Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface to 50th Anniversary Edition
- Preface
- 1 The role of gravity
- 2 Differential geometry
- 3 General relativity
- 4 The physical significance of curvature
- 5 Exact solutions
- 6 Causal structure
- 7 The Cauchy problem in General Relativity
- 8 Space-time singularities
- 9 Gravitational collapse and black holes
- 10 The initial singularity in the universe
- Appendix A: Translation of an essay by Peter Simon Laplace
- Appendix B: Spherically symmetric solutions and Birkhoff’s theorem
- References
- Notation
- Index
10 - The initial singularity in the universe
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface to 50th Anniversary Edition
- Preface
- 1 The role of gravity
- 2 Differential geometry
- 3 General relativity
- 4 The physical significance of curvature
- 5 Exact solutions
- 6 Causal structure
- 7 The Cauchy problem in General Relativity
- 8 Space-time singularities
- 9 Gravitational collapse and black holes
- 10 The initial singularity in the universe
- Appendix A: Translation of an essay by Peter Simon Laplace
- Appendix B: Spherically symmetric solutions and Birkhoff’s theorem
- References
- Notation
- Index
Summary
The expansion of the universe is in many ways similar to the collapse of a star, except that the sense of time is reversed. We shall show in this chapter that the conditions of theorems 2 and 3 seem to be satisfied, indicating that there was a singularity at the beginning of the present expansion phase of the universe, and we discuss the implications of spacetime singularities.
In §10.1 we show that past-directed closed trapped surfaces exist if the microwave background radiation in the universe has been partially thermalized by scattering, or alternatively if the Copernican assumption holds, i.e. we do not occupy a special position in the universe. In §10.2 we discuss the possible nature of the singularity and the breakdown of physical theory which occurs there.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time50th Anniversary Edition, pp. 348 - 364Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023