Academic

A BIG BANG? OR A ?BIG BOUNCE?? Inflation is an episode of exponential expansion thought to have?

By Glenn Reynolds

A BIG BANG? OR A “BIG BOUNCE?”

Inflation is an episode of exponential expansion thought to have occurred fractions of a second after the big bang. It is needed to explain, among other things, why the universe today has the geometry it does, but explaining what triggered inflation is tricky. . . . Enter loop quantum gravity, devised by Abhay Ashtekar of Pennsylvannia State University (PSU) in University Park and colleagues to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics. When Ashtekar’s team created cosmological models inspired by LQG in 2006, these suggested the universe emerged from the remnants of an earlier universe that was crunched down to a tiny volume by gravity, not from the big bang.

Interesting.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on October 15, 2010 (boomark / email).