Toshifumi Noumi

In the first moments after the Big Bang, the Universe hummed like a bell. Inflation, the epoch of rapid expansion confirmed by measurements of the cosmic microwave background, ended, and the inflaton field began oscillating around the minimum of its potential.

A sheet of paper stretches rapidly in all directions. On it are drawn tiny arrow-particles, and the stretching makes them move and interact differently than they would on a stationary table. That's roughly how space behaves in an expanding universe, where curvature isn't just an abstraction but a real factor influencing the very foundations of matter.