The Official String Theory Web Site:--> Cosmology :--> The Big Bang :--> The Planck Era
The Planck Era and the Inflation Era
TIME: Planck time, about 10-43 seconds
At this
stage of the Universe's evolution, if string theory is right, then there's not
much point to talking about the geometry or temperature of the Universe. We
know from duality relations between string theories that spacetime geometry
is not fundamental, but emerges as we zoom out to distance scales larger than
the Planck length. Physics at the Planck scale may be literally unknowable.
But this is still work in progress. We'll keep you posted on later developments.
Some time
after the Planck era, cosmologists believe there was a period called Inflation,
which is discussed in another section. The inflationary era is a little easier
to pin down theoretically than is the Planck era, but even so, the theoretical
physics concerning these two periods in the history of our Universe is still
in a state of flux. In honor
of that fact, we represent the Planck era and inflationary era together by a
Universe filled with questions.
How old is the Universe? // Structure
of the Universe // The Big Bang // Before
the Big Bang? // What about string theory?
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