The Origins of Time

0. The fundamental axiom of science and of everyday experience asserts that everything has its history. Also, the universe as a whole turns out to be a “historical being”; contemporary cosmology attempts at reconstructing the cosmic history. “One of the greatest discoveries of science is that the universe also changes with time, and like living systems may well have a kind of birth and death also.” (Davies, 1978, p. 74). But why has the universe its history? This apparently trivial question opens a fascinating research field for theoretical physics. Our attempt to answer this question touches an old philosophical issue—the problem of the origins of time.