  A longstanding conjecture by Belinskii, Khalatnikov, and Lifshitz that the
singularity in generic gravitational collapse is spacelike, local, and
oscillatory is explored analytically and numerically in spatially inhomogeneous
cosmological spacetimes. With a convenient choice of variables, it can be seen
analytically how nonlinear terms in Einstein's equations control the approach
to the singularity and cause oscillatory behavior. The analytic picture
requires the drastic assumption that each spatial point evolves toward the
singularity as an independent spatially homogeneous universe. In every case,
detailed numerical simulations of the full Einstein evolution equations support
this assumption.
