2 ms·

Glad to hear about testing for gravitational waves. That's really the first observation I have heard about that covers anything older than the cosmic microwave

Glad to hear about testing for gravitational waves. That's really the first observation I have heard about that covers anything older than the cosmic microwave background radiation. Otherwise, who is to say that the universe didn't start out as a somewhat lumpy (not too much, not tool little) blob of gas measured with a few K's (thousands of kilometers across and a few thousand/million degrees Kelvin -- k of Km x k of K)? You can run the numbers back to a geometric point, but what would that even mean without observations of some kind to prove or disprove it?

Roboprog 10y ago
... vs the idea that "inflation" is mentioned as the way to get a mostly, but not quite, smooth universe which (as an article of faith???) MUST have started as a geometric point. How would you rule out "one day there was a blob"? (which is really a crummy hypothesis, but as something to throw out vs inflation -- "for a while, relativity didn't apply, but then it did, because space itself decided to grow, until it didn't, so there!")