Matter/Energy and Space/Time

[Airbrush]

How are these concepts related? Correct me if I'm wrong but I seem to remember something like for spacetime to exist, there must first be matter/energy. At the big bang, energy (not matter quite yet) expanded from a point (why not a giant rip?) outward rapidly. That was the beginning of time as we know it. We call it spacetime. That energy cooled and finally congealed into hydrogen and helium. There was no dust until the first generation of stars exploded millions of years after the big bang, just gas. So for spacetime to exist there must first be matterenergy.

 

The next thing I wonder is before the big bang there may have been something like empty space, but it was not "spacetime". Right? There was something called "space" and that was not "spacetime" because matterenergy didn't appear yet. This "space" (not spacetime) could also be the infinite medium between big bangs. Could this "space" could be a region that has no virtual particle pairs appearing and annihilating?

Edited April 13, 2016 by Airbrush

[Strange]

How are these concepts related? Correct me if I'm wrong but I seem to remember something like for spacetime to exist, there must first be matter/energy.

 

I'm not sure that is true. There are "empty" solutions to the Einstein Field Equations which describe a zero energy universe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milne_model

 

Admittedly, this doesn't appear to describe our universe, but it does imply that space-time could exist in the absence of energy or matter.