WHAT happened before our universe began? According to two theoretical physicists, if there was a universe before ours then it should have been remarkably similar to this one, with the same basic ingredients and properties. It may even be possible to see a faint picture of our parent universe imprinted on the sky.
Questions about a time before the big bang were once thought to be meaningless, because according to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the universe began at a singularity – a mathematical point with infinite density at which all calculations break down.
However, physicists now believe that the theory…
