Scientists say that ~13.7bn years ago the Big Bang occurred and blah blah blah, but I've been thinking and this makes no sense to me. There must've been some catalyst to cause the Big Bang and it must've came from somewhere, and so on and so forth. So basically, everything must come from something, so does this mean the universe has an infinite age? This is impossible, yet any other possibilities I can think of are implausible.

I'm mindfucked. Can anyone explain this to me?

http://io9.com/5985647/an-alternative-universe-will-eventually-destroy-ours-says-higgs-researcher

I hate physics...

As a physicist: We have absolutely no idea whatsoever.

All theories are pretty possible: that it has eternal existence and this is just the latest phase of an oscillation, that another universe spawned it, that there was nothing at all then a random quantum fluctuation created it. Why is infinite age impossible?

There's very few observations we can make from here that would confirm any of this.

However don't confuse this with their being room for the supernatural. Nothing we've ever observed shows any possibility of that.

The answer your missing is alternate dimensions.  Theorhetically speaking anyway.

Yep the Big Bang is about that frame of time (because The Big Bang was the beginning of when time started) after that point when things began. We can now propose other ideas like a re-birthing universe or that this universe was born out of another universe or even multi-verses, however, the universe, it seems, is a closed system and therefore to think there is anything outside of it, before it, or indeed, after it, is a question of faith.

I am sceptical of any "scientific" theory that tries to explain something before the Big Bang. I think there comes a point that these people merely have to accept there was 'a' beginning. In fact, if they are honest, it is not 'a' beginning - it is 'the' beginning. That's my stance.

Physical science, by definition, is limited by the laws of the universe and those very laws are confined by the universe. There is matter and energy - that is it, and they exist because that's the way the universe is. Because it was so improbable that these constants work together, scientist propose an "infinite" solution, of sorts, to explain away the probability.

A non-eternal universe is an uncomfortable proposition, without some exercising of faith.

This is merely when time became normal. Before that existence may have existed, just not in a way we can understand yet.

That exact question of how it start or where it came from is the reason my physics teachers in school were religious.

Why not?

You claim that a few theories are "pretty possible" based on no evidence whatsoever, then rule out the most clever and logical one, a god.

"There was nothing at all, then a random quantum fluctuation created it." Come on! Gah, it pains me how ridicilous that "theory" is.

There are certain things out there beyond our understanding, and our ability to comprehend, so no sense in driving yourself nuts trying.

In the grand scheme of things, we're merely like goldfish in a bowl