Abstract
As far as we know them, the fundamental laws of physics are quantum mechanical in nature. If these laws apply to the universe as a whole, then there must be a description of the universe in quantum mechancial terms. Even our present cosmological observations require such a description in principle, although in practice these observations are so limited and crude that the approximation of classical physics is entirely adequate. In the early universe, however, the classical approximation is unlikely to be valid. There, towards the big bang singularity, at curvatures characterized by the Planck length, (ћG/c 3)1/2 , quantum fluctuations become important and eventually dominant.
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Hartle, J.B. (1987). Prediction in Quantum Cosmology. In: Carter, B., Hartle, J.B. (eds) Gravitation in Astrophysics. NATO ASI Series, vol 156. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-1897-2_12
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