Inflationary cosmology is a concept in astronomy and physics that explains the rapid expansion of the universe shortly after the Big Bang. It proposes that the universe underwent a brief period of incredibly fast and exponential growth, similar to a balloon being blown up quickly. This theory helps us understand why the universe appears so uniform and why the galaxies are spread out the way they are.
Full definition
This book explains non-intuitive concepts like String Theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and
Inflationary Cosmology with analogies drawn from common experience.
The fashion is string theory; the fantasy has to do with various cosmological schemes,
mainly inflationary cosmology [which suggests that the universe inflated exponentially within a small fraction of a second after the Big Bang].
Carroll's model of the multiverse depends on a speculative interpretation
of inflationary cosmology, which is itself only loosely verified.
Observations show that the universe is in fact flat (there is just enough matter to slow its expansion but not to halt it), has zero total energy and underwent rapid inflation, or expansion, soon after the big bang, as described
by inflationary cosmology.
In other words, we need to know the statistics of variation in the laws of physics of pocket universes — and
in inflationary cosmology there is no principle that guides the choice of physics in each of them.
This attractive force between branes would in fact be a special case of the kind of force that
inflationary cosmologies posit to explain the early universe's blowup.
But
inflationary cosmology has shown that the putative «magic seed» of creationists is diluted at least 10 ^ 150 times!
Inflationary cosmology, currently the dominant model of the early universe, holds that the entire observable cosmos began as a speck within a far larger (perhaps infinite) existence emerging from the Big Bang.
Of course, Lucretius had never heard of quantum mechanics and
inflationary cosmology, 20th - century fields that contest his bold claim.
Inflationary cosmology, which is our best theory for what happened right after the Big Bang, says that a tiny chunk of space underwent a period of rapid expansion to become our universe.
When coupled with
an inflationary cosmology, the authors» approach predicts that a charge asymmetry should have been produced at ultra-minute fractions of seconds after the Big Bang.
«According to
inflationary cosmology, the universe [began] growing from a patch as small as 10 - 26 m, one hundred billion times smaller than a proton,...» Alan H. Guth and David I. Kaiser, «Inflationary Cosmology: Exploring the Universe from the Smallest to the Largest Scales,» Science, Vol.