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Interviews with Alan Guth & other leading cosmologists going into far more depth than average tv show but still accessible to the interested layperson. What happened before the big bang? In this series of films we explore competing models of the early universe, with this episode focusing on the dominant paradigm for early universe cosmology: inflation. The father of inflationary theory Alan Guth takes us on a tour of inflationary theory and explains why cosmologists find it so compelling and why it leads to a multiverse. Fellow theorists Anthony Aguirre and Yasunori Nomura help us explore more of the details of the theory and try to answer many of its challenges. George Efstathiou, one of the world’s leading observational cosmologists (who gave the press conference for the European Space Agency’s Planck cosmology results ) helps us assess the empirical status of the theory. We cover such topics as what is the history and evidence for inflation? how does it lead to a multiverse? Is there empirical evidence for a multiverse? How did the arrow of time form? What is the future for cosmology? What about the supposed problems of inflation, such as unlikely initial conditions, speculative physics, Boltzman brains and the measure problem? Can eternal inflation be past as well as future eternal? Did the universe have an absolute beginning or has it always existed? Whats the connection between the multiverse and black holes? What is the connection between the quantum many worlds and the cosmological multiverse? PLEASE NOTE: All the scientists in this film viewed a draft and approved it before we released it to youtube. For our earlier films in this series see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqjsZEZMR7I&list=PLJ4zAUPI-qqqj2D8eSk7yoa4hnojoCR4m For a timeline of who says what when , see below: AG=Alan Guth, AA =Anthony Aguirre, GE= George Efstathiou , YN =Yasunori Nomura 00:00 introduction 1:06 AG on the monopole problem and the founding of inflation 2:37 AG on the problems inflation solves 5:14 AA on how inflation solves the problems  6:02 narration on virtual particles/inflation and then introducing George Efstathiou  6:45 GE on Planck launch  7:23 GE on evidence for inflation 9:17 AG on how inflation to leads to eternal inflation  11:47 AG explains a scalar field  12:30 narration on inflaton field 12:41 GE on Planck data strongly favouring eternal inflation and the multiverse 13:48 narration on direct detection of other universes 13:55 AA explains looking for bubble collision 18:27 AG on string theory and eternal inflation  19:37 AA on above subject  19:59 YN on above subject  20:36 narration on the critics of inflation  20:49 AG on Coleman de lucia tunneling  22:17 YN on higgs instability blocking inflation  24:03 AG on probability of inflation  24:35 Ag on the measure problem  26:16 YN on above  27:13 AG on Boltzman brains  30:52 AG on inflation before or after the big bang? 31:37 GE on the above 32:22 AG on past eternal universe, entropy etc  38:39 AA on above  40:23:19 narration on anthropics 40:45 AG on above 42:30 YN on above 42:59 narration on many world = multiverse 43:31 YN on above  43:29 Yn on static quantum multiverse 49:05 GE on is the multiverse science? 49:56 YN on falsifiability  50:47 narration on alternatives 50:53 AA on alternatives and B modes 53:47 narration on tilt of the gravity wave spectrum  54:04 AG on tilt and string gas cosmology  54:31 GE on above 54:59 AG on before inflation  55:45 AG on next steps  57:45 GE on beyond Planck  59:10 end narration