Other Research

As an add on to the theory of inflation, Guth, along with Prof. Edward Farhi and others, are currently in the process of deciding whether inflation can be started in a hypothetical laboratory. Success in this area would result in a new universe. As of now, the answer to this question is a maybe, and more toward the yes side at that. Quantum tunneling would be needed as tis ignition of inflation is not possible using conventional methods.

Besides his famed research on cosmic inflation and the universe, Guth has done work in several other areas of physics.

These include:

Gott time machines,

magnetic monopoles & instatons,

lattice gauge theory,

& others.

A current interest of Guth's is 'brane world' models and the possibility of inflation in them. This idea of his suggests that "our universe is a 3+1-dimensional membrane floating in a higher dimensional space"¹.

Image obtained from http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2005/10/