>> events before the big bang can have no observational consequences There are people working to disprove this. There is a concept floating around that the CM

>> events before the big bang can have no observational consequences There are people working to disprove this. There is a concept floating around that the CMB might contain evidence of something from before the BB. If our universe came into existence within some other universe, then arrangements of large gravitational objects in that universe may have some impact on the early formation of our 'pocket' universe.