PhilosophersAlexander Vilenkin
Alexander Vilenkin
A cosmologist who proposed in 1982 that a universe could arise by quantum tunnelling from "nothing".
Empiricism1949 United StatesKharkiv (Ukraine)
Life
Alexander Vilenkin, born in 1949 in Kharkiv, is a theoretical physicist and professor at Tufts University. In 1982 he proposed that a universe could arise by quantum tunnelling from "nothing". With Borde and Guth he proved in 2003 that a universe that is expanding on average cannot have an infinite past. These results feed the debate on the beginning of the universe and on the cosmological argument.
Main works
1982
Creation of universes from nothing
Proposes that a universe arises by quantum tunnelling from "nothing" (physics paper).
2003
Inflationary Spacetimes Are Incomplete in Past Directions
Theorem (Borde, Guth, Vilenkin): a spacetime that is expanding on average cannot be past-infinite.
2006
Many Worlds in One
A popular book on eternal inflation and the multiverse.