B What is the relationship between inflation and the expansion of our universe?

[lotsofquestions]

TL;DR

As a curious 21 year old, ADHD fueled individual with only a high school diploma but a lot of questions, I am hoping to create an online discussion topic based around the inflation theory and the potential of a multiverse to help expand both my knowledge and to gain an insight into such topics with individuals who may have more knowledge on these topics than I.

I'm going to give my best attempt to word my thoughts the best I can. As a subject I don't personally know a lot about but am heavily curious about with lots of questions, what would be keeping our known universe from colliding/merging with an unknown universe(s) following the inflation theory?

If the measurement of dark energy is correct and our known universe is constantly expanding at an increasingly rapid rate inside of an ever-expanding space, then the overall "surface area" of our universe would be increasing along with the potential or other universes expanding at faster or similar rates as our own?

If an ever-growing space promotes/prompts more cosmic reactions and forming universes, then the center points of these cosmic reactions that create enough energy to "birth" new universes should technically never be able to adjust or change because the space around the reaction site should always be growing, therefore couldn't that be reason to believe that edges or differing universes could someday be discovered as they inflate to eliminate the space between them, like if water puddles were on a pane of glass and as more water was added to each puddle they would fill the space between each other and combine?

Or would it be more probable to compare inflation to a pore on our skin, by this I mean it doesn't necessarily matter how wide and large a pore becomes because the space between it and its neighboring pores never change?

 

[Nugatory]

If ... our known universe is constantly expanding ... inside of an ever-expanding space, then the overall "surface area" of our universe would be increasing

It is not. Expansion is observed as the distance between widely separated things increasing; there's no expansion "into" anything and no surface.

Please be mindful of the the forum rule requiring that new theories and speculation must have been published in an appropriate peer-reviewed journal before they can be posted for discussion here.

This thread is closed, although questions about what the expansion model actually is will be welcome in new threads.