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To the less well acquainted, inflation theory seems like a rather far fetched proposal. It makes very specific claims about the earliest moments of the universe, without being explainable in terms of well established physical theories, e.g. QFT or GR (correct me if I'm wrong). Specifically, it suggests rapid expansion of space in the first $\sim 10^{-33}$ seconds after the big bang. That is a very very short time, billions of years ago, to make such a strong claim about a large, formative event of our universe.

I understand there exists evidence ( such as large scale inhomogeneity ), but couldn't this be explained with a simpler model? Are there competing theories that also explain evidence used to support expansion theory?

In short, help a skeptical non-cosmologist understand why this theory is so strongly supported.

anon01
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    Google will help you discover that it is not universally supported. One of the originators of the theory, Paul Steinhardt, now rejects it. The reasons for his objection is not that it is far fetched, but rather that it has no explanatory value. You can read his thoughts on the matter in several places. Here's one place, a Scientific American interview. – garyp Sep 12 '16 at 14:01
  • @garyp thanks for the link. It's one of those theories I hear about so often but only the gloss, and I've never been satisfied. I'd looking for someone in-field to comment on it - one step beyond e.g. wikipedia or scientific american. – anon01 Sep 12 '16 at 14:06
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    Possible duplicates: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/1030/2451 and links therein. – Qmechanic Sep 12 '16 at 14:56
  • Possible duplicate of: What is the evidence for Inflation of the early universe? – John Rennie Sep 12 '16 at 14:59
  • If you are these guys, http://www.space.com/28423-cosmic-inflation-signal-space-dust.html, the BICEP team, you are probably still getting over it. –  Sep 12 '16 at 16:12
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    @CountTo10 yeah... ouch! – anon01 Sep 12 '16 at 16:35
  • @ConfuisnglyCuriousTheThird if you are interested in finding out where it stands you could approach it scientifically or waste our time and continue. Inflation does have issues but we have nothing better to explain what it explains, and is well backed up by the Planck CMB data. If you can think of something better, try and publish it. A more scientific question would be: what are the outstanding observational possibilities, and what observations might distinguish some of the different inflation (and the few and worse non inflation) models? People here prefer serious discussions, imo. – Bob Bee Sep 13 '16 at 03:50
  • @BobBee you sound hurt or something. Your 'more scientific questions' are what I called 'support' for the theory; if you are familiar with inflation, I invite you to answer. Nobody is wasting your time. – anon01 Sep 13 '16 at 04:39
  • Not hurt. Just miffed that the discussion is what I call not serious. Your choice. Reasonable previous questions and answers by John Rennie and Qmechanics (in the latter the -2 answer is deserved). There is a lot more to inflation not covered. A good summary of it is more than 1 answer here, so if you're serious read some serious books or reviews of it. It's too broad for one question. – Bob Bee Sep 14 '16 at 00:11

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