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Paul Steinhardt, "Inflated Expectations: A Cosmological Tale" (Open Agenda, 2021)

Ideas Roadshow Podcast

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What Was the Reaction to the Inflation?

Inflation was so effective that it seemed to make the universe so glassy smooth that you'd never make structure in the universe. So could quantum physics solve this problem? After all, inflation was, ifit without quantum physics would make it glassy smooth. That means the energy everywhere in space would be identically the same. Quantum physics doesn't allow that to have an energy. It's going to produce some kinds of fluctuations. And as we began to think about that problem, we realized, oh, this is a real threat. Because we thought we made the universe smooth, but now we actually may have ruined things. We put in the quantum physics and you can't not put in

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