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10 - The initial singularity in the universe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2023

Stephen W. Hawking  and
George F. R. Ellis
Stephen W. Hawking
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
George F. R. Ellis
Affiliation:
University of Cape Town
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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.

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The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time
50th Anniversary Edition
 , pp. 348 - 364
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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