In economics, inflation (or less frequently, price inflation) is a general rise in the price level of an economy over a period of time.
When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation reflects a reduction in the purchasing power per unit of money – a loss of real value in the medium of exchange and unit of account within the economy. The opposite of inflation is deflation, a sustained decrease in the general price level of goods and services. The common measure of inflation is the inflation rate, the annualised percentage change in a general price index, usually the consumer price index, over time.Economists believe that very high rates of inflation and hyperinflation are harmful, and are caused by excessive growth of the money supply. Views on which factors determine low to moderate rates of inflation are more varied. Low or moderate inflation may be attributed to fluctuations in real demand for goods and services, or changes in available supplies such as during scarcities. However, the consensus view is that a long sustained period of inflation is caused by money supply growing faster than the rate of economic growth.Inflation affects economies in various positive and negative ways. The negative effects of inflation include an increase in the opportunity cost of holding money, uncertainty over future inflation which may discourage investment and savings, and if inflation were rapid enough, shortages of goods as consumers begin hoarding out of concern that prices will increase in the future. Positive effects include reducing unemployment due to nominal wage rigidity, allowing the central bank greater freedom in carrying out monetary policy, encouraging loans and investment instead of money hoarding, and avoiding the inefficiencies associated with deflation.
Today, most economists favour a low and steady rate of inflation. Low (as opposed to zero or negative) inflation reduces the severity of economic recessions by enabling the labor market to adjust more quickly in a downturn, and reduces the risk that a liquidity trap prevents monetary policy from stabilising the economy. The task of keeping the rate of inflation low and stable is usually given to monetary authorities. Generally, these monetary authorities are the central banks that control monetary policy through the setting of interest rates, through open market operations, and through the setting of banking reserve requirements.
Just as the thermal equilibrium between two relatively receding (c<v<2c) cosmological horizons is justified by inflation, such a Higgs phase transition could account locally for correlations violating the Bell inequality through superluminal (c<v<2c) "signaling."
Alan Guth and Stephen Hawking on "Eternal Inflation"
It is an interesting topic and Alan Guth had two papers discussing it in 2003, also Hawking had one I found in 2003. might be interesting to check out their recent words on the subject
Hawking defined it as follows and then proceded to...
"Quantum Gravity and Inflation"---a new paper
The following paper appeared today in arxiv preprints
Stephon Alexander et al
"Quantum Gravity and Inflation"
http://arxiv.org/hep-th/0309045
The paper could be important. By way of detail, it has
been submitted to Physical Review Series D...
http://bubba.ucdavis.edu/~infl03/Anthony_Aguirre/infl_infl.pdf"
http://arxiv.org/ps/gr-qc/0301042
COMMENT:
I tried the links myself, and you can download them using "right-mouse/save as" at the link, and the files (first: PDF, second: PS) will be stored to disk.
Note: the PS file...
Here is a good paper that is quite neat makes a good case for evolving extensions to Inflation models.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/0307/0307179.pdf
Ashtekar "Mathematical Structure of Loop Quantum Cosmology"
http://www.arxiv.org/gr-qc/0304074
It's with co-authors Martin Bojowald and Jerzy Lewandowski
and the date is June 9, 2003 and its 29 pages with references
Ashtekar and company have an ongoing program to quantize the geometry...
Leaving for the beach today
so I won't be contributing any thoughts
but posters named Nacho and Rudi
wrote some things recently that started me
wondering why (in standard cosmology, not "astro.alt"!)
people find inflation scenarios compelling
the usual answer is, even tho we don't know...
I've had a nagging question about the nature of inflation of the universe for some time, something that to me seems intuitive but which I've never seen asked or answered. I recognize the danger of intuitive thinking in modern physics, but hopefully some of the experts here can help straighten...
As anlternative to some other pre-Big Bang theories (like the Hawking-Turok Instanton pea model) there is a model of Eternal, Chaotic or Open inflation, in which Inflation reproduces itself eternally.
The merit of this model of inflation is that there is no requirement for a "beginning of...