Inflationary Theory

In 1981 the world was rocked by a new theory. This theory, put forth by young physicst Alan Guth, suggested a slight twist on the Big Bang theory. This twist suggested why the universe expanded in the first place. The conventional Big Bang Theory included the expansion of the universe but had no explanation as to why the expansion happened. Modern physics shows that at very high energies, there are unusual types of substances that are capable of turning gravity on its head, and thereby create repulsive gravitational forces. These repulsive forces, Guth said, resulted in something called hyperexpansion, with the universe expanding & stretching faster than any scientist had imagined was possible. The total time estimate given for the period of inflation is approximately 10E-32 seconds.

An interesting facet of inflation that Guth discovered is that most forms of it are eternal; that is once inflation starts it does not completely stop.

According to an article by Hamish Johnson for Physics World "Inflation theory remains an important milestone in the development of cosmology because it showed that the nature of the universe as a whole could be understood in terms of theories derived from particle physics experiments"¹.

Image obtained from http://universe-review.ca/R02-13-inflation.htm