[Telepathic Intruder]

-- "Nobody knows what drove inflation."
According to Brian Greene's book "Fabric of the Cosmos", it was the Higgs field, before it phase changed into its present form. I assume this is theoretical, however.

-- "I have absolutely no clue what dark energy is"
It is generally thought to be a result of vacuum fluctuations, or zero point energy, which is a result of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal. The same thing that causes the Casimir effect. But again, in theory.

There is still no good theory explaining dark matter, however. Just speculation, or hypothesis. "Ghost particles" similar to neutrinos but with more mass seems to be the more popular one.

[fso301]

There is still no good theory explaining dark matter, however. Just speculation, or hypothesis.

Each new telescope looks farther out and reveals a mind boggling number of previously unknown distant galaxies.

Might the fact that we don't know how much visible matter is out there be the reason dark matter was theorized to account for "missing matter" our telescopes cannot yet see?