Abstract
In general relativity space-like or null singularities are common: they imply that 'time' can have a beginning or end. Well-known examples are singularities inside black holes and initial or final singularities in expanding or contracting universes. In recent times, string theory is providing new perspectives of such singularities which may lead to an understanding of these in the standard framework of time evolution in quantum mechanics. In this article, we describe some of these approaches.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 93-108 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Pramana - Journal of Physics |
| Volume | 69 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 2007 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:I would like to express my deep gratitude to AKR for giving me the first glimpse into the beauty of theoretical physics. He has been instrumental in shaping my taste in the subject. I thank the editors of this special issue for inviting me to contribute an article to honor him. I also thank my collaborators Joanna Karczmarek, Samir Mathur, Jeremy Michelson, K Narayan and Sandip Trivedi for enjoyable collaborations and my colleagues at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and at University of Kentucky for numerous discussions. This work was supported in part by a National Science Foundation (USA) Grant PHY-0244811 and a Department of Energy (USA) contract DE-FG01-00ER45832.
Keywords
- Cosmological singularities
- String theory
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Physics and Astronomy (all)