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Every astronomy textbook tells us that soon after the Big Bang, there was a period of exponentially accelerating expansion called cosmic inflation. In a tiny fraction of a second, inflationary expansion multiplied the size of the universe by a larger factor than in the following 13 and a half billion years of regular expansion. This story seems like a bit of a … stretch. Is there really any mechanism that could cause something like this to happen? What what we’re covering today – the real physics of cosmic inflation.

Hosted by Matt O'Dowd
Written by Matt O'Dowd
Graphics by Leonardo Scholzer
Directed by Andrew Kornhaber
Produced By: Kornhaber Brown

Dark Energy Playlist:
   • Dark Energy & Dark Matter Explained  

The Quantum Vacuum and Hawking Radiation Playlist
   • Absolute Cold | Space Time  

Most cosmologists buy some variation of the inflation hypothesis. It seems to very neatly solve some of the biggest questions in cosmology. Those being: why is matter and energy so smoothly spread out across the entire observable universe? And why is the geometry of the universe so flat? Neither should be expected unless the universe expanded much more rapidly early on. We explored these problems in an earlier video – worth a look if you really want to get inflation. Another problem fixed by inflation is the absence of magnetic monopoles – strange particles predicted to have been produced in the early universe. We’ll come back to those another time.


Big Bang Supporters:

Anton Lifshits
David Nicklas
Fabrice Eap
Juan Benet
Justin Lloyd
Morgan Hough

Quasar Supporters:

Mark Heising
Mark Rosenthal
Tambe Barsbay
Vinnie Falco

Hypernova Supporters:
Chuck Zegar
Danton Spivey
Donal Botkin
Edmund Fokschaner
Hank S
John Hofmann
John R. Slavik
Jordan Young
Joseph Salomone
kkm
Mark Heising
Matthew
Matthew O'Connor
Syed Ansar

Gamma Ray Burst Supporters:

Adrien Hatch
Alexey Eromenko
Andreas Nautsch
Bradley Jenkins
Brandon Labonte
Carlo Mogavero
Daniel Lyons
David Behtala
DFaulk
Dustan Jones
Geoffrey Short
James Flowers
James Quintero
John Funai
John Pollock
Jonah
Jonathan Nesfeder
Joseph Dillman
Joseph Emison
Josh Thomas
Kevin Warne
Kyle Hofer
Malte Ubl
Mark Vasile
Nathan Hitchings
Nick Virtue
Paul Rose
Ryan Jones
Scott Gossett
Sigurd Ruud Frivik
Tim Jones
Tim Stephani
Tommy Mogensen
Yurii Konovaliuk
سلطان الخليفي