4/15/06                                

Inflation

New studies with a space borne instrument called the Wilkinson Microwave Anistropy Probe (WMAP) have given scientists new evidence of a phenomena  known as Inflation.  In less than the blink of an eye after the Big Bang the universe expanded from the size of a small marble to billions of light years across.  How could this happen if “c” is the fastest speed in the universe?

If, in this early period in the universe’s development it was still a single unit, then there would be no relative motion and thus no time.  Suppose, at the moment of Inflation, the universe was only a centimeter in diameter.  Then the maximum speed possible using c = d_s/t_s would be 1cm/0sec or c = infinity.  At that point the universe could have expanded at infinite speed.  If, during this expansion the universe cooled, and at some point eventually shattered into the tiny units of space we have today, time as we know it would also have begun, and “c” would have also then become the speed it is today.

I suspect this all happened in the first 10^-43* seconds after the Big Bang and that 10^-43 has remained as our smallest unit of time.  If that’s the case then our smallest unit of space must be about 3x10^-35 m (d_s = ct_s or d_s = 3x10⁸m/sec x 10^-43sec). 

* This is the farthest back in time that we can trace the Big Bang.  The science we have today does not allow us to go back any further.  This is also the number for t_s suggested by Wolfram in his book “A New Kind of Science”.