According to the Ekpyrotic Model, There Is No Need for the Universe to Have Started as a Singularity!

What is the Ekpyrotic proposal?

"The model is based on the idea that our hot big bang universe was
created from the collision of two three-dimensianal worlds moving along
a hidden, extra dimension. The two three-dimensional worlds collide and
``stick," the kinetic energy in the collision is converted the quarks,
electrons, photons, etc., that are confined to move along three
dimensions. The resulting temperature is finite, so the hot big bang
phase begins without a singularity. The universe is homogeneous because
the collision and initiation of the big bang phase occurs nearly
simultaneously everywhere. The energetically preferred geometry for the
two worlds is flat, so their collision produces a flat big bang
universe. According to Einstein's equations, this means that the total
energy density of the Universe is equal to the critical density.
Massive magnetic monopoles, which are overabundantly produced in the
standard big bang theory, are not produced at all in this scenario
because the temperature after collision is far too small to produce any
of these massive particles.

Quantum effects cause the incoming three-dimensional world to ripple
along the extra-dimension prior to collision so that the collision
occurs in some places at slightly different times than others. By the
time the collision is complete, the rippling leads to small variations
in temperature, which seed temperature fluctuations in the microwave
background and the formation of galaxies. We have shown that the
spectrum of energy density fluctuations is scale-invariant (the same
amplitude on all scales). The production of a scale-invariant spectrum
from hyperexpansion was one of the great triumphs of inflationary
theory, and here we have repeated the feat using completely different
physics.

The building blocks of the ekpyrotic theory are derived from
superstring theory. Superstring theory requires extra dimensions for
mathematical consistency. In most formulations, 10 dimensions are
required. In the mid-1990's, Petr Horava (Rutgers) and Ed Witten (IAS,
Princeton) argued that, under certain conditions, an additional
dimension opens up over a finite interval. Six dimensions are presumed
to be curled up in a microscopic ball, called a Calabi-Yau manifold.
The ball is too small to be noticed in everyday experience, and so our
universe appears to be a four-dimensional (three space dimensions and
one time dimension) surface embedded in a five-dimensional space-time.
This five-dimensional theory, called heterotic M-theory, was formulated
by Andre Lukas (Sussex). Ovrut and Dan Waldram (Queen Mary Westerfield
College). According to Horava-Witten and heterotic M-theory, particles
are constrained to move on one of the three-dimensional boundaries on
either side of the extra dimensional interval. Our visible universe
would be one of these boundaries; the other boundary and the
intervening space would be hidden because particles and light cannot
not travel across the intervening space. Only gravity is able to couple
matter on one boundary to the other. In addition, there can exist other
three-dimensional hypersurfaces in the interval, which lie parallel to
the outer boundaries and which can carry energy. These intervening
planes are called ``branes," short for membranes. The collision that
ignites the hot big bang phase of the ekpyrotic model occurs when a
three-dimensional brane is attracted to and collides into the boundary
corresponding to our visible universe."

http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~steinh/npr/

Double-A

Double-A That theory having a lower temperature than the BB does not
help show it to be reality. Bert