ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Trans-Planckian problem

Okay, kiddo, let me explain the trans-planckian problem. It’s a bit tricky, but I’ll break it down for you.

First, let’s talk about the Planck scale. This is the scale at which gravity becomes as strong as the other fundamental forces, such as electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces. At this small scale, space and time become all mixed up and quantum mechanics takes over. It’s a bit like looking at the world through a microscope – everything looks different and behaves differently than we’re used to.

Now, the trans-planckian problem is all about what happens at even smaller scales than the Planck scale. Some physicists think that there could be particles or other phenomena that exist at these even smaller scales, but we don’t really have a good way to study them because they’re too small to measure directly.

This can cause some problems for theories of the universe, because they might make predictions that assume nothing happens at scales smaller than the Planck scale. If there actually are things happening at smaller scales, then those predictions might be wrong. This can make it hard to test these theories and figure out which ones are correct.

So, the trans-planckian problem is really just about figuring out what happens at scales smaller than the Planck scale and how that might affect our understanding of the universe. It’s like trying to see what’s happening inside a tiny, tiny room that we can’t open the door to.