cosmic inflation leads to bubbles like opening a bottle of fizzy cola

Categories: Comparisons

An example of an analogy used to explain a scientific idea:

"The conventional version of inflation says that our entire visible Universe is just one of many bubbles of inflation, each doing their own thing somewhere out in an eternal sea of chaotic inflation, but that the process of rapid inflation forces spacetime in all the bubbles to be flat. A useful analogy is with the bubbles that form in a bottle of fizzy cola when the top is opened."

John Gribbin (1996) Companion to the Cosmos. (Ed. Mary Gribbin) Weidenfeld & Nicolson

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Read examples of scientific analogies

Many examples of science analogies are listed in 'Creative comparisons: Making science familiar through language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.

Author: Keith

Former school and college science teacher, teacher educator, research supervisor, and research methods lecturer. Emeritus Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge.