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The strongest evidence for a Universe before the Big Bang (bigthink.com)

submitted 1 year ago by btaf45 to c/[email protected]

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[–] btaf45 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Siegal is my favorite cosmology writer. When ChatGPT writes an astronomy article you will know it because it will be full of basic errors that an elementary school teacher could spot. ChatGPT told that Andromeda was inside the MIlky Way lol.

Usually inflation refers to a period after the big bang rather than before it.

I think that is an older simplistic theory. Siegal says that the "hot big bang" is something that happened at about t0+10^-32. Time t0 is where the BB timeline starts because it is the earliest time we can extrapolate backwards to. The time between t0 and the hot big bang represents the final fraction of a second of cosmic inflation. Even the originators of cosmic inflation admit that nobody knows how long cosmic inflation lasted.

[–] solrize 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thanks, I had previously read that inflation too place between 1e-36 and 1e-32 sec after the big bang, rather than before it. I will read both Siegel articles (he seems to spell it with -el). I don't know what time durations are even supposed to mean under such conditions but that's ok, hopefully the theorists have some kind of idea.

Added: oh I think there is a difference in terminology. What Wikipedia calls the inflationary epoch is what Siegel calls the hot big bang.