How Does Inflation Produce All the Structure in the Universe?
In our Universe quantum fluctuations have been expanded into the largest structures we observe and clouds of hydrogen have collapsed to form kangaroos. The larger end of this hierarchical range of structure – the range controlled by gravity, not chemistry, is what inflation is supposed to explain. Inflation produces structure because quantum mechanics, not classical mechanics describes the Universe in which we live. The seeds of structure, quantum fluctuations, do not exist in a classical world. If the world were classical, there would be no clumps or balls to populate classical mechanics textbooks. Inflation dilutes everything – all preexisting structure. It empties the Universe of anything that may have existed before, except quantum fluctuations. These it can’t dilute. These then become the seeds of who we are. One of the most important questions in cosmology is: What is the origin of all the galaxies, clusters, great walls, filaments and voids we see around us? The inflationary sce
