Some comments, since this post is generating some discussion: 1. If you squint, the inflation model is something in this spirit. The "inflaton" field correspon

Some comments, since this post is generating some discussion: 1. If you squint, the inflation model is something in this spirit. The "inflaton" field corresponds to the harmonic oscillator like variable that ismovingunder a potential, and causing space to expand. 2. The quantization of frequencies for a harmonic oscillator (or a particle in a box) comes from spatial bounds on it's profile -- through some potential function. The quanta are separated by inverse of the region size (like aliasing effects a la Fourier). If we're imagining a field spread all throughout space then the "harmonics" are very closely spaced enough to be considered a continuous spectrum, sort of. 3. All that was just quantum mechanics. A more appropriate framework to have this conversation is quantum field theory (and not just in flat spacetime, but curved spacetime). In that context, quanta refer to number of inflaton particles at a specific frequency, and that goes in a direction different from what we're interested in. So that was just a paranthetical aside. 4. As far as we can tell from observations space hasn't been globally oscillating. So it's more like an overdamped oscillator (with a lot of "friction") than an underdamped one -- see "slow roll inflation". (For examples of where space was locally affected by underdamped oscillations, see baryonic acoustic oscillations). Beyond just a few technical nuggets, what I hope to have conveyed is that the way to research these things is to take every word/facet seriously and try to operationalize it in an appropriate framework (which is very hard) and verify whether it matches our experience of reality.