 The Inflationary Universe

The Inflationary Universe is a cosmological model that proposes a period of extremely rapid expansion of the universe in the first few moments (specifically from about \(10^{-36}\) seconds to \(10^{-32}\) seconds after the Big Bang). This concept was primarily developed in the 1980s by physicist Alan Guth and later expanded upon by others, including Andrei Linde and Paul Steinhardt.