Before the Big Bang

Did the universe come from nothing? Maybe not.

Maybe the universe, in some form, has always existed.

The new work suggests that time existed before the Big Bang, when a more ancient universe collapsed to give birth to the one we live in today.

Ours is the latest universe in a series that expanded, then collapsed, before another - slightly different cosmos - was born anew, though many details are obscure and, the theory concludes, will always remain that way.

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However, Dr Bojowald found a variant of a theme summed up by Heiseinberg's uncertainty principle, which puts fundamental limits on what we are able to know about the universe. "It is similar to the uncertainty relations in quantum physics, where there is complementarity between the position of an object and its velocity - if you measure one you cannot simultaneously measure the other."