Inflation starts when the inflation field’s energy density dominates the total energy density of the universe. The inflation field must control the expansion dynamics while obeying the slow-roll conditions long enough to solve the horizon and flatness problems....
SLOW ROLL APPROXIMATION: theories of inflation assume there exists some scalar field ϕϕ that permeates the Universe and drives inflation. The kinetic energy of the field is negligible compared to the potential energy of the field. This equation shows that the...
The particle horizon (also called the cosmological horizon, the comoving horizon, or the cosmic light horizon) is the maximum distance from which light from particles could have traveled to the observer in the universe’s age. Much like the concept of...
YOU HAVE AN EITHER OR CHOICE TO MAKE: EITHER THIS HAPPENED: This universe is one of many variegated universes, produced by physical processes that randomly scan through (a subset of) the set of possible physics. Eventually, a life-permitting universe was born. We can...
IF YOU CAN’T WIN WITH THE OLD THEORY, IGNORE IT, AND START A NEW ONE, THE MULTIVERSE PROVES THAT THERE IS NO GOD. Thirty-five years ago, string theory took physics by storm, promising the coveted unified theory of nature’s forces that Einstein valiantly sought...
