We discussed the theory of inflation in my cosmology class. No one really
had any feel for the scale of inflation so I sent to my students the post
below, a basic description of the scale involved in Guth's model. So I
thought it would be worth posting here. My star student found some nice pictures
which he sent to me but this email service doesn't accept attachments.
Bob Zannelli
The Story on INFLATION
Here's the original model worked out by Guth so it's a good generic model
In Guth's paper the inflationary epoch begins at 1E -37 seconds after the
big bang. What this really means is the volume out of which our Universe
emerged had a radius of 3E-29 meters. ( a meter equals 3.28 feet) This is
very small. A single atom could hold about 4 E 61 of these volumes. that is
about
A very big number. In Guth's model the time it took for the Universe
to double in time was 1E-37 seconds. That's
.00000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds. That a very short
time.
The vacuum energy density needed to produce this inflation was 7.77E99
J/m^3. This is huge but the absolute density that we can ever have is
4.63E113 J/m^3.
The inflation epoch lasted from 1E-37 seconds to 1E 35 seconds a time
period of about 9.9 E -36 seconds. Therefore since
a=a_0*exp[ H*t} where H = 6.93E36 we get the expansion of the Universe
from
3E-29 meters to 18.7 meters in radius. ( about 61 feet)
That's an expansion by a factor of 6.3 E29 in 9.9E-36 seconds. The patch
of space that makes up our present Universe had a radius of 4.8 E-59 meters
and the Universe we live in is 6.3 E 29 bigger than we can see.