Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Nautilus

    Is Our Universe a One-Off Fluke, or an Endless Cycle?

    by Brian Gallagher Apr 28, 2015 3 minutes

    Paul Steinhardt spoke animatedly to Nautilus about his views on inflation theory.

    Paul Steinhardt is torn. On the one hand, he has been working on and contributing to the theory of inflation for decades. On the other hand, he thinks it may very well be wrong.

    Inflation describes the early universe going through an unimaginably rapid expansion in its infancy, from the size of an atomic nucleus to something like the size of the current observable universe, in an infinitesimal fraction of a second. When it was proposed, in 1980, it promised to

    You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

    More from Nautilus

    Nautilus4 min read
    How Sound Rules Life Underwater
    1 Sound travels very differently in water than air. Like most humans, I assumed that sound didn’t work well in water. After all, Jacques Cousteau himself called the ocean the “silent world.” I thought, beyond whales, aquatic animals must not use soun
    Nautilus4 min read
    The Most Unlikely Migration
    In late summer, as the days shorten and begin to cool, the marmalade hoverfly begins to prepare her body for the long journey ahead. Her flight muscles strengthen, her eyesight sharpens, and her immune system bulks up until she is no longer a frail m
    Nautilus8 min read
    Life Lessons from Hell-House Venus
    Hold a grain of sand up to the night sky at arm’s length. There are thousands of galaxies in that miniscule fraction of the heavens. Galaxies like ours hold hundreds of billions of stars—a good portion of which host planets. And a number of these are

    Related