Million dollars for inflation theory

Russian-speaking theoretical physicists Andrei Linde and Aleksey Starobinsky became laureates of the Kavli Prize in the field of astrophysics. Together with the third laureate in this field - Alan Gut, a prize of $ 1 million was awarded for the literally "innovative theory of space inflation."

The inflation theory developed at the beginning of the 70-80s. American theoretical physicist Alan Gut and Soviet physicists Andrei Linda and Alexei Starobinsky (RAS), makes significant changes to the theory of the hot Universe of American physicist of Soviet origin George Gamov. In particular, in order to explain the phenomenal homogeneity of the Universe and its “plane”, they introduced the principle of inflation - the ultrafast expansion of the Universe at the initial stage of its existence.
The reason for the award was the work of the Bicep2 project, which found in relict radiation a direct confirmation of the inflationary period in the history of the Universe - traces of gravitational waves from the Big Bang.

The Kavli Prize is a scientific prize, awarded once every two years, starting in 2008, for outstanding achievements in astrophysics, nanotechnology and neurology. Laureates are awarded a medal and a prize of $ 1 million from the Kavli Foundation.
Established by Norwegian philanthropist Fred Kavli in 2007. The prize is positioned as an alternative to the Nobel Prize.

“I decided to support three areas of science: one deals with the largest, the other with the smallest, and the third with the most complex.” Fred Cavley.

I sincerely want to congratulate the laureates for the well-deserved prize, and pay tribute to Soviet physics, who brought up such minds.

Well, as an intellectual dessert, I advise you to listen to (or read, if you wish) a popular science lecture by Andrey Linde on the theory of inflation and modern cosmology, organized at the P.N. Lebedev Russian Academy of Sciences (Lebedev Physical Institute) in 2007: The Many Faces of the Universe .