Guth's Inflation Theory.?

Question

If inflation theory is correct how did the nascent material or energy contained within the expanding universe go from point A at the beginning of the expansion to point B at the end at what would appear to be a speed faster than light? ( Perhaps badly framed but hope you know what I mean!)

Answer 1

I don't really believe in that theory either but the explanations I've heard for how they get around your question is this:  The particles did not travel greater than speed of light, the space in between expanded at greater than the speed of light.  hmmmmm? say I.

So I guess you could say they were still at points A and B and didn't move (or at least not faster than light).  Just the space in between got bigger.   hmmmmm? say I again

It's too early in the morning for questions like this....lol

Answer 2

I do not believe in that theory, but will hazard an educated guess is that it was expelled from a belly button using a finger and it was fluff

Answer 3

the energy was moving outward at the speed of light, and space was also expanding. so its like being on a bus. if you walk to the front of the bus, big deal you walked like 25 feet. but the bus is also moving, so relative to the road, you moved a lot more.  

Answer 4

At that early point in time the mathematical constants of the universe hadn't crystallized into their current values.  Until they did, nothing prevented such speeds.  

Answer 5

its all relative

Answer 6

You are suffering from the misconception that the BB was an explosion that happened at point A, spewing galaxies outwards into empty space to points B. This is totally wrong. There is no space empty of galaxies (or in the early universe, energy). The energy/matter is found everywhere in space about equally, and the energy/matter is not exploding outwards from point A to point B.

Points A and B in your question are the SAME point. The energy/matter is not expanding outwards into empty space. It is remaining more or less stationary, with space itself stretching between them. The energy for inflation existed everywhere in the universe, just as normal matter and energy have always existed everywhere in the universe as the space itself expands between them.

Answer 7

Your question, really, is: how can we observe galaxies 47 billion light years away when the universe is only 14.7 billion years old.

The answer is that if a photon left that galaxy, traveling at the speed of light during say, 17 billion years, the universe has expanded quite a lot during that time and the distance is much greater than 17 billion light years.

But all this is theory; no one has ever gone and measured that distance! :-)

Answer 8

The expansion of space during the inflationary epoch did indeed happen faster than the speed of light. Bear in mind that Special Relativity sets a limit on objects moving through space; it does not forbid the expansion of space itself to move at superluminal speeds.

To answer your additional comment, the idea of space as being devoid of matter and/or energy is misleading. "Empty" space still contains gravitation energy, as well as photons and electromagnetic fields. Without matter or energy, the concepts of space and time do not exist.

More to the point however, the Universe during the inflationary epoch was permeated by what's known as a Higgs ocean containing a great deal of potential energy. Without getting into a detailed technical explanation, the Higgs field experienced a quantum fluctuation, which very briefly released a great deal of energy as a repulsive force. It is believed this lasted for only 10^-35 seconds, but caused an expansion on a scale of 10^30 to 10^100 or more.

An expansion of 10^30 would be like scaling up a molecule of DNA to roughly the size of the Milky Way, in less than a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a blink of an eye.

2nd Edit: I understand the confusion. Space (and time) do not exist without the presence of matter. If matter cannot move faster than light, and space expands faster than light, what is it that defines the expansion? The best answer I can think of is that the energy that permeated space was pulled along with the inflationary expansion. Since energy and matter are equivalent, the expansion of the Higgs ocean itself would be enough to 'create' the space that expanded. It's almost a chicken-and-egg scenario, but not quite. The energy released by the Higgs fluctuation creating the inflationary epoch propelled space at superluminal speed, then 'normal' expansion took over.

Answer 9

its true trust me