Which Hawking paper? (no singularity at the beginning of the universe)

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SUMMARY

The discussion centers on Stephen Hawking's contributions to cosmology, specifically his 1970 paper co-authored with Roger Penrose, which established the existence of a big bang singularity under the framework of general relativity. The conversation highlights the opposition faced from various scientific communities and Hawking's later shift in perspective regarding singularities, suggesting that quantum effects may eliminate the need for a singularity at the universe's inception. The Hartle-Hawking No Boundary Proposal, published in 1983, is identified as a significant work that incorporates quantum effects into cosmological models.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of general relativity principles
  • Familiarity with cosmological theories and singularities
  • Knowledge of quantum mechanics and its implications in cosmology
  • Awareness of academic publishing and citation formats
NEXT STEPS
  • Read the 1970 Hawking-Penrose paper on singularities
  • Study the Hartle-Hawking No Boundary Proposal published in Phys.Rev. D28 (1983)
  • Explore the implications of quantum effects on cosmological models
  • Investigate the historical context of scientific opposition to singularity theories
USEFUL FOR

Physicists, cosmologists, and students interested in the evolution of theories regarding the universe's origin, particularly those studying the intersection of general relativity and quantum mechanics.

Cerenkov
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Hello.

I'm trying to pin down something Stephen Hawking was referring to in his book, A Brief History of Time.

During the next few years I developed new mathematical techniques to remove this and other technical conditions from the theorems that proved that singularities must occur. The final result was a joint paper by Penrose and myself in 1970, which at last proved that there must have been a big bang singularity provided only that general relativity is correct and the universe contains as much matter as we observe. There was a lot of opposition to our work, partly from the Russians because of their Marxist belief in scientific determinism, and partly from people who felt that the whole idea of singularities was repugnant and spoiled the beauty of Einstein’s theory. However, one cannot really argue with a mathematical theorem. So in the end our work became generally accepted and nowadays nearly everyone assumes that the universe started with a big bang singularity. It is perhaps ironic that, having changed my mind, I am now trying to convince other physicists that there was in fact no singularity at the beginning of the universe – as we shall see later, it can disappear once quantum effects are taken into account.

Ok, this is the 1970, Hawking - Penrose paper. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspa.1970.0021

But is there a paper where Hawking 'takes these quantum effects into account'?

Can it be found here... http://www.hawking.org.uk/publications.html ?

Any help given at a basic level would be appreciated.

Thank you,

Cernkov.
 
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I think what you are looking for is this paper, which includes what is called the "Hartle-Hawking No Boundary Proposal".

Wave Function of the Universe. J.B. Hartle (Chicago U., EFI& Santa Barbara, KITP), S.W. Hawking (Cambridge U. & Santa Barbara, KITP). PRINT-83-0937 (CAMBRIDGE). Jul 983. 46 pp. Published in Phys.Rev. D28 (1983) 2960-2975, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.28.2960

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartle–Hawking_state
 
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Thanks phyzguy!

I'll check these out asap.

Cerenkov.
 

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