Quote:
Originally Posted by byronm
I can't wrap my head around this generalized statement. "If we were to detect deviations from flatness in the observable universe, then it would provide evidence against inflation.".... What does that mean?
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Actually, explaining the apparent flatness is one of the unintended but happy consequences of inflation. The analogy is, blow up a spherical balloon to have a diameter of 100 billion lightyears or so, and the region around any point on the surface is going to look pretty flat. One might expect small deviations, but not large ones if inflation is to hold.