Alexander Vilenkin (russian: Алекса́ндр Виле́нкин; uk, Олександр Віленкін; born 13 May 1949) is the Leonard Jane Holmes Bernstein Professor of Evolutionary Science and Director of the Institute of Cosmology at

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...

. A

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experimen ...

who has been working in the field of

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount (lexicographer), Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in ...

for 25 years, Vilenkin has written over 260 publications.

Biography

As an undergraduate studying physics at the

University of Kharkiv The Kharkiv University or Karazin University ( uk, Каразінський університет), or officially V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University ( uk, Харківський національний університет імені ...

, Vilenkin turned down a job offer from the

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

, causing him to be blacklisted from pursuing a graduate degree.MENCONI, DAVID.
TO FIND HERSELF AS A MUSICIAN, ALINA SIMONE FIRST HAD TO FIND HER RUSSIAN ROOTS
", Tufts Magazine, 2010.Freedman, David H.
The Mediocre Universe
, Discover Magazine, 01 February 1996. Then he was drafted into a building brigade and later worked at the state zoo as a night watchman while conducting physics research in his spare time.STOBER, DAN.
Physicist: Universes pop up ad infinitum
, Stanford News, 01 April 2009. In 1976, Vilenkin immigrated to the United States as a Jewish refugee, obtaining his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

at Buffalo. His work has been featured in numerous newspaper and magazine articles in the United States, Europe,

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, and Japan, and in many popular books.

Work

In 1982,

Paul Steinhardt Paul Joseph Steinhardt (born December 25, 1952) is an American theoretical physicist whose principal research is in cosmology and condensed matter physics. He is currently the Albert Einstein Professor in Science at Princeton University, where he ...

presented the first model of

eternal inflation Eternal inflation is a hypothetical inflationary universe model, which is itself an outgrowth or extension of the Big Bang theory. According to eternal inflation, the inflationary phase of the universe's expansion lasts forever throughout most of ...

, Vilenkin showed that eternal inflation is generic. Furthermore, working with Arvind Borde and

Alan Guth Alan Harvey Guth (; born February 27, 1947) is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist. Guth has researched elementary particle theory (and how particle theory is applicable to the early universe). He is Victor Weisskopf Professor of ...

, he developed the Borde–Guth–Vilenkin theorem, showing that a period of

inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reductio ...

must have a beginning and that a period of time must precede it. This represents a problem for the theory of inflation because, without a theory to explain conditions before inflation, it is not possible to determine how likely it is for inflation to have occurred. He also further developed

Edward P. Tryon Edward P. Tryon (September 4, 1940 – December 11, 2019) was an American scientist and a professor emeritus of physics at Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY). He was the first physicist to propose that our universe originat ...

's idea of quantum creation of the

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. Acc ...

from a

quantum vacuum In quantum field theory, the quantum vacuum state (also called the quantum vacuum or vacuum state) is the quantum state with the lowest possible energy. Generally, it contains no physical particles. The word zero-point field is sometimes used as ...

. He was elected a

Fellow of the American Physical Society The American Physical Society honors members with the designation ''Fellow'' for having made significant accomplishments to the field of physics. The following lists are divided chronologically by the year of designation. * List of American Physic ...

in 1989 ''"for pioneering research in the application of particle physics to cosmology, and in particular for seminal contributions in the areas of cosmic strings and quantum cosmology"''.

Books

*''Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes'' A. Vilenkin (Macmillan, July 2006) *''Cosmic Strings and Other Topological Defects'' by A. Vilenkin, E. P. S. Shellard (paperback – July 31, 2000)

References

External links

Publications of Alexander Vilenkin
@

INSPIRE-HEP INSPIRE-HEP is an open access digital library for the field of high energy physics (HEP). It is the successor of the Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System (SPIRES) database, the main literature database for high energy physics since the 1970 ...

Interview with Tufts cosmologist Alex Vilenkin
on his new book, "Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes" on the podcast and public radio interview progra
ThoughtCast.

Inflationary spacetimes are not past-complete

Interview
with Vilenkin on "New Books in Astronomy"
Lecture
by Vilenkin on "Proving the Universe Had a Beginning" {{DEFAULTSORT:Vilenkin 1949 births Living people 20th-century Ukrainian physicists 21st-century American physicists Soviet emigrants to the United States National University of Kharkiv alumni University at Buffalo alumni Tufts University faculty American cosmologists Fellows of the American Physical Society