Raw Pointers

Start with the idea

Creating *const T or *mut T is safe; dereferencing one is unsafe because validity, alignment, initialization, and aliasing are now the programmer's proof obligations.

A raw pointer such as *const T or *mut T can represent a location without the safety guarantees that a normal Rust reference carries. Constructing one from a valid reference is safe. Dereferencing it requires unsafe because the compiler cannot prove that the pointed-to object is still alive, aligned, initialized, in bounds, and accessed under valid aliasing rules. A raw pointer may carry provenance information about its allocation; treating it as merely a numeric address can miss part of the memory model.