that it would be almost impossible for our universe to be the first universe in the unimaginably long chain of universes. multiple universes with multiple beginnings. is this science? or science losing its moorings? because multiple universes can never be observed. still at the fqxi conference - and still at sea - figuratively as well as literally - i meet a cosmologist who has a different approach to the early universe, lots of people have theories about how the universe began ...what state it must be in to start with and they argue with each other and they, one, everyone thinks their theory is the best. it occurred to me that there's a totally different way that's much better to think about these things and that's to exploit the idea of equilibrium. we know lot's of things that are in equilibrium in the world around us...a glass of water, a room full of air, can be in equilibrium. lots of things are in equilibrium and it means basically physics his taken however it got started and settled into one particular state. ....and it stays there. and it stays there. so what if we could describe the universe a