If all the material universe began with the (Big Bang) then where did the material for the bang come from?

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One of the hardest things to comprehend and reconcile in cosmology is the 'free lunch' factor - how it comes to pass that the universe can get something for nothing; how it can go from not existing, to existing; how matter or energy can come into being from its former non-existing state. To be fair though, cosmology is not the only worldview suffering from this dilemma. Any account of supernatural creation, also leaves the existence of its creator unexplained. Even then, it has resorted to the assumption that supernatural powers exist and natural laws are subject to inexplicable violations.

For any sensible secular attempt to explain the origins of the cosmos, we must proceed from what is known and seek to explain what is unknown without ceding to assumptions or contradictions. A good starting point is to observe that the universe does indeed exist. If it didn't we wouldn't be here contemplating it. It then follows that something had to begin existing or else we must assume that something existed for an eternity into the past. [The assumption that there can be no physical reality extending into the indefinite past may be a human bias based in our innately illogical wiring.]

The eternity idea, when applied to cosmological science, seems to be irreconcilable with direct evidence. The universe does appear to have a finite beginning in the past. This so called 'Big Bang' is much more subtle than our intuitive imaginations tend to picture it. It is not simply matter exploding into a preexisting void.

The big bang was actually predicted by Einstein's theory of relativity, in which time and space are aspects of the same thing 'spacetime'. The implications of this are less intuitive than most people realize. To have an appreciation of cause and effect, so that we can say "this was caused by that" we also rely on a concept of linear time, because each effect must be preceded by a previous cause. The perfectly sensible question of "but what caused that?", ultimately leading to the current question regarding the cause of all the matter in the universe, relies on the assumption that time existed before that matter. OK, it did, but the matter is only a manifestation of energy (again according with relativity), but that just pushes the question back to "where did the energy come from?" What is needed is a primal cause of all causes. Unless time itself breaks down and the concepts of 'before' and 'after' become meaningless.

When cosmologists say that the universe is expanding, they do not mean that the galaxies are rushing into a preexisting void. What they mean is that spacetime itself is expanding and increasing the relative distance between galaxies like raisins in an expanding raisin loaf. The implications of relativity for the big bang, is that time and space are properties of the universe that themselves began with the big bang. In conceptual thought and natural language this is hard to intuitively describe and comprehend, but in the language of mathematics, it seems the natural and inevitable consequence of the known evidence.

If the universe is expanding this way, then by running the clock backwards and inquiring into past epochs, we must conclude that the universe becomes smaller and smaller as we look further and further into the past. This is not hard to do in cosmology incidentally, because light travels at a finite speed and what we see from distant objects is delayed by the traveling time for light (approx. 300,000 km/sec).

The further away the object, the more ancient the light is that we are presently receiving from it. We are actually looking back through time as we look out through space.

Traversing the eons back through 13.7 billion years we come to a point where time and space cease to exist. Running the clock forward again we pass through a moment at the beginning of time where the universe is no bigger than an atom. At this point in history or prior, time and space become indistinct and it gets worse. Below the Plank constants, the entire universe is subject to quantum fluctuation. Quantum mechanics is another area that is full of counter intuitive but mathematically beautiful ideas.

So where did matter come from? It came from a free exchange with energy for particles. But as for the ultimate cause of all causes, we must assume that something was permitted to begin existing without cause, otherwise nothing could begin existing in the first place and at the first time. In this view, causality itself, was also born in the big bang. Without spacetime it is meaningless to speak about prior causes, because without spacetime, no linear progression of time from the past into the future is possible. It may be desirable to explain where this matter manifesting energy came from, but the question assumes that it is sensible and meaningful to ask a question about causality, in a situation where no prior causes are possible....Show more

Physics is not "broken" because it is an excellent explanation of the world we observe. You are trying to use known physics to explain a singularity like the proposed Big Bang, which is not a good idea because in such a singularity itself, the details of how and which physics laws apply, is totally unknown.
Also, matter didn't come out of nowhere and scatter into pre-existing space. Matter, space itself, and every definition of physical laws we have is part of, and is understood in the context of, the universe after the big bang. This includes you, your thoughts, your definition of reality and what makes sense, what you mean by "where does it come from," and so on. To "know" reality beyond that requires you to be transcendent and all-knowing, like God. But then that stops being science territory....Show more

Your contention is wrong on several counts. Firstly, and most importantly, the Big Bang was NOT an explosion. It was a sudden inflation of the Universe. Secondly, when the Universe began, it was all energy. As you rightly say, matter cannot be created or destroyed, but you left out the bit that energy CAN be transformed into matter. Far from being broken, every observation and every experiment we can perform in physics points to the Big Bang Theory being easily the best explanation we have for the Universe we see around us....Show more

See the item about this is we will use science to realize the arena around us and use these observations to furnish us with genuine solutions which are plenty higher than "your imaginary pal did it." We do not know where all of it got here from. Satisfactory minds are learning the entire time to find the reply to a majority of these questions. Gods have gotten credit score for all types of matters that people are not able to explain. Rain, lightning, the sun, earthquakes etc. But now we all know what these matters are and we are aware of it's now not some divinity going loopy someplace. On account that so many things that used to be attributed to gods can now be defined as normal tactics, why should it be so difficult to receive that the universe used to be formed with the aid of usual tactics which are additionally explainable through science? Does it hassle you that it's not Thor throwing the lightning bolts? The neat factor about science is that it gives us the capacity to find out about something that we are able to detect. I know the universe is problematic on your mind to fully grasp, however to science, it's just a different thing that may be discovered and explained. It can be not possible to observe God. No divinity of any variety has ever been discovered. That's why scientists must seem for the precise causes that things happen. If we had all permitted the concept that the whole thing is god and no extra explanation is indispensable, we'd nonetheless be in the stone age....Show more

We've been asking that question since the Big Bang theory was proposed.
In all honesty, we don't know. And we likely never will.
Lawrence Krauss does a good job of explaining it in 'A Universe from Nothing', so if you're truly curious, watch the full 1 hour lecture.

But physics is not broken. Physics as we know it holds very true to many components in our universe. Classical, quantum, relativistic are all capable of being proved with physical and mathematical evidence.
And matter can be created and destroyed. Mass energy equivalence, look it up....Show more