2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/77434In 1968, Milnor conjectured that a complete noncompact manifold with nonnegative Ricci curvature has a finitely generated fundamental group. The author applies the Excess Theorem of Abresch and Gromoll (1990), to prove two theorems. The first states that if such a manifold has small linear diameter growth then its fundamental group is finitely generated. The second states that if such a manifold has an infinitely generated fundamental group then it has a tangent cone at infinity which is not polar. A corollary of either theorem is the fact that if such a manifold has linear volume growth, then its fundamental group is finitely generated.12 pages, figures available from author sormani@math.jhu.eduDifferential Geometry53C21text