How did the Universe come from Nothing?

I was recently contacted by MacGregor Campbell, who writes and produces videos for New Scientist magazine's website. He pointed me towards the video below that describes an idea about how our Universe could have popped into existence from a nothingness that preceded it.

It's important to note that the discussion in the video above is not established fact; it is a simple representation of one stream of thought that a number of scientists are investigating as a possibility. It's entirely possible that we'll never know the whole truth behind this question... The video itself is food for thought more than anything else, and talks about some things that may spawn a question in your mind.

If you're at all interested in further discussion on this topic, I'd recommend heading over to the video's page on the New Scientist website and have a read through some of the comments there. Many of them are interesting. Some of them are very silly: I suggest skipping any comment that hinges on negative comments about the producer's moral integrity or personality traits rather than actually including some science to back up their misgivings!