Can time have a beginning?

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Is it sensible to talk about a beginning of time? Doesn't the word "beginning" imply something before? However something can't exist before time by definition.

According to some scientists time "began" with the Big Bang.

Stephen Hawkins said that talking about "before the Big Bang" is like talking about "north of the North Pole". It has no meaning.

And some say there were infinite numbers of universes prior to the big bang. The Universe may even oscillate - big bang, expansion, and then a big crunch. Though the oscillating theory is currently out favor because the current evidence shows that the Universe will just keep on expanding forever. That there aint enough gravity for a future Big Crunch to collapse it all back again.

I suppose it depends on how it is looked at.
The thing which itself began did not exist before it began but it may by necessity have arisen from something else, from a foundation, from preparation.

For example,

"Our flight began on time" - their flight didn't "begin" until the plane started moving, but before that there was a whole chain of events getting the plane and passengers ready for making that flight.

"Begin the cake batter by adding 2 cups of flour to a mixing bowl." - the cake batter won't exist even at the "begin" point, more additions are required before the cake batter exists, but before that "begin" could happen the necessary tools and ingredients had to be gathered.

"I began building the model by gluing the seat halves together" - the building of the model did not exist until some action was taken with its parts; and the building of the model never will exist until some action is taken with its parts.
But yet the model kit existed and had existed for some time.
The building of it, however, could not exist before the action of building began.

[speculation=mine]

Maybe...

Time itself is as infinite as the universe -- no beginning, no end, and nothing of universal importance where the middle should be.

Then, an odd fluctuation in Feyman's Probability Field triggers a rapid expansion; not of matter itself, but of the fluctuation that causes matter to retain its existence once it emerges from Probability into Certainty.

This is the "Big Bang".

Several trillion-trillion-trillion years later (an eyeblink in universal time) all the matter that was decays into its constituent sub-sub-sub-nuclear particles and reverts back to its quiescent Probability state.

Eventually, the process may repeat itself.

... maybe not.

[/speculation]

Yes time has a beginning.

I think the best answer to this question would be of bill wurtz':

It encapsulates how little sense the question makes, i guess. The video goes on for a bit further on the topic of the start of the universe/time, so watch it if you're interested.

Well...time can have an end.

It already ended.

Yesterday!

There is a theory that tries to connect a unified field theory. There could be 10 dimensions and time is the 4th dimension. Since we are 3d beings we can only view time a slice at a time like how beings from a 2d universe would view us.