The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos

by Brian Greene

The horizon problem afflicts the standard big bang theory because regions of space separate too quickly for thermal equality to be established. The inflationary theory resolves the problem by slowing the speed with which the regions were separating very early on, providing them ample time to come to the same temperature. The theory then proposes that after the completion of these “cosmic handshakes” there came a brief burst of enormously fast and ever-quickening expansion—called inflationary expansion—which more than compensated for the sluggish start, rapidly driving the regions to vastly distant positions in the sky. The uniform conditions we observe no longer pose a mystery, since a common temperature was established before the regions were rapidly driven apart.