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PAUL STEINHARDT: When you extrapolate Einstein's general Theory of Relativity back to the beginning you discover what we call a singularity, a cosmic singularity, which is to say that the equations blow up.}}</ref>  

PAUL STEINHARDT: When you extrapolate Einstein's general Theory of Relativity back to the beginning you discover what we call a singularity, a cosmic singularity, which is to say that the equations blow up.}}</ref>  

Many naturalistic scientists are trying to escape the inescapable fact that the universe really did begin by proposing speculative theories including imaginary time (cf. Hawking:"Only if we could picture the universe in terms of ''imaginary time'' would there be no singularities...When we go back to the ''real time'' in which we live, however, there will still be ''singularities''")<ref name="Hawking">{{cite book

Many naturalistic scientists are trying to escape the inescapable fact that the universe really did begin by proposing speculative theories including imaginary time (cf. [[Stephen Hawking]]:"Only if we could picture the universe in terms of ''imaginary time'' would there be no singularities...When we go back to the ''real time'' in which we live, however, there will still be ''singularities''")<ref name="Hawking">{{cite book

|author=Stephen Hawking

|author=Stephen Hawking

|title=A brief history of time

|title=A brief history of time

|access date= 09.03.2012

|access date= 09.03.2012

|quote= ESA: We seem to agree that the Big Bang started with an 'inflation', a short period of high-speed expansion. But what happened before that?

|quote= ESA: We seem to agree that the Big Bang started with an 'inflation', a short period of high-speed expansion. But what happened before that?

Joseph Silk: Maybe long before inflation there was a Universe that was collapsing near a singularity, which then inflated again, so there was already a history before the Big Bang. Some people think there was a 'pre-Big Bang'. One possibility is that this pre-Big Bang, ''if there was such a place'', would have made lots of entropy (the amount of disorder in the Universe). And the Universe we live in does have huge amounts of entropy. That's one theory. But ''we have no understanding of how to change from collapsing to expanding. There's no physical way to explain that transition.'' Some people believe that they have explanations the pre-Big Bang, so it's a respectable theory.}}</ref> (cf. Dr.Stenger: "In the scenario I presented, our universe is described as having "tunneled" through the chaos ...from ''prior universe'' that existed for all previous time")<ref name="WhomadeGod"/>, or put their hope to [[quantum mechanics]]<ref name="PhysLink"/>. Some resort to the assertion that the world was ''uncaused'' (cf. Carl Sagan: "The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be")<ref name="skeptics"/> while other dismiss the question of the first cause altogether (cf. Hawking: "To ask what happened before the universe began is like asking for a point on the Earth at 91 degrees north latitude. Instead of talking about the universe being created, and maybe coming to and end, one should just say: the universe is.")<ref name="DeniableDarwin"/>.

Joseph Silk: Maybe long before inflation there was a Universe that was collapsing near a singularity, which then inflated again, so there was already a history before the Big Bang. Some people think there was a 'pre-Big Bang'. One possibility is that this pre-Big Bang, ''if there was such a place'', would have made lots of entropy (the amount of disorder in the Universe). And the Universe we live in does have huge amounts of entropy. That's one theory. But ''we have no understanding of how to change from collapsing to expanding. There's no physical way to explain that transition.'' Some people believe that they have explanations the pre-Big Bang, so it's a respectable theory.}}</ref> (cf. [[Victor J. Stenger]]: "In the scenario I presented, our universe is described as having "tunneled" through the chaos ...from ''prior universe'' that existed for all previous time")<ref name="WhomadeGod"/>, or put their hope to [[quantum mechanics]]<ref name="PhysLink"/>. Some resort to the assertion that the world was ''uncaused'' (cf. [[Carl Sagan]]: "The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be")<ref name="skeptics"/> while other dismiss the question of the first cause altogether (cf. Hawking: "To ask what happened before the universe began is like asking for a point on the Earth at 91 degrees north latitude. Instead of talking about the universe being created, and maybe coming to and end, one should just say: the universe is.")<ref name="DeniableDarwin"/>.

== The hot big bang singularity ==

== The hot big bang singularity ==