Inflationary Cosmology

quoting dread: "all you need is a quantum fluxuation that produces an inflaton feild near in the same place as a singularity and BOOM new universe."dread, i think the problem with this idea is that you need space to exist before you can have a quantum fluctuation "near" something. "near" implies distance which implies space. are you suggesting that space existed first? also, time would have to exist simultaneously here unless both the singularity and the quantum fluctuation were created and interacted instantly. which brings to mind the question, "what created them?".-ncahill
ps. feild is spelled field.

dread: So we haven't yet answered why there is something rather than nothing. Because we don't know about the prior universe or the neihboring branes.you can't know about the previous universe, if it existed, because before photon decoupling information about the universe in the form of light could not be transmitted. unless you suggest that we learn about the previous universe in another manner.also, just a side thought. if there was a previous universe, do you think it still exists outside our visible universe? what existed where our big bang took place would surely have been annihilated and/or displaced by the expansion. any thoughts?

photon decoupling is the stage in the "early" universe, about 300,000 yrs after the BB, when the atoms had expanded and cooled enough to allow photons to move without interacting with atoms' electrons. before this time, photons could not move far before interacting with electrons, preventing any information of the time before decoupling to be transmitted. afterwards, the universe was "transparent" to photons and they could then travel long distances without interaction.entanglement is connecting two particles using their quantum properties i think.quote: String theory predicts that perhaps gravity is so weak because it radiates out in more dimentions than, say, light.i think string theory states that everything exists in all dimensions from light to frogs. we only perceive 3 spatially because after the big bang the other 8 dimensions collapsed do to their unique properties. i think that's what brain greene was trying to say anyway. hehe.