Cosmic inflation theory
Teoría de la inflación cósmica
- Date
- 1980-1981 · confidence high
- Place
- Menlo Park, California, United States
- Credited to
- Alan Guth; independently proposed by Alexei Starobinsky and Andrei Linde
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Guth proposed that the early universe underwent a brief exponential expansion to resolve the flatness, horizon and magnetic-monopole problems; Starobinsky had proposed a similar model shortly before in the USSR.
Priority is disputed with Starobinsky (1980) and Demosthenes Kazanas (1980); Guth coined the term 'inflation' and popularised the theory.
What it led to
- Testable predictions about the cosmic microwave background
- Later models of eternal inflation and the multiverse