Andrei Linde

Andrei Dmitrievich Linde (Андре́й Дми́триевич Ли́нде; born March 2, 1948) is a Russian-American theoretical physicist, known as a pioneer of inflationary cosmology.

Andrei Linde in 2008

Quotes

• Many scientists are still ashamed of using the anthropic principle. Just as the friends of Harry Potter were afraid of using the name 'Voldemort', the opponents of the anthropic principle often say that they do not want to use the 'A' in their research.
  • (2007). Chapter 8. "The inflationary multiverse". In: Bernard Carr (ed.), Universe or Multiverse? (pp. 127-150). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781107050990.010 (quote from p. 128)

• The best available explanation of the observed uniformity of the universe is provided by inflation. However, as soon as this mechanism was proposed, it was realized that inflation, while explaining why our part of the world is so uniform, does not predict that this uniformity must extend to the whole universe ...
  • (2015). Chapter 6. "Inflationary cosmology after Planck ". In: Cédric Deffayet, Patrick Peter, Benjamin Wandelt, Matías Zaldarriaga, Leticia F. Cugliandolo (eds.), Post-Planck Cosmology: Lecture Notes of the Les Houches Summer School: Volume 100, July 2013 (pp. 230–316). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198728856.003.0006 (quote from 247)

• The theory of the inflationary multiverse changes the way we think about our place in the world. According to its most popular version, our world may consist of infinitely many exponentially large parts, exhibiting different sets of low-energy laws of physics. Since these parts are extremely large, the interior of each of them behaves as if it were a separate universe, practically unaffected by the rest of the world. This picture, combined with the theory of eternal inflation and anthropic considerations, may help to solve many difficult problems of modern physics, including the cosmological constant problem.
  • (2017) "A brief history of the multiverse". Reports on Progress in Physics 80 (2). DOI:10.1088/1361-6633/aa50e4.

• Why is our universe so homogeneous?
  Why is it not exactly homogeneous?
  Why is it isotropic (same in all directions)?
  Why all of its parts started expanding simultaneously?
  Why is if flat (Ω = 1)?
  Why is it so large?
                                          Answered by inflation
  • (June 2, 2017, recorded at the World Science Festival in New York City) (February 17, 2021)"WSU master Class: Universe or Multiverse? with Andre Linde". World Science U, YouTube. (quote at 3:04 of 1:02:58 in video)

• ... We live for a while in some state which is called false vacuum ... there is no preferable coordinate system ... there is no preferable choice of time ...
  • (May 14, 2023)"Andrei Linde: Inflation, Multiverse, and all that, from Mr. Eternal Inflation". The Origins Podcast, YouTube. (quote at 1:19:18 of 3:00:31)

External links

Encyclopedic article on Andrei Linde on Wikipedia