If my colleagues and I are right, we may soon be saying good-bye to the idea that our universe was a single fireball created in the big bang. We are exploring a new theory based on a 15-year-old notion that the universe went through a stage of inflation. During that time, the theory holds, the cosmos became exponentially large within an infinitesimal fraction of a second. At the end of this period, the universe continued its evolution according to the big bang model. As workers refined this inflationary scenario, they uncovered some surprising consequences. One of them constitutes a fundamental change in how the cosmos is seen. Recent versions of inflationary theory assert that instead of being an expanding ball of fire the universe is a huge, growing fractal. It consists of many inflating balls that produce more balls, which in turn produce more balls, ad infinitum.
Cosmologists did not arbitrarily invent this rather peculiar vision of the universe. Several workers, first in Russia and later in the U.S., proposed the inflationary hypothesis that is the basis of its foundation. We did so to solve some of the complications left by the old big bang theory. In its standard form, the big bang theory maintains that the universe was born about 15 billion years ago from a cosmological singularity—a state in which the temperature and density are infinitely high. Of course, one cannot really speak in physical terms about these quantities as being infinite. One usually assumes that the current law of physics did not apply then. They took hold only after the density of then. They took hold only after the density of the universe dropped below the so-called Planck density, which equals about 1094 grams per cubic centimeter.
As the universe expanded, it gradually cooled. Remnants of the primordial cosmic fire still surrounds us in the form of the microwave background radiation. This radiation indicates that the temperature of the universe has dropped to 2.7 kelvins. The 1965 discovery of this background radiation proved to be the crucial evidence in establishing the big bang theory as the preeminent theory of cosmology. The big bang theory also explained the abundances of hydrogen, helium, and other elements in the universe.[br./]As investigators developed the theory, they uncovered complications. For example, the standard big bang theory, coupled with the modern theory of elementary particles, predicts the existence of many super-heavy particles carrying magnetic charge—that is, objects that have only one magnetic pole. These magnetic monopoles would have a typical mass
times that of the proton, or about 0.00001 milligram. According to the standard big bang theory, monopoles should have emerged very early in the evolution of the universe and should now be as abundant as protons. In that case, the mean density of matter in the universe would be about 15 orders of magnitude greater than its present value, which is about 
grams per cubic centimeter.
Cosmologists did not arbitrarily invent this rather peculiar vision of the universe. Several workers, first in Russia and later in the U.S., proposed the inflationary hypothesis that is the basis of its foundation. We did so to solve some of the complications left by the old big bang theory. In its standard form, the big bang theory maintains that the universe was born about 15 billion years ago from a cosmological singularity—a state in which the temperature and density are infinitely high. Of course, one cannot really speak in physical terms about these quantities as being infinite. One usually assumes that the current law of physics did not apply then. They took hold only after the density of then. They took hold only after the density of the universe dropped below the so-called Planck density, which equals about 1094 grams per cubic centimeter.
As the universe expanded, it gradually cooled. Remnants of the primordial cosmic fire still surrounds us in the form of the microwave background radiation. This radiation indicates that the temperature of the universe has dropped to 2.7 kelvins. The 1965 discovery of this background radiation proved to be the crucial evidence in establishing the big bang theory as the preeminent theory of cosmology. The big bang theory also explained the abundances of hydrogen, helium, and other elements in the universe.[br./]As investigators developed the theory, they uncovered complications. For example, the standard big bang theory, coupled with the modern theory of elementary particles, predicts the existence of many super-heavy particles carrying magnetic charge—that is, objects that have only one magnetic pole. These magnetic monopoles would have a typical mass
times that of the proton, or about 0.00001 milligram. According to the standard big bang theory, monopoles should have emerged very early in the evolution of the universe and should now be as abundant as protons. In that case, the mean density of matter in the universe would be about 15 orders of magnitude greater than its present value, which is about grams per cubic centimeter.