- why the universe appears to be flat
- why it is much bigger than is possible due to the restriction of nothing travelling faster than the speed of light
- why the universe has the same properties throughout - temperature, density, average galaxy count.
Imagine a Universe with different conditions everywhere. Some regions might be expanding, some might be contracting, and some might be stationary. Some might have positive curvature, some might have negative curvature, and some might be flat. Some might have a lot of matter, some might have little to none. Some could be very, very hot, and some could be practically at absolute zero.
In other words, it doesn't matter what your initial conditions are to the Universe. What matters is that, at one point in space, in one of these regions, the right conditions to have inflation exist. Inflation takes this one region of space and expands it exponentially. [It Started with a Bang: The Greatest Story Ever Told -- 01 -- Before the Big Bang]We don't know what caused inflation to start and stop but there is a theory of a particle called the inflaton.
[The Greatest Story Ever Told -- 02 -- The Graceful Exit] We also don't know how it went from a sparcely populated universe with maybe a proton per galaxy to what it is today.
Cosmic Journeys: How Large is the Universe?
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