English

If time had no beginning

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2021-09-27 v1

Abstract

General Relativity traces the evolution of our Universe back to a Big Bang singularity. To probe physics before the singularity -- if indeed there is a ``before'' -- we must turn to quantum gravity. The Causal Set approach to quantum gravity provides us with a causal structure in the absence of the continuum, thus allowing us to go beyond the Big Bang and consider cosmologies in which time has no beginning. But is a time with no beginning in contradiction with a passage of time? In the Causal Set approach, the passage of time is captured by a process of spacetime growth. We describe how to adapt this process for causal sets in which time has no beginning and discuss the consequences for the nature of time.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2109.11953,
  title  = {If time had no beginning},
  author = {Bruno Valeixo Bento and Stav Zalel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2109.11953},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

5 pages, 4 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-24T06:17:46.770Z