  Inflation has been the driving idea in cosmology for two decades and is a
pillar of the New Cosmology. The inflationary paradigm has now passed its first
round of significant tests, with two of its three basics predictions confirmed
at about the 10% level. The Inflationary Paradigm has some of the truth. Over
the next decade the precision of these tests, most of which involve
measurements of CMB anisotropy and polarization, will improve 30 fold or
more(!), testing inflation more sharply and possibly elucidating the underlying
cause. Especially important in this regard is detecting the inflation-produced
gravitational waves, either directly or through their CMB polarization
signature. While inflation has by no means been verified, its successes have
raised the bar for competitor theories: Any alternative must feature the two
hallmarks of inflation: superluminal expansion and entropy production.
