Originally Posted By: Bill
About the best they can say is that the universe came from a singularity where the whole universe was compressed into an infinitely small point. And of course that raises some philosophical questions that I don't want to get into.


I think it raises more than just philosophical questions, but I agree that this is probably not the appropriate place to bring those out again.
However, I am not entirely at ease with virtual particles as an example of something from nothing. Presumably the vacuum energy is a sine qua non of the popping in and out of existence that these virtual particles do, and the vacuum energy seems to be something.

There never was nothing.