Scientists use Einstein’s equations to reveal what came before the Big Bang

Scientists use Einstein’s equations to reveal what came before the Big Bang

Some of the hardest questions in cosmology begin where the usual math gives up. Push Einstein’s theory far enough back toward the Big Bang, and the equations run into a singularity, a point where density and temperature shoot to infinity and known physics stops being useful. That breakdown has helped turn questions about the universe’s earliest moments into something close to a dead end. What existed before the Big Bang? Could the cosmos have bo…