Narlikar, J. V.2012-03-252012-03-251984-01-06http://hdl.handle.net/11007/1598A general formalism is developed for studying the behavior of quant&ed conformal fluctuations near the space-time singularity of classical relativistic cosmology. It is shown that if the material contents of space-time are made of massive particles which obey the principle of asymptotic freedom and interact only gravitationally, then it is possible to estimate the quantum mechanical probability that, of the various possible conformal transforms of the classical Einstein solution, the actual model had a singularity in the past. This probability turns out to be vanishingly small, thus indicating that within the regime of quantum conformal cosmology it is extremely unlikely that the universe originated out of a space-time singularity.enCosmologySpacetimeSingularityQuantumArticle