I understand that we build models and do calculations but aren’t there any potential errors/assumptions? That accumulate over multiple calculations and grow bigger the further we go back or over distance?
I.e. “At approximately 10−37 seconds into the expansion, a phase transition caused a cosmic inflation, during which the universe grew exponentially, unconstrained by the light speed invariance, and temperatures dropped by a factor of 100,000.”
In: Physics
The answer is complicated and mostly related to the cosmic microwave background radiation, but in general we try to come up with an explanation for what we see, then make predictions based on that explanation, and see if those predictions hold up elsewhere.
There’s an excellent book called “a short history of nearly everything” that’s all about this aspect of science. It takes the perspective of a non-scientist fascinated with exactly those questions; not just what we know but WHY do we think we know it, and how confident are we really.
Extremely highly recommended if this kind of thing interests you.
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