Cool Worlds Podcast #26 Will Kinney - Before the Big Bang, Inflation, Infinity of Worlds
Oct 9, 2025
Will Kinney, a Professor of Physics at the University at Buffalo and author of 'An Infinity of Worlds', delves into the intriguing concept of cosmic inflation and its pivotal role in cosmology. He explains how quantum fluctuations during inflation might seed structure in the universe and discusses the implications of eternal inflation, leading to a multitude of bubble universes. The conversation also touches on the mysteries of the cosmic microwave background, the nature of the inflaton, and philosophical questions about the limits of scientific inquiry.
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Motivation Behind The Book
- Will Kinney wrote The Infinity of Worlds because inflation became a foundational part of modern cosmology yet lacked recent accessible popular treatments.
- He aimed to explain inflation's technical ideas with clear analogies and history.
CMB Is Our Earliest Direct Observation
- The CMB is direct radiation from when the universe became transparent at ~380,000 years and preserves early-universe conditions.
- It provides a powerful, simple laboratory to test theories like inflation.
Horizon Problem And Its Inflation Solution
- The horizon problem asks why causally disconnected regions of the CMB share nearly identical temperatures.
- Inflation explains this by making those regions causally connected before being stretched apart.
