eCosmology

Is it possible to explain brane cosmology to the layman without maths or jargon or wikipedia?

Anyone who can will be handsomely rewarded with, er, five stars. Just to make it clear, I'm the layman.

Public Comments

1. Um.. it's tricky. It would take a book. There are quite few available which are not too technical.
2. I wouldn't try. If someone you know is a layman and you want to teach him that, then I would fist ask myself, "does he want to learn this?". If he does, then start with the basics (the stuff he knows) then explain a little more in depth. If he asks questions, try and explain it in a way he can understand. Give analogies (examples) to help answer his question. Happy teaching!
3. Pick up a book by Lisa Randall. The name starts with "Warped Passages" It's probably about 300 pages long and that's about how many you need to explain it.
4. BRANES are objects in M-theory and its offshoot, BRANE COSMOLOGY. In M-theory, p-branes (the name is derived from membrane) are objects of spatial dimensionality p (for example, a string is a 1-brane). In brane cosmology, the term "brane" is used to refer to objects similar to our four-dimensional universe, which move in a higher-dimensional "bulk". The central idea is that our visible, four-dimensional universe is entirely restricted to a brane inside a higher-dimensional space, called the bulk. The additional dimensions may be taken to be compact, in which case the observed universe contains the extra dimensions, and then no reference to the bulk is appropriate in this context. In the bulk model, other branes may be moving through this bulk. Interactions with the bulk, and possibly with other branes, can influence our brane and thus introduce effects not seen in more standard cosmological models