[CraigS]

Hi Guys;

(I'm new to this forum so I thought I'd better say a friendly 'Hello').

Ok, so Inflationary/acceleration theory (now supported by WMAP data, Hubble's research etc) tells us that the universe originally 'inflated' and is now accelerating. So I've been completely baffled about how Galaxies can collide, if this is so.

I asked this question recently of a research astronomer at the Syd Observatory and got the standard 'Gravity' and different scales/dimensions answer (ie: gravity overcomes the driving 'force' behind cosmic acceleration and anyway, this operates at a different scale ie: 100's to 1,000's of light years separation).

So, wouldn't the original kick in the early stages of the big bang (Inflation) and the subsequent acceleration (due to 'dark energy'), have given all matter and spacetime an 'outwards' inflationary trajectory -ie: separating everything from everything else, both initially and into the future and hence preclude any co-incidence of trajectories at all inter-galactic scales?

I can't quite see how a theory such as this can work in some parts of the inter-galactic scale but not in other parts. Your comments would be much appreciated, as I am perplexed.

Cheers