[The_Victor]

....growing from the size of a marble to a volume larger than all of observable space in less than a trillion-trillionth of a second.

That's one heck of an expansion rate.

[MNJohnnie]

Bush's Fault!

[pcottraux]

It's all trying to get away from Chuck Norris.

[Red Badger]

What is it expanding into?..........

[jrg]

That's one heck of an expansion rate.

I don't know so much about that......Have you seen Sally Strothers lately? Helluva expansion rate!

[ClearCase_guy]

Well, that might even be faster than the speed of light. Is that possible?

[Pessimist]

"....growing from the size of a marble to a volume larger than all of observable space in less than a trillion-trillionth of a second."

Doesn't that break the "speed limit"?

[RightWhale]

I was hoping someone would post this article. WMAP is providing a great deal of info for cosmologists and now it seems to back a version of inflation. Interesting to think of our entire local galactic cluster as a former microscopic quantum fluctuation.

[SQUID]

Don't laugh. Maybe this is a dumb question, but wouldn't there be a giant void in the center of the universe somewhere? Anyone who has seen a giant explosion knows what I am talking about. Also, wouldn't everything near us be going in the same direction? Also, the stuff across town would be going in the opposite direction.

Just some wimpy thoughts.

[VadeRetro]

Cosmology ping.

[Zeppo]

WMAP also measured variations in the cosmic microwave background so huge that they stretch across the entire sky.

OK, what on Earth (excuse the pun) is that supposed to mean? Variations so huge that they what?

[Les_Miserables]

In the beginning there were Democrats and Inflation fell on the face of the universe.

Can't much blame them though if we were all crowded into a marble. "Hard" to conceive.....

So much for the ole Speed of Light stuff. Einstein where are you when we need you?

[Skooz]

the universe went through extremely rapid expansion in the moments after the big bang, growing from the size of a marble to a volume larger than all of observable space in less than a trillion-trillionth of a second.

Dadgum. That's almost as fast as my teenage daughter running to a ringing phone.

[freedombird]

Stop the inflation!!!!!

[Junior]

Ping.

[silverleaf]

Nature abhors a naked singularity ....

[mlc9852]

That's how I feel on Thanksgiving afternoons!

[RadioAstronomer]

Good stuff. :-)

[macamadamia]

In my world, inflation ALWAYS precedes a big bang, yeeeeeehaawwwww!

[hosepipe]

[ It also helps explain how matter eventually clumped together into planets, stars and galaxies in a universe that began as a remarkably smooth, superhot soup. ]

A soup?.. What is the bowl?.. How big is the bowl?..
Is the bowl growing?.. If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into?.. and metaphorically what does the bowl rest on?..

[taxcontrol]

One problem remains with the inflation theory. In order for the universe to expand that rapidly, the matter that existed in the first instance of the universe would have to travel MUCH faster than the speed of light.