The rules of general relativity are unambiguous: Given certain kinds of stuff in the universe, there must have been a singularity in the past. But that’s not really an internally consistent conclusion. The singularity itself would be a moment when the curvature of spacetime and the density of matter were infinite, and the rules of general relativity simply would not apply. The correct deduction is not that general relativity predicts a singularity, but that general relativity predicts that the universe evolves into a configuration where general relativity itself breaks down. The theory cannot
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