Talk:Accelerating universe

Hm. This is a bit out of my field, but isn't inflation theory another possible model for the accelerating universe phenomenon? -- April

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Yes, but that's included in non-zero cosmological constant (which presumably caused inflation).

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Wrong, sorry. The present non-zero cosmological constant/quintessence can be thought of as a form of inflation, but it probably has no relation to the inflationary scenarios (they are not theories, because they are too vague!). The inflationary scenarios generally talk about inflation when the Universe was about 10^(-33) seconds old, long before the microwave background epoch.

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See the special edition of
Scientific American, Volume 12, Number 2
Title: The Once and Future Cosmos
It is readable, detailed, and current.
Randal Leavitt 00:40 Oct 13, 2002 (UTC)