>>11105063the math isn’t that hard. i feel this way because standard inflation is a very ad-hoc and simplistic model to give a quick explanation, and it works well, but it is not at all derived from anything that would convince me it is the real deal. it is just a good working model for something we see but don’t understand fully.
eternal inflation, however, is basically a way of taking the math of standard inflation and trying to think about how it could be generalized. fine. it says that if we assume these ad hoc numbers in it were allowed to be more generic, then we get some conclusions. the conclusion however is this bubble universe stuff, which to me sounds farfetched. why jump to that conclusion based on fiddling with an ad-hoc model? why push it so hard if it comes from such a rudimentary line of modeling something in such a basic way?
i suspect the reason is that the string theorists at stanford were in a bit of a pickle when the acceleration of the expansion of the universe was found, and eternal inflation plugged in nicely with their KKLT solution. not because eternal inflation holds up very well on its own
