I think the theory of evolution is a great one, it is a very simple way of explaining how people, animals, plants and all of the living things came to exist in their many wonderful and wide ranging forms. Many scientists now take the theory of evolution as true, and those that don’t often believe this because of a conflict with their personal religious beliefs. Evolution is happening right now all around us, and it will continue to happen. The problem a lot of people have with evolution, myself included is that it doesn’t explain what happened before life existed. Many scientist say that the building blocks of life could have evolved out of simpler forms into basic DNA molecules, or possibly RNA originally. Ok, lets assume for a minute this is true, what about before then? If we go back far enough we eventually get to a point where we have to ask ourselves: How did the first matter come into existence?

Well there is the big bang theory of course, but where did that matter come from? It can’t just appear out of nowhere, and it cant have just been there for ever can it? Other theories include the big crunch theory and various combinations of energy and light converting into matter but none of these theories really explain where the very first matter - the first of anything came from.

I have a theory about this, but my limited understanding of quantum mechanics may hinder my ability to explain it. As I understand it, in quantum theory matter has a probability assigned to it of its location and existence. Wikipedia explains it more eloquently than I can:

“Generally, quantum mechanics does not assign definite values to observables. Instead, it makes predictions about probability distributions; that is, the probability of obtaining each of the possible outcomes from measuring an observable. Naturally, these probabilities will depend on the quantum state at the instant of the measurement. There are, however, certain states that are associated with a definite value of a particular observable. These are known as “eigenstates” of the observable (”eigen” can be roughly translated from German as inherent or as a characteristic). In the everyday world, it is natural and intuitive to think of everything being in an eigenstate of every observable. Everything appears to have a definite position, a definite momentum, and a definite time of occurrence. However, quantum mechanics does not pinpoint the exact values for the position or momentum of a certain particle in a given space in a finite time; rather, it only provides a range of probabilities of where that particle might be. Therefore, it became necessary to use different words for (a) the state of something having an uncertainty relation and (b) a state that has a definite value. The latter is called the “eigenstate” of the property being measured. “

So to surmise, matter can exist at a set location or not, we do not know until we have observed or measured its existence. (Even weirder things happen when it is observed, but I wont go into that). So what does this have to do with my little theory on how the first matter came to be? To understand this we need to think about what it was like before there was any matter. There was space - infinite space. Not the stuff we think of with satellites, planets and stars, there was just space - nothing else. This would have been going on for an almost infinite amount of time, infinite in fact until the first matter came to exist (So you could say approaching infinite).

Matter exists now; we know this, so we can say for sure that the odds now of matter existing are 1 in 1. Quantum theory states that a particle has a probability of existence and location and given an infinite amount of time, no matter how low the odds are for a particle of matter to exist initially, it would surely happen - as it has. So we could say that matter came to exist because over an infinite amount of time it would have to exist. We know that because matter does exist now, the probability of it existing in the past must have been above 0. Its wasn’t luck or chance - it was a mathematical certainty.

Maybe the matter or light, or energy or whatever it was that first came to be evolved. If it was not very good at existing it would cease to be until the process happened again this time with a more suitable particle of matter until eventually we have matter through out the universe. Maybe it happened time and time again (and will continue to happen). Maybe this matter was pulled together by gravity and created the big bang/ Maybe the matter had some sort of atomic explosion and that caused the big bang, I don’t know. Maybe the big bang never happed.

Well, that’s my idea anyway. As always I would be interested to know your thoughts on this.