So, a question for a future episode of Astronomy Cast. It's been rattling around for a while but episode 79 served as a good motivator for me to ask it...

Considering how little we can actually measure and study of the universe, apparently our best guess seems to be the cube root of very little, how can we make such remarkably intricate theories about the first few slivers of a nanosecond after the Big Bang? On one hand it sure seems like a lot of recent evidence suggests we may have mistaken the elephant's leg for a tree.

I mean, remarkable details of Big Bang theory seem pretty widely accepted, such as the temperature at each instant, the primitive particle and force interactions, etc, and then, almost as an afterthought as we review our notes, we stumble on inflation, dark matter and dark energy?

I get the feeling it's as if, in the dark, we've accidentally walked into the closet rather than the house, then lit a candle and crafted an entire theory of residential construction based on an exhaustive examination of the clothes rod.

I love the podcast. Thanks for all the hard work. It's an exciting and amazing time to be paying attention to cosmology, eh? (but, then, when isn't?)