What Happened Before the Big Bang?

What Happened Before the Big Bang?

What existed before the big bang? What is the nature of time? Is our universe one of many? On the big questions science cannot (yet?) answer, a new crop of philosophers are trying to provide answers. Stephen Hawking may have famously declared that “Philosophy is dead.” but philosopher of physics Tim Maudlin disagrees. Maudlin, whose interests range from the foundations of physics, to topics more firmly within the domain of philosophy, like metaphysics and logic, spoke with The Atlantic’s Ross Andersen about cosmology, multiple universes, the nature of time, the odds of extraterrestrial life, and why Stephen Hawking is wrong about philosophy.