Alexander Vilenkin

As an undergraduate studying physics at the University of Kharkiv, Vilenkin turned down collaborator offer from the KGB, causing him to be blacklisted from pursuing a graduate degree.MENCONI, DAVID. "[http://emerald.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/winter2010/planet-tufts/siberian.html TO FIND HERSELF AS A MUSICIAN, ALINA SIMONE FIRST HAD TO FIND HER RUSSIAN ROOTS] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171117182649/http://emerald.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/winter2010/planet-tufts/siberian.html |date=November 17, 2017 }}", Tufts Magazine, 2010.Freedman, David H. "[http://discovermagazine.com/1996/feb/themediocreunive694/ 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. "[https://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/april1/hofstadter-lecture-tufts-cosmologist-alexander-vilenkin-040109.html Physicist: Universes pop up ad infinitum]", Stanford News, 01 April 2009.{{Cite web |date=2009-12-12 |title=John Templeton Foundation |url=http://www.templeton.org/humble_approach_initiative/Multiverse_and_String_Theory/vilenkin.htm |access-date=2024-11-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091212011437/http://www.templeton.org/humble_approach_initiative/Multiverse_and_String_Theory/vilenkin.htm |archive-date=December 12, 2009 }}

In 1976, Vilenkin immigrated to the United States as a Jewish refugee, obtaining his Ph.D. at SUNY Buffalo. His work has been featured in numerous newspaper and magazine articles in the United States, Europe, Soviet Union, and Japan, and in many popular books.{{citation needed|date=July 2018}}

Vilenkin is the father of writer and musician Alina Simone.

In 1982, Paul Steinhardt presented the first model of eternal inflation, Vilenkin showed that eternal inflation is generic.{{cite journal | last1 = Vilenkin | first1 = Alexander | year = 1983 | title = Birth of Inflationary Universes | url = http://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.27.2848 | journal = Phys. Rev. D | volume = 27 | issue = 12 | pages = 2848–2855 | doi = 10.1103/PhysRevD.27.2848|bibcode = 1983PhRvD..27.2848V | url-access = subscription }} Furthermore, working with Arvind Borde and Alan Guth, he developed the Borde–Guth–Vilenkin theorem, showing that a period of inflation must have a beginning and that a period of time must precede it.{{cite journal|last1=Borde|first1=Arvind|last2=Guth|first2=Alan|last3=Vilenkin|first3=Alexander|year=2003|title=Inflationary Spacetimes Are Incomplete in Past Directions|url=http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.151301|journal=Phys. Rev. Lett.|volume=90|issue=15|page=151301|arxiv=gr-qc/0110012|bibcode=2003PhRvL..90o1301B|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.151301|pmid=12732026|s2cid=46902994}} 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's idea of quantum creation of the universe from a quantum vacuum.{{Cite journal|last=Alexander|first=Vilenkin|title=Creation of Universes from Nothing|url=https://mm-gold.azureedge.net/science/physics/a_vilinkin/universe_from_nothing.pdf|journal=Physics Letters|volume=117B|pages=25–28}}{{Dead link|date=April 2025}}

He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society 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". {{cite web|url=https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships/archive-all.cfm?initial=&year=1989&unit_id=&institution=|title=APS Fellow Archive|publisher=APS|access-date= 5 October 2020}}

• 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)

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• [http://inspirehep.net/search?p=exactauthor%3AA.Vilenkin.1&sf=earliestdate Publications of Alexander Vilenkin] @ INSPIRE-HEP
• [http://thoughtcast.org/casts/the-end-of-our-universe-among-other-timely-topics 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 program [http://www.thoughtcast.org ThoughtCast.]
• [https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0110012 Inflationary spacetimes are not past-complete]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20131101051304/http://newbooksinastronomy.com/2011/04/01/alex-vilenkin-many-worlds-in-one-the-search-for-other-universes-hill-and-wang-2006/ Interview] with Vilenkin on "New Books in Astronomy"
• [https://www.magiscenter.com/did-the-universe-have-a-beginning-alexander-vilenkin/ Lecture] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190222003825/https://www.magiscenter.com/did-the-universe-have-a-beginning-alexander-vilenkin/ |date=February 22, 2019 }} by Vilenkin on "Proving the Universe Had a Beginning"

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Category:1949 births

Category:Living people

Category:20th-century Ukrainian physicists

Category:21st-century American physicists

Category:Soviet emigrants to the United States

Category:National University of Kharkiv alumni

Category:University at Buffalo alumni

Category:Tufts University faculty

Category:American cosmologists

Category:Fellows of the American Physical Society