GRAVITATIONAL SINGULARITY

A gravitational singularity, spacetime singularity or simple singularity is a location in spacetime where the density and gravitational field of a celestial body is predicted to become infinite by general relativity in a way that does not depend on the coordinate system. Gravitational field strength is measured using the scalar invariant curvature of spacetime, which includes a measure of the density of matter. All of which become infinite at the singularity point, causing the laws of normal spacetime to break down. Physicists are undecided whether the prediction of singularities means they actually exist or existed at the start of the Big Bang, or that current knowledge is insufficient to describe what happens at such extreme densities. The initial start of the universe at the beginning of the Big Bang, is also predicted by modern theories to have been a singularity. In this instance, the universe did not collapse into a black hole. Gravitational collapse relates to large objects such as stars and does not necessarily apply in the same way to rapidly expanding space, such as the Big Bang. Neither general relativity nor quantum mechanics can currently describe the earliest moments of the Big Bang.