ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Minisuperspace

Minisuperspace is like playing with a toy universe that is very small and simpler than the real universe. Imagine you have a big ball, and inside it there are only a few toys instead of a lot of them. But these toys are very special because they help us understand how the real universe works!

Just like the real universe, this toy universe also has three dimensions: up and down, left and right, and front and back. We can move around in this toy universe and study how it changes over time.

Now, minisuperspace helps us understand the universe when it was very young and just starting out. We call this the early universe. Scientists have found some toys that help them understand how the early universe behaved.

One of these toys is a balloon. Imagine you draw dots on the surface of a balloon. When you blow up the balloon, the dots move away from each other, just like the matter in the early universe did. This toy helps us understand how the universe expanded and grew after the Big Bang.

Another toy is a pendulum that swings back and forth. Scientists use this toy to understand how the universe could have started with a very small amount of energy and expanded very quickly, just like the pendulum starts with very little energy but swings back and forth very quickly.

So, minisuperspace is like playing with toys that help us understand how the universe was born and how it grew. By studying this toy universe, scientists hope to learn more about our real universe and how it works.