How is the Universe Expanding?

[Rhondazvous]

Everything that Alex said but he didn't touch on some of the implications. The expansive force is increasing space at a rate equivalent to a speed greater than the speed of light. That means we're living in a curious time when we're lucky enough to still be able to detect other galaxies. There will come a time when conglomerations of matter will be so far apart, an observer in one would see no others. Cosmology would be all but impossible. This will happen long before the heat death of the universe, too.

In related matters, the latest experiments to discover the Inflaton, the elusive particle predicted to be responsible for universal inflation, have failed so utterly as to rubbish all predictions. The Inflaton, if it exists at all, is nothing like it needs to be to make our current models work. That means our current models reliant on its existence are probably utterly wrong.

Not necessarily. Whatever force is causing this inflation is very different from the forces that affect particles and energy. We know this because the movement is different. The rubber band is moving outward, while the particles and energies we observe move in circular, elliptic or spiral orbits around some center.

Just because Einstein's curve may not apply to the expansion, doesn't mean it's useless in explaining the orbital world. Scientists haven't thrown the standard model out because it's still useful in its own sphere. In the meantime, we search for the holy grail—a grand unified theory that has no sphere.