meaning that the universe at one time expanded at an increasing rate rather than the decreasing rate that it does today. According to Guth, the radius of the universe increased by a million million million million million (1 with thirty zeros after it) times in only a fraction of a second.
Guth suggested that the universe started out from the big bang in a very hot, but rather chaotic, state. These high temperatures would have meant that the particles in the universe would be moving very fast and would have high energies. As we discussed earlier, one would expect that at such high temperatures the strong and weak nuclear forces and the electromagnetic force would all be unified into a single force. As the universe expanded, it would cool, and particle energies would go down. Eventually there would be what is called a