Cosmic Inflation Is Dead

For 35 years the paradigm of "inflation" has dominated studies of the universe. In 1979 Alan Guth and others first speculated that the early universe, at a time of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second, expanded many times faster than light and then stopped. Astronomers searched in vain for any evidence that inflation happened.; In March 2014 the BICEP2 experiment announced to great fanfare the "smoking gun" proof of infl;ation, graviatiional waves from the Big Bang. This weekend news came out that the "evidence" for inflation is just dust. The paradigm is dead.