One of the biggest discoveries made within the past century by Muggle astronomers has been that of the Cosmic Inflation Theory, hypothesized by astrophysicists Alan Guth and Andrei Linde, and described in their 1983 peer reviewed paper, following observations made by Hubble. This revolutionary new understanding of our cosmos literally affects the entire universe, from the first plank times (the smallest unit of measuring time that has any meaning which is on such minute scales that human comprehension is entirely void; it is equivalent to 10-43 seconds) after the Big Bang, to detailing how our universe will one day die. In the Cosmic Inflation Theory, the universe was said to expand, or inflate, at speeds faster than the speed of light. …show more content…
Einstein himself was in very outspoken support of a Steady State model, even including erroneous figures into his equations to try and support his strong belief. Even one of the most recognized scientists that has helped shape our current understanding of physics showed preconception bias that is often the plague of the field. The Steady State model showed a form of elegance, in that it seemed to be self contained with a universe existing in a static plane of equilibrium between the forces of expansion and the attractive force of gravity. In this conception, the universe was thought to always exist, and to be everlasting. This theory relied on the universe being still. Upon confirmation that the universe was undergoing continued growth at an exponential rate, Einstein publically admitted that his Cosmological Constant was the "biggest blunder of his career". (Although in an ironic fate that is prevalent in the physics community, his "blunder" turned out to be correct after all. The Einstein Constant, denoted by the Greek letter lambda, Λ, is used in many of the equations of cosmology today to denote the value of the energy density in vacuum space, which shows similar aspects to a steady state …show more content…
He proposed that the Big Bang started with a singularity, which would have seen all parts of the universe had contact with all other areas. When inflation occurred as the singularity (also known as a primordial atom) split apart, the different areas were thrust apart at more than one billion times the speed of light. This immense hyper inflation period ensured that the homogeneity experienced within the singularity remained unbroken. Even after the initial inflation slowed, this uniformity would remain, despite the furthest reaches being forever out of contact with one another