I'm a little confused by this:
Which seems to imply the universe is more curved now than it was soon after the Big Bang. Look at the graph on the right side. It's not drawn to scale but clearly implies that with continued expansion the mass-energy density to critical density ratio (Omega) will change which should mean a difference in curvature... no?
In other words the term |Ω − 1| is currently less than 0.01, and therefore must have been less than 10−62 at the Planck era.
So while it's still close to flat, it was closer to flat in the early period of the universe than it is now? And this is due to the mass-energy density decreasing quicker (due to expansion) than the curvature?
And this is a problem because this implies the curvature had to be closer to flat (Omega had to be closer to 1) very early on, and this low level of curvature could not have contributed enough to the expansion of the universe to match the contribution of the mass-energy density? When they should have matched? Implying curvature was being governed by some other factor? (Assuming one didn't go the philosophical route of invoking the anthropic principle)
OR am I reading the Wiki's language incorrectly and it merely says that curvature and mass-energy density should match but they don't as mass-energy density decreases faster than curvature which implies curvature in the past approaches the necessary value for the critical density? Which then implies that curvature is being affected by more than just mass-energy density?
So the inflationary model says there's an inflaton field which drove the sharp exponential inflation during the early period of the universe which quickly flattened out the universe (overriding the effect of mass-energy density?) and then the curvature began to deviate away again slowly as the universe continued to expand?
So now the curvature will increase slightly to match our current Omega which is slightly off the critical density? Should this not then mean that the universe is actually not flat but spherical (due to omega slightly greater than one) and soon to be hyperbolic because of the decreasing energy density? (due to expansion driven by dark energy)?
Does the expansion from dark energy affect flatness?