Cosmologists have spent decades trying to figure out why the universe is so bland. Not only is it completely flat and smooth as far as the eye can see, but it's also growing at an ever-so-slowly rising rate even though naive calculations predict that space should have folded up by gravity and blown apart by repelling dark energy after the Big Bang.
To explain the flatness of the universe, physicists suggest a dramatic beginning to cosmic history: space swiftly swelled like a blimp at the commencement of the Big Bang, smoothing away any curvature. To explain the gradual expansion of space after the initial burst of inflation, some have proposed that our universe is merely one of many less hospitable universes.
Two physicists had already recently thrown prevailing wisdom about our vanilla cosmos on its head. Following the footsteps of Stephen Hawking as well as Gary Gibbons, the duo has produced a new calculation that suggests the simplicity of the universe is anticipated, rather than unusual. As per Neil Turok from the University of Edinburgh with Latham Boyle from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics at Waterloo, Canada, the universe is the way it is for the same reason that air distributes evenly around a room: Stranger choices are conceivable but very implausible. The cosmos may appear to be exceedingly fine-tuned and implausible, but [they're] saying, 'Wait a minute, it's the preferred one,' said Thomas Hertog, a cosmologist there at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.
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