Paul Steinhardts homepage.
http://wwwphy.princeton.edu/~steinh/

Essentially our universe arose from the collision of 'branes'.

Basics of inflation theory.

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101inflation.html
http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/John_Gribbin/cosmo.htm

Guth papers.

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0002/0002156.pdf

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0101/0101507.pdf

The colliding brane and inflationary models predict different gravitational wave signatures from the creation event. The best fit for the WMAP experimental data is Guth's model. Hopefully, in the future, we can check the grav wave predictions. Finding a signature that supports the brane collision model would be a positive for string theory while finding a signature which doesn't support the brane collision model doesn't falsify string theory. It would just mean that the creation event wasn't the result of colliding branes.

• Branes do not need to collide - wandaqueen - November 23, 2005 - 13:29 UTC
  • Steinhardts. theories - wandaqueen - November 23, 2005 - 17:51 UTC
  • That's interesting... - bruce - November 23, 2005 - 21:35 UTC