A potent mix of hard-won data and rarefied abstract mathematical physics, the standard model of cosmology is rightfully understood as a triumph of human ingenuity. It has its origins in Edwin Hubble’s discovery in the 1920s that the universe was expanding — the first piece of evidence for the Big Bang. Over the past 60 years, cosmology has become ever more precise in its ability to account for the best available data about the universe. Cosmic inflation is an example of yet another exotic adjustment made to the standard model. There is nothing inherently fishy about these features of the standard model.

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Persons: Edwin Hubble’s, can’t