Even though your descriptions are correct according to the BB model, I believe the BB theory has been fraught with ad hoc hypothesis for at least the last 40 years. The only single correct parts of it are simply that the universe had a beginning and that the beginning was a single entity. The rest of the theory is vastly lacking.

Responding to your quotes which are true to BB dogma:

“The current scientific understanding of our cosmic origins is a mystery to the public at large.”

I assert that it also is a complete mystery to BB cosmologists because most of their conclusions have continuously been contradicted since the theory’s inception.

“The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is like a snapshot of the early universe. It was once all hot plasma, gas so hot that the atoms inside it were broken up.”

Of course there is no evidence to support this statement, as you pointed out there have been a serious problem with endless observations contradicting the BB model.

“The light from this moment (following the BB) became the cosmic microwave background radiation.”

Needless to say this is truly current theory but has no evidentiary support.

“Since we know that the early universe was hot, dense and small, and we know now that it’s cooler, sparse, big, and expanding, we can reasonably deduce that, long ago, there was a Big Bang. The universe exploded.”

We know the early universe was hot if the hot BB were model were true. If not this statement is false.

“Strikingly, the CMB is almost the same everywhere you look. There are minor fluctuations, but even they seem to have the same distribution everywhere.”

This statement is partly false but can be much more easily explained by Steady-State cosmology.

“A flat, smooth universe isn’t the only thing that inflation predicted.”

Inflation, of over a hundred varieties, was invented to explain two mandatory requirements and predictions of the Steady-State theory which has been completely verified, that the universe is flat and that the horizons everywhere will look the same. A absolutely complete contradiction of the BB model of that time. Only ad hoc Inflation theory using completely new unobservable physics tried to save these serious theoretical failings.

“The universe appeared, at a cosmic scale, astonishingly consistent with the simple theory of Inflation.”

This is a false statement. Inflation was invented ad hoc to account for these theory failings.

“If you divided the sky in half by tracing the orbit of the earth around the sun, and compared, in each half, the size of big fluctuations, those between 3 and 5 degrees wide, you would come to the conclusion that one side has fluctuations outweighing the other by an alarmingly large amount.”

This, of course is completely true statement. It is completely simple logic to conclude that the solar system is moving relative to the background radiation based upon the variance of redshift, by far the simplest explanation.

“Wherever the asymmetry in the inflation field came from, it must have existed before inflation. It must have existed before the big bang.”

This obviously would be a false statement if the BB is a Big Goof and that the countless Inflation theories were only a vein attempt to patch up an IL conceived theory, which I assert that they were.

The theory that I propose presents vastly simpler explanations of observations are my own and can be seen at pantheory.org

Great post. This post recall back what I have learn few years ago. I almost forget about this interesting topic since I join material photonic research group. I leave theoretical physic because the research field seems already death without experiment evidence follow up. Experimental tools use to prove some theory left far behind by the theory.

But now we have LHC that wake this field up. What do you think about this?

Sorry for my English

Love the new picture of you too!

As for what the universe is expanding into, I don’t have a particularly intuitive answer to that, and as far as I can tell the cosmic jury is still out. However, it *is* reasonably certain that length scales were, and are, expanding relative to time scales. In technical terms, the mean-free-time between particle collisions was and is lengthening. In this sense we can was the universe is expanding, though into what we can’t say with as much certainty.

Just going to nitpick on one wee thing. You say: “We can reasonaably deduce that, ‘in the beginning’, there was a Big Bang.”
I think we can reasonably deduce that earlier in our observable universe there was once a Big Bang affecting everything we can presently detect. Whether it was ‘the beginning’ is somewhat up for debate, since that is fairly loaded term.

I’ll agree that it was certainly the beginning of this event.

And just what is the universe expanding into?