality.

[militaryandemergencyservic]

that guy had at 4:40 waited the whole lecture to get in his 'if I could just expand that further' joke.

[chrisreid]

No beginning and no end....and goes on into infinity...the problem is the limitation of our limited minds, asking limited questions....not complicated, just is, always was and always will be, forever...

[ooTheMAXXoo]

There cannot be a start or it does not exist. A start begs the question of what precipitated the start. Think bigger and you get to something that has always been, cannot have a start or end.

[imgayasheck]

Thanks for the Q&A it answers a lot of the questions that were in the comments of the original video!

[embracethesuck]

I am particularly attracted to the idea of a universe that expands and contracts like yo-yo. There's a symmetry about the idea that the universe itself is a self balancing equation. So much in nature is a wonderful balance.

[celalalagoz]

What most don't notice is that every moment is a beginning.

[lenithpalliyampil]

Energy can neither be created or destroyed. It can only transform one form to another. So universe was not a beginning. There was a transformation of energy .

[ronaldderooij]

The man is a genius. "If it is not there, it cannot be defined". Why am I not thinking of things like that?

[junevandermark]

I am inclined to believe Stephen Hawking’s No Boundary Proposal, which does away with the idea that the universe was created, and where he stated before he died, “I still believe the universe has a beginning in real time, at the big bang. But there’s another kind of time, imaginary time, at right angles to real time, in which the universe has no beginning or end.”—Stephen Hawking Black Holes and Baby Universes.

[Troyster]

I think the particles in the universe churn for an "eternity" until at some point all particles are aligned and starts over, repeating the same cycle exactly the same. Each action having its equal and opposite reaction. If this idea is true then we've all lived the same exact life over and over. A story retold.

[hasanshirazi]

For an infinitely cyclic universe the biggest question which needs answering is how at the start of each cycle entropy reduces to its minimum and then through out the life of the universe it keeps on increasing. Either there has to be an external entity which reduces the entropy at the start of each cycle or universe is not cyclic at all and had a beginning, and will eventually end in what is known as Heat Death of Universe.

[NothingMaster]

It is extremely important to point out that what Penrose is proposing here (his conjecture) is not science but a purely philosophical point of view, since it is neither falsifiable, nor is it really based on any empirical evidence/observation — at least for the time being. Perhaps in the same way as String Theory is currently nothing more than a good story; a natural philosophical conjecture/theory with an internally consistent mathematical framework. So, as long as we’re talking philosophy, I have a serious existential/phenomenological bone to pick with Penrose’s view, and that is how does he address the most fundamental question of metaphysics: Why is there something, anything at all, rather than Nothing? And by Nothing I don’t mean the vacuum.

[toltecseer]

Possibly the universe isn't here for us to figure out. Figuring it out would imply it's not beyond our grasp, and that our perceptions alone is enough. If this is true, physicists are mere story tellers of this point. Always validating that they will never truly know.

[idogflyer]

It seems to me that all roger did here was transform the question of "where did the universe come from?" (which he successfully answered), into "what created this 'elegant' system of consecutive regenerating universes?".

[skrieni]

What about Leibniz Cosmological argument ?
- Why is there something rather than nothing?

1.Anything that exists has an explanation of its existance, either in the necessity of its own nature or in external cause.
2.The universe has an explanation for its existance, and the explanation is grounded in necessary being.
3.The universe exists.
4.Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existance.
5.Therefore, the explanation of the existance of the universe is grounded in necesassry being.
Conclusion: Therefore God, (a necessary being) exists

[ogfcrtg]

if we could answer these questions of a beginning, a start, an end and grasp all their modalities, there wouldn't be anything left for the human mind to feed on, all curiosity would vanish and creativity die off....to me, it kinds of feel perfectly natural that our senses and brain can only apprehend the universe only up to some extent; where would the fun be if all could be revealed, explained, proved...imagination and perception guarantee our quest for understanding, once omniscient we would no longer have a legitimate reason to be here. The universe is both a question and an answer, it's both nothing and everything....unless the simulation theory proves to be true and that there is a level 2. Let's go

[NeilCrouse]

3:03, ... Lol. Look at the guy in the crowd about the bottom middle of your screen when Prof. Penrose is speaking. It's like he's petting his dog, ... *: )*

[mpoelsma]

I have a quistion about light speed which it, s fixxed. What happens with the elektrons of atoms, when the border of light speed it, s reached, to stop turning and freeze in time?