the No Boundary proposal

The No Boundary proposal, developed by physicists James Hartle and Stephen Hawking, suggests that the universe didn't have a traditional beginning or boundary in time. Instead, it emerged smoothly from a kind of quantum "initial state" without a sharp starting point. Imagine the universe as a closed surface, like the North Pole on a globe, where there's no edge or boundary—just a continuous, boundaryless shape. This idea aims to explain how the universe could arise naturally from quantum laws, avoiding the need for a specific starting boundary or initial condition.