From: david@edenroad.demon.co.uk   
      
   On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 13:17:00 -0600, personalpages.tds.net/~rcsilk wrote:   
      
   > the universe, it is believed, is finite, not eternal, yet the time span is   
   > so incredibly huge as to make it appear eternal.   
      
   Actually, not really.  The universe is 13.7 GY old, according to our best   
   measurements, and will probably last indefinitely, although there will be   
   almost no more interactions beyond say  10**40 years   
      
   The point Hawking was making is that there _was_ no time before the   
   universe came into being: spacetime itself was created then.   
      
   So to talk about "the time" before time itself was created is meaningless.   
      
   > The fact that the big bang theory (or portions thereof) can be traced to a   
   > single point of origin shows that it has a beginning (at least, our physical   
   > universe does), so it cannot (by definition) be considered eternal.   
      
   Well, yes, it can, in the sense that it occupies all the time there is.   
   One definition of "eternal" is that there is no time when 'it' doesn't   
   exist, which is what Hawking is saying.   
      
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