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While self studying cosmology as well as reading around I can't find a satisfactory answer to this question. My thinking is that in principle universe could have started already infinite or as a thiny speck.

The first case is as to say that I can imagine a collection of thiny speck or it is wrong? This picture indeed let me think of space as already existing unless those infini speck of something can imagined as not having volume .

But at least they should have had one at about the Planck scale.

Conversely, if I think of only one speck, I do understand that it could have generated the observable universe as well the "outer" one (via inflation, right? ) but I have troubles to see how the cosmological principle can be used in very very far parts of the universe. In other words why it should/could have a size exceeding those compatible with inflation (this latter is a mind blowing factor, but not infinite).

I am not arguing about currently standard ideas, I try to visualize them .

Edit: or simply it was infinite but space did have to start its expansion? This and its consequences are impossible to visualize but conceptually could make sense. However, there should be an horizon problem at enormous scale exceeding the inflation range.... really confusing

Qmechanic
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Alchimista
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    See Did the Big Bang happen at a point?. This is at least relevant and possibly a duplicate. – John Rennie Nov 04 '17 at 11:06
  • @John Rennie. Thanks. But it is not exactly what I ask. That way I can see. That now big bang is everywhere is ok. However is related for sure. It is when I think of very very far parts of the universe that I run into troubles. In simple words even inflation did not run at infinite speed. So it seems to me that if universe wasn't infinite at BB, it should spatially end somewhere. – Alchimista Nov 04 '17 at 11:16
  • @Johnny Rennie. Yes it is that. Depending on which way I look at it, back or forwards, I have yes or no troubles. :) I cannot pretend to visualize singularities at the end. – Alchimista Nov 04 '17 at 11:23
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    In that case see: Is the universe finite or infinite? – John Rennie Nov 04 '17 at 11:23
  • @Alchimista, "So it seems to me that if universe wasn't infinite at BB, it should spatially end somewhere" - Not necessarily. Big Bang didn't happen at some particular spatial point and the Universe didn't evolve from a particular spatial point. It happened rather everywhere, it evolved from every particular point. – Nemo Nov 04 '17 at 11:23
  • @Arthur. Yes ok. But this means was infinite, no? – Alchimista Nov 04 '17 at 11:25
  • @Alchimista, I think we can safely assume that, for all practical purposes, the Universe is infinite. But there is no mathematical principle that says that the Universe should be finite or infinite, nor is there any empirical evidence for any of these cases. Maybe we live inside a finite Universe, but contained into an infinite Multiverse. But this is only speculative. – Nemo Nov 04 '17 at 12:17
  • @Arthur. I somehow agree . Especially for practical purpose. However what you said to in the first comment points to an infinite universe at BB. – Alchimista Nov 04 '17 at 12:19

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