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Eternal inflation
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<p>Eternal inflation is a hypothetical <a href="/facts/Cosmic_inflation/SujXx3aD">inflationary universe</a> model, which is itself an outgrowth or extension of the <a href="/facts/Big_Bang/I5T1vTnv">Big Bang</a> <a href="/facts/Scientific_theory/moMsLrUn">theory</a>. </p><p>According to eternal inflation, the inflationary phase of the universe's expansion lasts forever throughout most of the <a href="/facts/Universe/XbfpnDmM">universe</a>. Because the regions expand exponentially rapidly, most of the volume of the universe at any given time is inflating. Eternal inflation, therefore, produces a hypothetically infinite <a href="/facts/Multiverse/GUCDxvPg">multiverse</a>, in which only an insignificant <a href="/facts/Fractal/sXj38JeN">fractal</a> volume ends inflation. </p><p><a href="/facts/Paul_Steinhardt/IQCoQ3NQ">Paul Steinhardt</a>, one of the original researchers of the inflationary model, introduced the first example of eternal inflation in 1983, and <a href="/facts/Alexander_Vilenkin/WHYxATGb">Alexander Vilenkin</a> showed that it is generic. </p><p><a href="/facts/Alan_Guth/3SJhwEzh">Alan Guth</a>'s 2007 paper, "Eternal inflation and its implications", states that under reasonable assumptions "Although inflation is generically eternal into the future, it is not eternal into the past". Guth detailed what was known about the subject at the time, and demonstrated that eternal inflation was still considered the likely outcome of inflation, more than 20 years after eternal inflation was first introduced by Steinhardt. </p>