GWD wrote:
These are mind boggling concepts to the layman. I have to accept that
those who study this know what they are talking about. Some thoughts
spring to mind though:
There were no dimensions before the big bang. Does that mean that
nothing existed then? I'm imagining the exitance of balls of
compressed matter of mind bogglingly huge mass and mind bogglingly
small diameter, aggregating until a super critical phase is reached,
then exploding. Therefore the universe is finite and exists against an
infinite background of nothing.

Probably at that moment, mass itself didn't exist, it was all just pure
energy, which then precipitated down into particles, which acquired
mass. Energy can be concentrated to as much degree as you like.

Yousuf Khan