  Following up on earlier work on the regularization of the singular
Schwarzschild solution, we now apply the same procedure to the singular
Friedmann solution. Specifically, we are able to remove the divergences of the
big bang singularity, at the price of introducing a 3-dimensional spacetime
defect with a vanishing determinant of the metric. This particular
regularization also suggests the existence of a "pre-big-bang" phase.
