This may be an impossible question that has no answer but it has been driving me insane.

What occurred at the exact moment of the big bang?

I have two options that I would consider possible but do not have enough understanding of physics to make an intelligent guess as to which is the most viable.

1) All matter existed and all energy existed in a dense, high energy point. There was an explosion. Now the matter and energy is spread across the universe. I think this is the classical view

2) I recently read that space is not a vacuum as was originally thought. It is filled with matter and antimatter being produced and annihilated. The big bang was the first of these events to occur and many have occurred since. This would generate a universe and an antiverse.

Does on of these seem more likely than the other? Or are they both impossible to verify with current knowledge?

If the big bang was not an explosion, but an expansion, and nothing existed before it. What caused it, and where did the material that is currently expanding come from?

O.K, so the universe stared life as a primeval atom, or a similar object??Well what was that object in?Answer: well... it could be dark matter (or a substance unknown to us...which dark matter is)What if dark matter acted as normal matter, the large 'vacuum' which was 'outside the universe' is actually eternal dark matter and the grouping of this into a central point due to a gravity type force, if not gravity itself, could lead to collisions of dark matter.This in turn could transform energy and may create 'matter' as we know it today. The transformation of dark matter to normal matter could be what we would perceive as an expansion of matter, which could link in with theories of inflation and thus the continued transformation of dark to normal matter could explain why the universe is expanding.Therefore the expanding universe could be a result of a far greater infinite (perhaps) expanse of dark matter.Only a theory, not very well explained or backed up in anyway, but thought I could lay it out on the table for you all to prod and jab at the concepts that could make it work.

Hypotheticaly, If time travel existed and we could go forwards and backwards in time; and you created a paradox in which your existence never was (the grandfather/mad scientist theory) and there WAS an afterlife how humans percieve it currently; (soul leaving the body and entering a spirit world/universe) could the soul enter or would the soul seise to exist too? For instance, the spirit world would have to have no concept of time and space as A) everyone would age and B) it would run out of space eventually as noone would be leaving it. Technically you and your soul would of existed once, and as the soul can survive without your physical presence, couldn't it survive without a physical existence, especially as it can pass through worlds?

I know that answers will be based on alot of 'perhaps' and 'maybes' but i'm very interested in what others think on this.

If you were to fly in a rocket to the end of the universe, there should be something there to stop you getting out of the universe so what would it be and what would it feel like?  for the sake of this question just assume we could reach the point where the universe is expanding.

I've just watched a TV program about the biggest number, the universe and - of course - infinity. It said that a number named "Graham" was so big that there was not enough space in the entire universe to write it down. So if there is a number that actually has and end - which was bigger than the universe - then there can't be an everlasting universe! Or can there?

As our universe expands, could there be a possibility that the speed of light isn't constant? As spacetime is very slowely stretched out following 13+ billions years of expansion, could the time taken for light to traverse spacetime also be stretched meaning the 'speed of light' really isn't constant?