What Lies Beyond Our Observable Universe?

[RLutz]

Hi all, I realize that things beyond our horizon are not causally connected to us and so from a scientific standpoint it is correct to say that nothing exists beyond our observable universe, but my question is more related to inflation.

First, I'll explain my understanding of current inflationary models, please correct me if I'm wrong. Basically, there was a big bang or some other event, then an indeterminable amount of time passed, then, for reasons we don't really have a super great understanding of, our tiny little patch of universe expanded rapidly, increasing in volume by a factor of something like 10^78. The quantum fluctuations that existed in our tiny patch went on to be the "seeds" for various physical constants in our universe. Everything in our observable universe came from that tiny little patch (and thus everything in our observable universe was at one time causally connected).

So that means that different "tiny patches" would have had different quantum fluctuation "seeds", and so regions of space which we have never been causally connected with ought to have vastly different physical constants and fundamental force strengths. The fine structure constant might be 42 in one of these other "universes".

I realize it's impossible for us to ever see the results of the expansion of these other patches, but I was just curious if what I said was correct. That if, somehow, it were possible to move "above" (What I mean is, pretend our universe were a sheet of paper, and somehow we could stand above it, looking down on it) our universe and get a "top down" view on it, we would see lots of different universes that are not causally connected and have wildly different laws of physics in each.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post and muse over it.

 

[Chalnoth]

In broad strokes, what you've said here is generally expected to be quite accurate, with one significant caveat: we don't, at the current time, know how many of the constants in our current theories are determined by dynamics, and how many are truly fundamental. And of those that are determined by history rather than being fundamental features, we don't know how many are determined before or as inflation starts and how many are determined later, after inflation has already begun.

 

[Chronos]

I think is fair to say the laws of this universe [and probably any other universes] must play well with each other [a causality thing]. If the laws of nature are 'squishy', I do not see how we can ever fathom the properties of any prior universes - in other words, what chalnoth said.