[dangus]

My problem with inflation is that its the same sort of question-begging done by creation science. In a way, any model will beg a question until it can be experimentally confirmed. But the problem with inflation is that it throws away all normal laws for no reason other than that they could not have been.’

So if the universe could expand by some unknown reason for a factor of billions upon billions and then just stop expanding for some unknown reason, why not suggest that the stars were created at various phases of stellar progression and their light traveled incredibly fast until some unknown event, and now we’re stuck with “light speed”? Ultimately, inflation makes physics every bit as magical as six-day creation, while multiverses solve Occam’s Razor by dividing by zero.

[zeugma]

I've always thought inflation was essentially handwaving to explain observations that don't fit the standard models like smoothness.

I just don't think we know enough to really explain the conditions of the universe that far back, but I must admit that I'm fairly partial towards the idea that the universe is a cyclical construct that expands, contracts, then expands again. From a philosophical standpoint it seems more rational to me than a universe the explodes from nothing, then expends forever into the heat death of everything. That particular idea leaves me cold. (ahem).

I strongly suspect that the way the universe really works at both the quantum and macro level is ultimately even weirder than we now suspect.

[MHGinTN]

'But the problem with inflation is that it throws away all normal laws for no reason other than that they could not have been.’

Those who favor 'inflation' have yet to dig into (mentally, at first of course) just how dimension Time and dimension Space evolved into the volume they now manifest. Was space spawned as point, then linear then planar then volume? ... etc.