0:00

Hello

0:08

and welcome to the Origins Podcast.

0:11

I'm your host, Lawrence Krauss. This

0:13

episode of the podcast is with the groundbreaking

0:16

and entertaining and charming cosmologist

0:19

and particle physicist, André Linde

0:21

at Stanford University. André is

0:23

one of the leaders and

0:26

founders or developers of

0:28

the modern theory of inflation, the

0:30

best theory for understanding the beginning

0:32

of the universe. And

0:35

we had a comprehensive and delightful discussion

0:37

of his own background, which is fascinating. André

0:40

grew up in Moscow. His parents were

0:42

both professors at Moscow

0:44

State University. We talked about those experiences

0:47

growing up from just after the war, he

0:49

was born in the Soviet

0:51

Union, about his experiences developing

0:53

the theory of inflation, both internally within Russia

1:02

and interacting with the outside world, and then

1:04

his experiences since. All

1:06

of that was woven into a discussion of the theory

1:09

of inflation, and particularly the theory

1:11

of eternal chaotic inflation and

1:13

the multiverse. So the

1:16

podcast and the discussion provides a wealth

1:18

of information, both on the sociology

1:21

of science and an understanding of modern

1:23

cosmology. I really hope you'll enjoy

1:25

it as much as I did. And I really thank

1:28

André for taking the time out to

1:31

devote such a comprehensive discussion

1:34

on his ideas with me. You

1:36

can watch the whole thing, of course, without

1:39

advertisements on our Substack

1:42

site, Critical Mass, or

1:44

you can watch it later on on our YouTube

1:46

channel, or you can listen to it anywhere

1:49

a Bondred podcast can be listened to. Either

1:51

way, no matter how you listen to it or watch it,

1:53

I think you'll find this a fascinating dialogue.

1:57

And I hope you enjoy it with André Lende. Thanks.

2:08

Well, Andre, I can't tell you how happy

2:11

I am that you're here. It's been a

2:13

long time that I wanted to talk to you on the podcast.

2:15

I've enjoyed talking to you for

2:17

at least 30 years and every time it's fun and

2:20

I learned

2:22

something. And I also usually

2:25

tell me I'm wrong one way or another. So I'm sure

2:27

that'll happen today. Well,

2:29

I'm not so sure and I'm not so

2:31

dumb. How does it

2:33

criticize you? I'm little. Maybe

2:36

you're mellowing as you get older. And I understand

2:39

it was your 75th birthday recently. Happy birthday. Thank

2:42

you. You look

2:44

great. And soon, as I told

2:46

you when we emailed, I'll soon I'll be in that

2:48

same decade. And we'll

2:50

share that. Don't rush.

2:54

Okay. I'll try and delay it as long

2:56

as possible. I

3:00

should be clear to anyone, anyone who knows anything

3:02

about you. And if not, the

3:05

people who listen to this, what I've always

3:07

enjoyed from you is, is that

3:10

you are in my mind, one of the most imaginative

3:12

and fun cosmologists

3:15

I've known in the entire time. I've known cosmologists

3:18

and, and, and constantly kind

3:20

of reinventing new ideas, which

3:22

is, which is, is just remarkable. Often

3:25

ideas that it takes a lot of other, I know in my own case, ideas

3:27

that when I first heard

3:30

them, I went, ah, and then, and then

3:32

when you think about them,

3:34

they get more and more convincing. It's

3:37

really kind of interesting how the things you have

3:39

suggested at first, it

3:42

took a number of cases. It

3:45

took a long time for people to, to think they weren't

3:47

crazy. And, and,

3:49

and what, well, thanks. But

3:52

that's true for you as well. Well,

3:56

look, I want to, as you know, this, this

3:59

is an origins podcast.

3:59

And I like to learn about

4:02

the origins of people, people

4:04

that I'm interested in. And it gives me a chance to ask you

4:06

questions which I've never gotten to ask

4:08

you in all the time, I've known you, which

4:10

is really about your life. So I wanna talk

4:13

about that. And weaving

4:15

your life history

4:16

will allow us, I think,

4:18

to weave in the science, which

4:20

will be... So I think the two will work together.

4:23

In many people's cases, I don't think that's the case,

4:25

but in yours, they go hand in hand. You

4:27

were born in Moscow in 1948. And

4:30

I first thought about that. That was

4:32

just after World War II.

4:34

And Russia must

4:36

have been, then the Soviet

4:39

Union, in incredible straits

4:43

after having suffered

4:46

during the World War II because

4:48

of the Nazi invasion.

4:50

Do you remember when you were younger, did

4:52

any sense that there were scarcity,

4:55

or do you remember anything, or was it just

4:57

life was normal? Because as a kid, whatever

5:00

you grew up with, it seems normal.

5:03

Well, I do not remember richness,

5:06

but I also do not remember scarcity.

5:10

Maybe kids are less

5:12

sensitive

5:13

to it because they do not know what to compare

5:15

it with. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You

5:18

have fun, even if you're finding sticks or stones in

5:20

the backyard, you can always make

5:22

games. But

5:25

what I hadn't known, and I

5:27

should have, was that both of your parents

5:30

were professors of physics.

5:32

Yeah.

5:34

My mom studied cosmic

5:37

rays,

5:38

and my father was a radio

5:40

physicist. Yeah, radiation

5:43

physics. They were both

5:45

at Moscow State University as professors. No.

5:48

My father was a professor in a different

5:50

place, a radio

5:53

technical institute.

5:55

But my mother was a professor

5:57

at Moscow State University.

6:00

We'll

6:00

get there. Was she a professor when you were a student?

6:03

Well,

6:06

yeah, I think that, but I

6:08

never attended. You never took any courses from

6:10

her?

6:11

No. Okay. Okay.

6:15

It was not something which, well,

6:17

I was eager to know much except

6:20

for I read her book on nuclear

6:22

physics.

6:23

So it

6:25

was certainly content, but

6:28

mostly it was just intellectual environment. I

6:30

would say

6:31

their friends were coming to our

6:33

house. Yeah, no, we'll get there. I

6:35

want to talk, but I find this fascinating for so

6:37

many reasons.

6:38

Not least, so

6:41

they must have been, if they were professors, that were

6:43

they professors throughout the war? I

6:46

mean, have you talked to them throughout the war? No.

6:49

They were students at the beginning of the war.

6:52

And my father was just

6:54

taken from Moscow State

6:56

University and well,

6:59

sent somewhere to learn the radio physics

7:02

as an application, whatever. And

7:05

my mother decided to go fight.

7:09

So she was actually a military

7:12

pilot. She was the chief of staff

7:15

of the division of night

7:17

bombers. She was a pilot. I imagine

7:20

this. Now tell me about

7:22

me being so scary.

7:25

No. Okay. Now, it

7:27

was just the division of women

7:30

who wanted to prove that they also

7:32

can fight with Germans.

7:34

And they

7:36

decided to do it somehow. And

7:39

they organized a division

7:41

which was purely women.

7:44

Okay.

7:45

So only once

7:47

during the war, some

7:50

men who is well was supposed

7:52

to help them with radio, whatever,

7:55

became a part of this division.

7:58

days

8:01

later when they gave him his bra,

8:03

he disappeared.

8:05

He

8:10

could have identified as a woman, but we won't get

8:12

there right now. I don't want to get to that. But they

8:14

were pretty successful in what they

8:17

were doing. They were flying only

8:19

on night,

8:20

on very light airplanes. But

8:22

she was actually a pilot.

8:24

She was flying,

8:26

but not often. She

8:30

was the chief of staff of the division.

8:33

Because she was from the university, they

8:36

decided that we must use

8:38

her like an intellectual force.

8:41

And that's how it was.

8:44

And after the war, she had written

8:46

a book about this.

8:49

But did she have a pilot's license?

8:51

Did she have her fly afterwards or no? I

8:54

don't know whether they had

8:57

licenses for that, but surely

8:59

she was flying.

9:00

Yes. Wow. But she

9:02

never took you up in the air afterwards when you were younger.

9:05

Well, no, she didn't. But

9:08

still, this begs a whole bunch of

9:10

questions. Not only that, just that she

9:12

was in this amazing regiment, but she

9:14

must have studied physics. Maybe

9:17

it wasn't that

9:19

unusual for women to study science back

9:21

then, or was she very unique?

9:23

Well, I do not know statistics

9:26

of that time, but I know

9:29

lots of her women friends who

9:31

studied with her. Only

9:35

one or two, which were not

9:37

her friends at that time, left

9:41

Moscow University at the beginning of the war and

9:43

went to front. But

9:46

there are quite a few people whom I've seen later.

9:51

In fact, they were

9:54

studying physics at Moscow University in

9:56

the same year in the similar groups

9:58

with Andrei Sakharov.

10:00

So usually

10:03

when she would say, oh, Andre said so, and

10:05

sometimes she meant me, sometimes she meant

10:07

Sakharov. Did,

10:10

wow, okay. So she

10:13

went back to school after the war, but

10:16

she was a professor by 19, when you were already

10:18

born, right? So she must have graduated.

10:21

No, no, no, she became a professor in West

10:23

Loyola because she was a student

10:25

at the beginning of the war. And she was a student

10:27

when you were born?

10:29

And after

10:31

that, she will go to PhD

10:33

and stuff, and

10:37

long story. Did you, yeah,

10:39

there's lots of, anyway, well, I might ask

10:41

some more things, but I find this fascinating. So

10:44

she was a student same time as Sakharov. Did you ever

10:46

meet Sakharov?

10:47

Many times. I

10:50

was visiting him in Gorky when

10:52

he was in exile.

10:54

He was part

10:56

of our Liberty Physical

10:58

Institute theory in group.

11:00

Oh, okay, when he was there. Second name,

11:03

you know, my name is Andrei Dimitri,

11:05

which is the name

11:08

of my father, Dimitri, okay?

11:11

And he was also Andrei Dimitri, which

11:14

was this funny story among, well,

11:17

somebody from our level of Institute

11:20

saying that, if you go along the

11:22

corridor of our Institute

11:25

and you see two

11:28

Andrei Dimitri each, this means

11:30

you're drunk, okay? But

11:34

the reality is that, well, yeah,

11:36

for authorities

11:39

of our Institute, one Andrei Dimitri,

11:41

and I mean Sakharov, was already too much.

11:44

We are trying to

11:46

help him to survive during this time. Because

11:49

he was under the pressure, and

11:52

our group, because of that, was under

11:54

the pressure, because we were supposed

11:56

to,

11:58

like, for example,

11:59

if you... want to go abroad, okay?

12:01

You must admit

12:05

that Sakharov is anti-Saricic.

12:07

And okay, what does it mean? This

12:10

means that the enemy of Soviet Union

12:12

and what the

12:14

in simple terms that he's an enemy

12:16

of people.

12:17

And so if you want to go abroad,

12:20

oh, okay, so these

12:23

I even remember how

12:25

it was in my case and that was really

12:27

ridiculous. But okay,

12:30

it's a long story. If I wish, if I

12:32

can tell you about this, eventually

12:35

I did not say that. Okay.

12:38

And but it was,

12:40

you know, one of the reasons

12:42

why I decided to go to US.

12:45

Well, we'll get there. We get I was

12:47

gonna ask about the reasons you decided to go to the US. And

12:49

I mean, they were presumably law, but I want to I want

12:51

to get there. That's a while away from where we'll start.

12:54

But it must have that's one of the

12:57

in retrospect, you

12:59

know, I actually, by the way, the first time I

13:01

visited the Soviet Union, believe it or not

13:04

was 1967. In

13:06

the 50th anniversary of the revolution, I was there when

13:08

I was 13 years old. It was a it

13:10

was like a different world for me.

13:13

But one thing I learned at the time, and I

13:15

also learned it even when I was a student and and

13:17

Soviet scientists periodically would come

13:19

visit when I was at MIT. There

13:23

were some well known

13:24

Soviet scientists who were sufficiently

13:27

well integrated into

13:29

the Communist Party that they were allowed to travel frequently.

13:34

Fidea, I think, for example, but

13:37

I learned then that that the

13:40

ability of Russians to

13:42

say what whatever was necessary,

13:45

knowing they didn't believe it, but you

13:47

know, knowing that the official line

13:50

that they were required to adhere to was nonsense.

13:53

And they just did it but but everyone realized

13:55

it was nonsense. And I

13:58

think it depends.

13:59

my friends, nobody

14:02

did it.

14:06

Well, you know, the reason I'm thinking about that is

14:08

that there's a there are there's a trend in universities

14:10

now which I've criticized to require

14:12

people to require young faculty

14:15

and students to make claims

14:17

about things like diversity that that

14:20

and their and their adherence to these certain

14:22

principles that they may or may not agree

14:24

to, but everyone has to do it to become a member

14:26

of the faculty. And it reminded me of Russia when when

14:29

when it was younger that everyone had to make these claims that Sakharov

14:32

was an enemy of the state even though they didn't believe it, but in

14:34

order to get a position they had to. Well,

14:38

I would not compare it yet.

14:40

Okay, you wouldn't. Okay, it's funny because

14:42

I have some friends. One of mine is a she's

14:45

a Russian chemist at USC, who

14:47

was who was educated

14:49

in Russia. And she said there's she might, she

14:52

often talks to me about in her mind the

14:54

similarities, but but maybe you don't feel them so

14:56

much. Well, I mean, I was

14:59

this Liberty Physical Institute.

15:02

It was like a

15:04

small island. Oh, surrounded

15:07

by a big

15:09

Institute. So the big Institute

15:12

had a party committee, whatever. And

15:14

we were

15:16

more or less a small, well,

15:18

small, we were quite, quite a large

15:21

organization. The division

15:23

was about maybe 30 professors,

15:26

but

15:28

we were able to,

15:30

okay, I can tell

15:33

you what Ginsburg said about

15:35

that time. And you know, academic

15:39

Ginsburg, of course, Nobel

15:41

laureate, later, later, he

15:44

was one of the inventors of theory superconductivity.

15:47

And he did not means words.

15:50

So when he said, and a long time,

15:53

well, after already all these times

15:55

when Sakharov was let go back

15:57

to Moscow, etc. He was was

16:00

talking at our professors

16:03

meeting, saying something

16:06

about that.

16:07

And we went through

16:09

a difficult time. And during

16:11

this time, we had

16:13

a success so that there is

16:15

no, and then he

16:18

said something in the Russian, well, suolach, no

16:20

suolach in

16:21

our theory division during

16:26

this time, which was quite an achievement.

16:29

That is correct. Okay,

16:32

well, that's great. I mean, but before

16:34

we get to your own time in the Institute,

16:38

I want to go back in time for you still. With

16:40

both your parents being scientists,

16:44

was it assumed that you would be, or that you'd go

16:46

into science? I

16:48

know you were interested in geology, we'll get to there. But

16:51

what got you, was it assumed you would be interested in

16:53

science or did you get interested just simply because of

16:55

the atmosphere in which you grew up

16:58

in or your reading? Did you ever

17:00

think of doing anything other than science or

17:02

did your parents encourage anything or did they just

17:04

encourage you to do whatever you wanted? I did

17:07

not think about

17:08

becoming a scientist. It

17:11

all started for me quite spontaneous

17:14

when I was in the fields grade.

17:16

I suddenly got interested in geology

17:18

and that was it.

17:19

What got you interested in geology though? Oh,

17:22

well, these precious minerals,

17:24

travel and everything. I

17:27

was well, walking in

17:29

the wilderness with a big back sack and

17:32

to make this more difficult, I put

17:34

the stones in my

17:37

backstacks to be stronger,

17:40

whatever. Oh, interesting.

17:42

Yeah, so that explains it. Oh,

17:45

that's interesting. And so your parents

17:48

didn't say, oh, don't be a geologist,

17:49

be a physicist. They were happy

17:52

with whatever you did. They never did. Well,

17:54

they did something

17:56

which was much more clever.

17:59

because

18:02

there were two of them professors,

18:05

they managed to buy a car.

18:07

And they traveled

18:09

on this car with me on the backseat

18:12

from Moscow to,

18:14

of all places to Crimea,

18:17

which was at that time. Yeah,

18:20

yes. Okay. And

18:23

this was a very, very, very long drive.

18:26

So I was in the backseat

18:28

and they gave me

18:30

two books. I was at that time just

18:33

graduated from seventh grade

18:36

school and they gave me two books to

18:38

read.

18:39

The first one was about astrophysics.

18:42

And the second one was

18:45

special theory of relativity. You

18:48

know, just the last time.

18:51

It's a nice thing to give a someone

18:53

in seventh grade. Because I

18:55

kind of isolated, cannot do anything

18:58

at all. Yeah. This is an entertainment.

19:01

And when I finished,

19:03

when we arrived, and it was like

19:06

a week, when we arrived

19:08

in Crimea, I felt horrible

19:11

because you know, my only climb

19:13

to fame in my

19:15

school was already in the fifth grade,

19:18

I already feel great. I already know my

19:20

future professional and geologist.

19:22

And now I am not a

19:24

geologist anymore because

19:27

this is so much

19:29

more interesting. But now

19:31

I must come to school and say,

19:34

boys, I am a traitor.

19:36

Okay. And so I did. That

19:39

explains it because I was reading a biography

19:42

of you. And you said that you felt like a traitor

19:45

when you decided not to do geology. And I thought, why would

19:47

you feel like a traitor? Your parents were physicists. Because

19:49

it's enough of my life, geology. You

19:52

just, well. Yeah. Now I understand

19:54

it. Now, let me, you

19:57

have a brother. Do you have any, you

19:59

have a brother.

19:59

a psychologist? Is that right? Yeah.

20:02

Is it just the two of you? Yeah.

20:04

Okay. Was he in the back seat too?

20:07

No.

20:08

He was older than you or? He was three

20:10

years younger. He didn't come.

20:12

Yeah.

20:13

No, he didn't come. So he might have been

20:15

a physicist if he'd been able to read those books too

20:17

then maybe. It's

20:20

just, you know, it's selective

20:23

enjoyment. Yes, yeah. Now

20:26

they kind of knew you would probably enjoy the books. But

20:29

one thing I was going to ask you, there are probably Russian books, but were

20:31

any of them books by any scientist I would know

20:34

or not? The

20:38

short book was by Landau

20:40

and somebody. Oh, by

20:42

Landau. Of course. But this was

20:43

a popular book. Yeah, I

20:45

didn't realize Landau wrote popular books. That's wonderful.

20:48

Well,

20:50

and another one, Astra,

20:52

it was just a popular book.

20:54

Yeah, don't say just a popular book. As you know,

20:56

I like popular books. I write them. No,

21:01

I think because it changes youth.

21:04

Well, it does what it did for you. I mean,

21:06

for me, the great joy,

21:08

the greatest, one of the greatest joys. Well, first

21:10

of all, for me as a young person, it was reading those

21:12

books that made me want to do science just like yourself.

21:15

But the greatest thrills now is just

21:17

meet grown up

21:19

men and women who are physicists who

21:21

say they'd read a book of mine when they were younger,

21:23

because I'm old enough now, like you,

21:26

that they have decided to become a physicist.

21:29

Just wait until they come. Oh, you are still

21:31

alive. Okay,

21:35

but anyway, so that's great. And you read a book by Landau.

21:37

That's wonderful. So the

21:41

joy of, did they encourage you to read a lot?

21:43

By the way, I'm often interested. Did you read a lot of books

21:45

when you were younger? Or was it just a few?

21:48

I think I was just swallowing the

21:50

books because I loved it. It

21:52

was not necessary

21:54

to encourage me.

21:56

Oh, I don't know. Just

21:59

I don't.

21:59

anybody pressing me doing

22:02

anything in fact. That was

22:04

an interesting environment because

22:07

they kind of created an environment

22:09

where I was

22:13

maybe softly

22:15

doing something which was somewhere in

22:18

the background. But I never

22:20

was under the pressure that

22:23

I must

22:25

perform.

22:28

Well that's good but also everything I know about

22:30

me tells you that even if you were under pressure it would have

22:32

had no difference whatsoever. That

22:34

you do what you want to do regardless of the pressure as

22:36

far as I can tell that's one of your

22:38

characteristics. Maybe I would do otherwise.

22:41

In fact, if you were pressed to

22:43

do one thing you might do the other just out of just

22:46

out of obstinacy if I

22:48

know you well enough. But

22:51

you never thought of doing something other than science

22:53

like literature or history or anything like

22:55

that. That was

22:57

not an interest. Well there

22:59

was a period in my life when I

23:02

enjoyed to paint

23:04

slightly. But

23:07

it was not serious.

23:09

At the moment I took

23:11

some lessons for a while from

23:14

one really good painter.

23:16

And when somebody told my

23:18

parents, oh, your son is going to be

23:20

a painter. This

23:22

was the last time I went to

23:24

this person for a

23:27

class. So they did have a subtle

23:29

influence one way or another. Well it's true. Painters

23:31

it's hard to get to make a living as a painter. Now

23:36

when you were young, the last thing

23:40

I want to talk about that period before he became a geologist

23:42

is Stalin was still in power right? And

23:44

so do you remember that?

23:47

That time I did not imprint on my

23:50

memory because it was

23:53

well in the beginning of the fifties he was

23:55

already out. And at that

23:58

time I was not caring.

23:59

who

24:00

will leave the

24:02

outside of my house.

24:04

Yeah. Okay. Okay. I just wondered about that.

24:07

You were no longer interested in geology

24:10

and decided to, you wanted

24:12

to do physics as a trader. But,

24:15

and did you, so you

24:18

continued high school. I wonder what

24:20

high school was like there. Were you allowed to specialize

24:22

already? I mean, in England, like in England, you can specialize.

24:25

In the United States, you have to take all these courses. But,

24:28

but in high school, did you just focus on physics

24:30

and science or? Well, when

24:32

I was in the eighth grade, it

24:34

was not specialized and it was pretty mediocre.

24:38

In a nice ninth grade,

24:41

there was already like an exam

24:44

before you go to this. It was math-oriented

24:47

school. Actually, it

24:50

consists of three different classes, two

24:52

of them math and computing.

24:55

And the third

24:57

one was mostly girls

25:00

studying music and art, etc. It

25:02

was really strange combination.

25:06

But yeah.

25:08

So, so. It was excellent school. It

25:10

was an excellent, it was an excellent, it was a specialized high

25:12

school. It was an excellent high school.

25:14

Yeah. And then, and then, so that was,

25:16

that was your experience and you

25:18

went to an excellent high school. And,

25:22

and you knew already your ability

25:24

in mathematics. Did you have colleagues?

25:26

Did you have friends who were interested

25:28

in science that later became scientists?

25:31

Or were you? In

25:33

the school, I had my friend who

25:35

later, together with me, entered

25:38

Moscow State University. We were studying

25:41

together with him.

25:42

But then

25:45

it's just different people have different,

25:48

well, I did you how

25:50

exactly they, what they should

25:52

follow and for how long.

25:55

Okay. Yeah. Now you,

25:57

okay. So you graduated from high school and

25:59

you. I was wondering, I

26:02

don't know about the district, I knew about enough

26:05

in my area about the different institutes in Russia,

26:07

but you went to Moscow State University, was there any choice?

26:10

Did you decide that was gonna where you

26:12

go because your parents were there or was

26:14

it the best school or was it just a matter

26:16

of being nearby or what? It was a best

26:18

school.

26:19

There was a comparable

26:22

school far

26:24

away from,

26:25

well, not far away, near Moscow,

26:29

near those physical technical institute, which was

26:32

and continue being very, very good.

26:34

But for me,

26:37

Moscow University seemed natural. When

26:40

I was a geologist, I

26:42

attended some groups of people in

26:44

geological department coming

26:47

there. So it was natural

26:49

for me to go there.

26:50

Sure, sure, sure. And you're able, at university,

26:53

you're able to focus right away on physics.

26:55

You didn't have to take abroad. Mostly

26:59

the first phase of mathematics and everything

27:01

else you do whatever you want.

27:03

Yeah, just, okay, so that, yeah, more like

27:05

England in that sense that you could focus early on on

27:07

your interests rather than spread out.

27:09

Now, this was during, I was working

27:11

out the ages. So you were born in 1948, so

27:14

you must have entered university around,

27:17

probably 1964 or so or 65 or something

27:18

like that. Yeah,

27:23

yeah. And that was sort of still the height

27:25

of the Cold War. And

27:28

do you remember, for example, I'm just asking

27:30

because I don't think I've ever asked anyone

27:33

I've known from Soviet Union at that time. Do

27:35

you remember, for example, the Cuban Missile Crisis

27:37

when you were in high school? Was that a big deal?

27:39

Well, for me, it

27:41

was, I have my life around,

27:44

okay. I did not understand what

27:46

is going on. But what I do remember

27:49

when I was in Moscow University in 68

27:51

when Russians will put the

27:52

army to Czechoslovakia.

27:59

This is... is something which I remember

28:01

very well.

28:02

And it was not very pleasant.

28:05

Okay. Were you already a sort of a dissident

28:07

in your mind at that time? Officer

28:10

came to give a lecture, you know,

28:12

group explaining how

28:14

necessary it was because you know,

28:17

well comrades,

28:18

they have

28:20

armies there, they have tanks, two

28:23

tanks comrades.

28:26

So when you hear it once, that

28:29

is for all your life you remember

28:31

it. Yeah. That was a reason for invasion.

28:34

They have two tanks. Two tanks, yeah.

28:37

Well, okay. So already you

28:39

had that, you already had begun to recognize

28:41

you're sort of not quite a dissident in

28:43

that, not a vocal dissident perhaps, but

28:45

already that you were not buying

28:47

into the

28:49

sort of Russian Empire.

28:51

Well, it already happened when I was in school because

28:53

I also liked poetry. And

28:56

I was reading about that. And I used

28:58

to learn it by heart and well,

29:02

I learned it by heart quite a lot. And

29:04

part of it because a

29:08

substantial part of it was forbidden. Okay.

29:11

Where did you get it? If it was forbidden, where did you find

29:13

it? This is secret.

29:16

Okay. You can tell me now, I think you're safe. Some

29:18

is that. Some is that. Some

29:22

means myself. Okay. Is

29:25

that means a publishing

29:27

company? So you just type

29:29

it on the typewriter and give it

29:31

to your friend.

29:32

No, no, but where did you get it so you could type

29:34

it? Who do you learn it from? Maybe you're afraid

29:36

to tell me. I typed it

29:39

on my typewriter and it helped

29:41

me to memorize it.

29:42

No, no, but hold on. What I'm asking

29:45

you is

29:46

you had to see it somewhere in order to

29:48

type it on your typewriter. So if it was

29:50

forbidden, how did you get it in the first place? Do

29:52

you have a culture or friends?

29:55

Yeah. So you had other friends who gave it to you

29:57

and it was your schoolmates. Yeah.

29:59

Well, whatever forbidden kids will learn how to do.

30:02

I just wonder. Also my parents,

30:04

whatever, as I say, they called

30:07

Andriyasaka of Andrei. Okay, so

30:09

it's still a little, okay? Yeah,

30:12

okay, well, okay, that's good. But as we'll

30:14

get to later, memorizing that poetry

30:16

turned out to be very useful to you later in life, but

30:18

we'll get there. But

30:22

I know that fact. But

30:25

the

30:26

reason I was interested in your, you

30:29

remembering in high school the invasion of Czechoslovakia,

30:32

is it is true that you, I

30:34

didn't know this till recently, that you were

30:36

one of a number of Russian

30:40

sort of expatriates, scientists, and other

30:42

people who wrote a

30:44

public letter condemning

30:47

the Russian invasion of Ukraine

30:50

recently, right?

30:51

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, anyway,

30:53

we don't have to go into that much, but it's interesting to know that.

30:56

But presumably, of course, you

30:59

had to keep all that, as you say, secret, because

31:02

if you, let me ask you another question. If

31:05

that hadn't been secret, would it have affected your ability

31:07

to go to Moscow State University? What

31:09

if they have kept you out or no?

31:11

Well, let's express

31:13

it differently.

31:14

There were some dissidents who

31:17

were actually fighting, okay?

31:20

And there are some people

31:22

who were just thinking differently, but

31:25

they were not active or like

31:27

warriors. And for me, at

31:29

that stage of my career, doing

31:32

physics, learning who I am, et cetera,

31:35

it was the most

31:37

important thing. Yeah, sure. And

31:39

also, I had a,

31:40

well, maybe

31:46

many of us had this feeling

31:49

that it is practically impossible

31:51

to change anything. And

31:53

then one or two people like

31:56

Andriy Sakharov come, and

31:58

they would be active.

31:59

really involve

32:02

fighting for freedom

32:04

and helping other people, etc. So

32:08

the best we could do really,

32:10

not being a good emissions and

32:13

three times heroes of Soviet Union,

32:16

we were able to

32:18

just

32:21

help them a little. Okay. Like,

32:23

for example, as I said, the one sucker

32:25

was in exile. People from

32:28

our Liberty Physical Institute were the

32:30

only one who officially were

32:32

allowed to come there.

32:34

So each time it was a very,

32:36

very sad journey. And

32:39

sometimes with unpredictable

32:41

consequences, but

32:44

somehow, probably one hand

32:46

did not know what the other hand was

32:49

doing. So we did not pay

32:52

the price,

32:53

but it was not pleasant.

32:55

Okay. Some people decided

32:58

not to go. Okay, no, I

33:00

understand. And, you know, being

33:02

a dissident in your mind, but focusing on physics at the time

33:05

is was the number one thing to

33:07

do. I think it's probably true for many,

33:09

say, at the same time in

33:11

America, there were many people who were, say, against

33:13

the Vietnam War, but who were instead

33:16

of spending their time protesting while they were against it, they

33:18

focused on their studies. And that's not an unusual

33:21

experience in the late 60s or early 70s. I

33:24

know one of my friends from England who

33:26

at that time also, instead

33:28

of protesting,

33:29

he had one choice instead

33:31

of being mobilized,

33:33

actually. Yeah. Okay. He

33:35

spent one or two years on the

33:38

North Pole, on the South Pole. Oh,

33:40

so he could really, so he wouldn't have

33:42

to go. Now you go there. Good pleasure. Yeah.

33:45

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

33:48

But last bit of Sovietology,

33:50

maybe this occurred to me when

33:52

I was young, my experience of sort of Soviet

33:55

difficitance was reading

33:57

Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

33:59

Yeah. Did you know of

34:02

him when you were there?

34:04

Of course. Yeah? Some

34:06

is that. Okay, okay.

34:08

The same agency, publishing agency.

34:12

Okay, now, so people

34:14

knew of his work and... Yeah,

34:16

we were reading it.

34:17

Yeah, I mean, I remember reading it and

34:21

impacting my impression of what was going on.

34:24

Okay, you graduated in just

34:26

in physics or physics and mathematics or was there

34:28

that distinction from university? It was

34:31

physics. Okay, and then you went to

34:33

Lebedev as for graduate student, right? Again,

34:35

because that was the best place or why?

34:39

Because my advisor,

34:41

while I was in Moscow University,

34:43

my advisor was David Kirschnitz who was a professor

34:46

of physics at Lebedev. I see, so

34:48

he was a professor of physics at Lebedev but he was your

34:50

advisor at Moscow State? Yeah. That

34:53

was possible.

34:54

Yeah, well, it was kind of...

34:56

Moscow University was

34:59

mainly focused on teaching.

35:02

There were some decent

35:04

professors there but the best

35:07

ones were in academy. Okay,

35:09

so that's right. So there were teachers at

35:11

university and there were academy admissions

35:13

and they were at institutes. That's the way the

35:16

Soviet system works. The admissions is the

35:19

top. Is the top and they're

35:21

always at private, not private but

35:23

separate institutes of research. So

35:25

they were at research institutes and every now and then

35:27

they would go and teach at the university.

35:29

Is that right? Well, Lebedev

35:32

Institute was a research institute.

35:34

In our institute, there were

35:37

some academicians who are members

35:39

of academy of sciences and

35:41

some mere mortals. And

35:43

well, most of us were

35:46

in this category.

35:48

Yeah, but it was active

35:50

research and almost no unless

35:53

you really want to, then you don't teach.

35:56

You don't have to teach, it's a nice system. Because

35:59

it means, first of all,

35:59

the people who are at the university are actually interested in

36:02

teaching, which is not always the case

36:04

at universities here. And so it was that

36:06

it's a nice separation, if you can afford

36:08

to do it. It's a lovely life to be

36:10

in a research institute like there or

36:13

the Institute for Advanced Study in the US

36:15

where you can focus on research

36:17

and only teach if you want. But Kirshnitz did

36:20

take students on, I guess he spent

36:23

time at, you said you

36:25

got, he was your advisor as an undergraduate

36:27

as well. How did that come about?

36:30

Well,

36:32

my mom knew somebody,

36:35

this somebody knew me, I

36:37

knew all of them and they

36:40

told me, well, you know,

36:42

this other somebody, his

36:44

name was Eugene Feindler, he

36:46

gave a lecture in Polytechnical Institute

36:48

in Moscow discussing non-local

36:51

theories like

36:54

a

36:55

violation of Lawrence and Lawrence,

36:57

which nevertheless happened on micro

37:01

scale. So maybe you can do something.

37:03

And I was so excited. And there was

37:05

one person in the Institute who

37:07

did just exactly that.

37:09

And I came to him and he

37:13

was also recommended. And I

37:16

thought that this is what

37:18

I'm going to do, some fancy physics.

37:21

And

37:22

I learned some also fancy mathematics.

37:24

So I came with ideas of my own.

37:27

And he told me, okay, to start

37:29

with, let's

37:31

calculate the cross section of neutrino

37:33

and anti-neutrino.

37:35

And I was so disappointed.

37:37

But okay, so I calculated

37:40

it was okay, doable. And then

37:42

he said, now let's calculate

37:45

it with electromagnetic corrections.

37:47

So why do I need to do it?

37:49

Well, in a year from that, I was

37:52

already excited because I invented my own

37:54

method to resound some diagrams,

37:56

which was not published at that time. My

37:59

diploma in Moscow University got

38:02

some first prize. And

38:05

after that, when I graduated, I came

38:07

to Kirchnitz. This was January, 72, and

38:09

I expected him to tell me, okay,

38:14

so now let's publish because this

38:17

is already good work. I knew that he

38:19

liked it. And the first thing that he

38:21

told me when he had seen me was,

38:24

okay,

38:24

forget about everything which

38:27

you just did. I say, okay,

38:29

well, let's just publish

38:31

this first. No, no, forget about it.

38:33

Here is a pre-print which describes

38:35

the paper by Herat Hoof.

38:37

So now we know how really to calculate

38:40

this radiative corrections. World

38:42

is changing, the physics is completely

38:45

different. So just learn it.

38:47

And I learned it.

38:49

And I am so happy that I baked

38:52

because, okay, otherwise

38:55

I would do this stupid thing.

38:59

All along that was Kirchnitz who was telling you all this.

39:01

You didn't say. So the original one who was maybe

39:03

calculate the neutrino, anti-neutrino cross-section

39:06

was Kirchnitz as well?

39:07

Yeah, but because he

39:10

knew the difference in quality.

39:12

And also

39:14

he recognized that

39:16

this theory of elective interactions is

39:19

similar to superconductivity. Well,

39:21

hold that thought. I know that. And

39:23

by the way, I should say the first time

39:25

I heard your name was knowing about the paper

39:28

of Kirchnitz and Linde. When

39:30

I first, before, that was my first

39:32

introduction to you, I should say. And I didn't know at

39:34

the time, of course, not too much later in that

39:36

he was your supervisor. But you also

39:39

wrote somewhere that in 1971,

39:42

some professor told you

39:44

not to go on to particle physics because it was a dead

39:46

field. That was a Kirchnitz,

39:48

I assume. That was someone else. No, I would not name

39:51

him. Okay. But he was

39:53

pretty convincing because he was studying

39:55

axiomatic quantum field theory, axiomatic

39:58

field theory. Which was just a stereotype.

39:59

all dead end field. But

40:02

I was learning it was the best

40:04

at that time. Yeah. And when

40:06

we were graduating, this

40:08

person gave our class

40:11

or theorists and advised that

40:13

we should not go to

40:15

theoretical physics, because

40:17

the theoretical physics is a dead field. Trust

40:20

me, I know I study axiomatic

40:23

field theory, and Gamiltonian

40:25

is already dead. And the best

40:28

accelerator in the world, which we have right now

40:30

in Dubna,

40:31

okay, is not going to

40:34

produce much. So it is just a dry

40:36

field, don't do something else. But

40:39

it was already too late for me. You're

40:43

already in love with it. And I mean, as you say,

40:45

at 1971, it wasn't such a crazy

40:48

thing to say, because the 1960s had been a

40:50

very confusing time. And look like each

40:52

accelerator produce more particles, it seemed like

40:54

a complete mess.

40:56

You can repeat it now. It looks

40:58

smart. Yeah, it wasn't that. Well,

41:00

except the difference between now and then was then

41:02

there was a lot of data coming out.

41:04

A lot of data, but none of it was understandable. Now

41:07

there's less. Now all the data is

41:09

understandable, which is unfortunate, because we want some

41:11

data that we don't understand. But

41:15

at the time, it seemed like

41:16

no theory was going to work. And

41:19

it was all just chaos. And it was right

41:21

before the revolution in particle physics,

41:24

where in a period of three

41:26

or four years from 1971 and 1975,

41:28

what is now the standard model of particle physics suddenly blossomed.

41:34

And from understanding nothing,

41:36

we essentially understood almost everything.

41:38

It was kind of an amazing time. You remember

41:40

that when you were, that was during your graduate time, I guess,

41:43

right? Yeah,

41:46

I guess this is one of the reasons

41:48

why I think

41:49

my generation was

41:52

just like this year, was very, very

41:54

lucky, because we were

41:56

coming fresh to the new

41:58

field, which was just

41:59

emerging and

42:01

that was magnificent.

42:03

Yeah, no, it's the right place

42:05

at the right time. So we were lucky and it was now.

42:08

I want to talk later about the difficulty and

42:11

which you experienced of being a Russian, we'll call

42:13

you Russian rather than Soviet, being a Russian scientist

42:16

at a time when it was difficult to publish

42:18

outside and

42:19

therefore I remember,

42:20

I mean, we

42:23

used to say that everything we knew of had also been done in

42:25

Russia. The Russians would say we all did it

42:27

first but no one knows about it and

42:30

it was the standard line we hear from Russian physicists

42:32

but it wasn't often true that things

42:34

had been done first in Russia. We just never learned

42:36

about it because it was difficult. They

42:39

couldn't publish and it would take years before

42:41

the

42:41

Russian physics journals were translated

42:44

into English. And sometimes

42:47

this translation was, this

42:49

was the reason for example,

42:52

one of my papers was never known

42:55

to anybody except for Wilkman. I've,

43:00

in 74, I've written a paper explaining

43:03

that vacuum energy, which is cosmological

43:05

constant, yeah, well, it

43:08

can be associated with scalar

43:10

field and the scalar field changes

43:12

its value if you heat it up,

43:14

okay. Yeah. So then I've written

43:17

a paper explaining all of this

43:19

and Kirshnya decided not

43:21

to collaborate, he was very very honest and at

43:23

this time he said no, it's only

43:25

yours. I've written a paper and

43:27

I gave it a name which

43:31

is in English translation should be

43:34

is the cosmological constant

43:36

really constant

43:38

but in Russian it

43:40

is Posteyana li,

43:43

cosmological Posteyana and li

43:45

means if, okay. It

43:47

was translated as whether

43:51

the li constant is a constant.

43:54

Oh, so the

43:56

li constant,

43:58

no one knew what that was, no one read it.

43:59

Yeah. Okay. Thanks.

44:02

I got it. We'll talk about because that affected

44:04

your life a few times. But

44:07

I wonder to the other direction.

44:09

So obviously you'd heard about this paper

44:11

by a tough. So while it was hard to get information

44:14

out,

44:15

how did the information come in? Did everyone learn

44:17

read in English or and you had access

44:19

to the English journals or no? Everybody

44:22

read English. And you had access to the

44:24

regular scientific journals like physical reports

44:27

or physical review. And we have preprints

44:30

which were arriving with a delay of two months,

44:32

whatever, but they were arriving.

44:34

I remember we used to send things to the Lebedev

44:36

Institute even when I was in the 1980s when I was at

44:39

Harvard. And even before that at

44:41

MIT, yeah, there'd be we'd send our preprints

44:44

to

44:44

Russia. So you got them

44:47

and physics letters. So you got the journals

44:49

when they came out. Yeah.

44:52

Okay. But we got

44:54

them.

44:55

Now to move slowly

44:57

into more into physics.

45:01

Kirshnitz was your advisor. You went there

45:03

in in in 72, I

45:05

guess, right into the Lebedev Institute, which

45:08

is a great time in physics, as you say. And

45:10

already,

45:13

what was then I mean, even though it had been developed

45:15

in 1967, it was only after

45:18

Herard de Tuff

45:20

demonstrated that the theory made sense in

45:22

a quantum in a quantum

45:25

sense, it was what we would call renormalizable,

45:28

that people began to take it seriously.

45:31

And and

45:32

and well, you looked

45:34

like you want to say something. So go ahead.

45:36

Oh, yeah, it's just another

45:38

interesting thing. When I

45:41

started paying attention, and

45:43

other people start paying attention, we

45:45

found that in our own Institute,

45:48

there are at least three persons

45:51

who studied the same thing like who studied

45:54

and who obtained the similar results

45:56

sometimes almost simultaneously,

45:58

sometimes earlier.

45:59

And one of these people was in

46:02

another college. Yes, yes. Okay,

46:04

so I decided to

46:06

learn and I asked their

46:08

permission when they discussed it. It's

46:11

college, fracking and tutoring.

46:13

And when they were discussing it,

46:15

well, in my idiotic mind, because

46:18

it was above my pay

46:20

grade, but I wanted to learn. It

46:22

was very painful. So I was following

46:24

them like that when they were discussing. And

46:27

yeah, this was educational.

46:29

But tell

46:31

me the truth. Was it only the physics

46:34

you were following? Well,

46:38

I mean, were you motivated as well by I mean,

46:42

you know, she

46:44

was so out of my league.

46:47

It was just impossible to say. And

46:49

that's lovely to hear. That's a lovely. And

46:53

I just remember

46:55

that when Kirznev tried to discuss

46:57

something which we did with him, and

47:00

I was in this auditorium

47:03

when he was there. And Renato

47:06

was sitting just near

47:08

me in front. And he said

47:10

something that we was lean. They did this.

47:13

And she asked somebody and who is Linda.

47:17

And I guess at this time, I

47:19

thought, well, at least this is how I remember

47:21

it now. And you know, your memory sometimes,

47:25

I thought, oh, maybe your children will

47:27

be Linda. Oh, isn't

47:29

that wonderful? And they were. And,

47:32

you know, as we for the public may

47:34

not know that you and Renato got married. But

47:37

I didn't, I have to admit, because I got

47:39

to know her more from her work later on and related

47:42

to string theory. But I know that

47:44

they had basically sort of

47:47

continued

47:47

the proof of that of her normalizability

47:50

that that it took to done.

47:51

I didn't realize that she'd done that. And she was,

47:54

was she still a student at that time?

47:56

No, she was.

47:59

like,

48:02

I don't know how it is in

48:04

translations, and she was like, a postdoc,

48:07

associate, whatever. Yeah.

48:11

She and Tuygen

48:14

were actually the first

48:16

to relate proof of unitarity

48:19

with proof of renormalizability in

48:21

this theory. And after that,

48:24

Hoof and Weltmann did

48:26

it in a different way. So

48:28

there is even a reference

48:31

to the paper in the paper by Hoof and Weltmann.

48:34

So sometimes there was a contact

48:37

between us. But we at

48:39

Lebedev, we didn't know what

48:41

these guys are doing. They study some crazy

48:44

young males' fields. So

48:46

we were doing real physics, neutrino and antineutrino.

48:49

Oh, I see.

48:51

Oh, wow. That's okay. And of course, for

48:53

you know, a Tuft and Weltmann later won the Nobel Prize

48:55

for the work they did. And

48:58

for people who don't know. But

49:00

you were at the right place at the right time, because your supervisor

49:03

tuned in early on to the electroweak

49:05

theory, which had been developed

49:07

by Weinberg and Salaam and Glashow

49:10

and others.

49:12

This theory that later became a central

49:14

part of the standard model. And

49:17

I didn't realize so he was the

49:19

first, well, at least I don't know if he was

49:21

the first one, but to kind of appreciate

49:23

this connection between the electroweak

49:26

theory and superconductivity.

49:28

Was he the first one to sort

49:30

of really appreciate that connection? I

49:33

think that he was the first,

49:35

because usually, when we

49:37

were even later, when we were trying

49:39

to explain what is going on to our

49:41

high energy colleagues,

49:44

they were saying, but where is the temperature

49:46

in Lagrangian? Yeah. What are they talking

49:48

about? There is no temperature in Lagrangian.

49:51

Okay,

49:52

so that was very

49:54

hard. Zilgojic, two

49:57

years later,

49:58

after we already did it.

50:00

He was the first from these

50:03

other group of people who were suddenly

50:06

very much interested. Zildovitch,

50:08

Pope Zaref Okun.

50:11

So they took it very, very

50:13

seriously. This is Zaldovitch, you say? Zaldovitch,

50:16

yes. Yeah, I guess you pronounce it differently.

50:18

I mean, for me, Zaldovitch seems like a major... I

50:21

never got to hear him or say him, but he was an awkward

50:23

figure.

50:24

Yeah, he was a major figure. He,

50:26

at some moment, well,

50:30

suggested me to work

50:33

on cosmic strings at the time when it didn't

50:36

exist.

50:37

I calculated something for

50:39

about cosmic strings,

50:41

and it did not seem interesting

50:43

for me. And I told him so.

50:46

And so he written a

50:48

paper about it himself.

50:51

And

50:52

later it was followed

50:55

and strongly developed

50:57

by Alex Freelentin, who became a champion.

50:59

And so it became a big

51:02

deal later. But, well,

51:06

instead of that, I was... You

51:08

did okay. I think you did okay.

51:12

Alex did fine too. But

51:15

this finite... The fact... So let's

51:17

just... For people who aren't aware of this.

51:19

So the point about

51:21

the relationship between superconductivity

51:24

and electromagnetic weak theory is that

51:26

in superconductivity, in a

51:29

superconductor,

51:30

electromagnetism

51:32

is short range.

51:34

The existence of these things called Cooper pairs means

51:36

that the electromagnetic field, instead

51:38

of being one over R-squared, just falls off and

51:41

it acts like the photon has

51:43

a mass.

51:45

And

51:46

here we have in the electroweak theory,

51:48

you have electromagnetism, which is long

51:51

range. But there's another force

51:53

where the particles that convey the force

51:56

have a mass, and that force is very short range.

51:58

So it's only over the size of the nucleus.

51:59

And so in

52:02

retrospect,

52:03

that relation, that analogy seems

52:05

obvious, but at the time, and

52:07

the point of superconductivity is superconductivity

52:10

only happens below a certain temperature. Above

52:12

a certain temperature, these group prepares no form

52:14

and electromagnetism is long range. So

52:17

that phase transition as

52:19

a function of temperature is natural in condensed

52:21

matter but as you say, in field theory,

52:23

normally, everything's at zero temperature and you don't think about that. It

52:27

took a

52:28

while for people, I

52:30

imagine including Kirshin, it's in you and then

52:32

other people to develop the idea of

52:35

what's called finite temperature field theory. You

52:37

want to explain that a little bit?

52:40

Well, it just, the

52:43

quantum field theory at finite temperature, it was

52:46

not our invention. We just applied

52:49

it to

52:49

the most interesting

52:52

field to study. Yeah,

52:56

in fact, it

52:57

happened to be

52:58

easier sometimes, or at least

53:01

for me because superconductivity

53:03

is

53:04

well three dimensional something,

53:07

it was not Lorentz invariant. Yeah, but

53:10

I found that

53:12

sometimes this phase transition,

53:17

evaporation, if you wish, over the

53:19

Higgs field happens by first

53:22

order phase transition so abruptly.

53:25

So, I found it somewhere in 75 whatever.

53:28

And when I told about this to

53:31

Kirshin,

53:32

he said,

53:33

but

53:35

I think that people do not know that

53:38

this is possible in superconductivity

53:41

and then we learned later

53:44

that later with some delay, they

53:46

found also some way of

53:49

describing first order phase transitions

53:54

while heating in superconductivity using

53:56

similar methods, but we did

53:58

it.

53:59

We did first. First, he did a first. No, because

54:02

it's easier. It is, you

54:04

have

54:04

a realistic theory where, and

54:07

maybe just

54:09

how

54:10

to say,

54:11

people use this language

54:13

already quite a lot. So

54:16

we have power over methods,

54:18

which we were able to apply. And

54:21

for solid state physics, it was not necessary.

54:23

It's like quantum mechanics. Yeah, yeah,

54:26

yeah, yeah. No, and okay, so that's interesting

54:28

that, that they'd found

54:30

that afterwards in superconductivity. But the

54:32

idea is quite clear that

54:34

if, look, it makes sense. If

54:36

you heat up a superconductor and the superconductivity

54:39

goes away, if you heat up

54:41

the universe, then maybe the distinction

54:43

between the weak interaction, which

54:45

is mediated by heavy particles and

54:47

the electromagnetism will go away and

54:50

the particles will all behave the same

54:52

and they won't, and they'll all be long range forces.

54:54

That makes sense, but that's the work

54:56

that Kirchner's and

54:58

you sort of

55:00

focused on the fact that at high enough temperature,

55:03

which meant automatically one

55:05

is thinking about the early universe without even necessarily

55:08

calling it the early universe, that

55:10

at high enough temperature, the electroweak symmetry

55:13

is restored.

55:14

And I assume that you guys were the first people

55:16

to show that, is that right?

55:18

Yeah, and what

55:21

was interesting for us, there was also

55:23

later Weingberg and- Dolan

55:26

and Jacob.

55:27

And all of us were thinking

55:29

that this is at first

55:30

and that this is a second order phase transition, which

55:33

means it happens smoothly. So

55:35

scale field just gradually disappears.

55:38

And that is what we found with Kirchner's

55:41

in summer 75 and

55:44

tried to publish, but I made the mistake

55:46

sending it to a wrong person, criticizing

55:49

him at that same time. So

55:51

it appeared a year later in 76, we

55:56

found that the phase transition can be first

55:58

order. And-

55:59

And when it happens, the

56:02

energy of the cosmological

56:04

constant heats the universe,

56:08

which is, if you understand, this

56:11

is the basics of inflation. Yeah, absolutely. Well,

56:13

yeah, in fact, we'll get to that, but I wanna

56:15

talk for people a little bit who may not understand

56:17

the difference in first and second order. But before

56:19

we do that, I was interested that Weinberg

56:22

was part of the group that had sort of

56:24

refined, if you wanna call it refined

56:26

and developed a comprehensive picture

56:29

of doing this finite temperature field theory calculation

56:31

and what happens.

56:32

Yeah. I mean, I was influenced by Weinberg because

56:34

I took almost all my courses from Weinberg,

56:37

even though

56:39

I was at Harvard. He was

56:41

unlike many people scholarly in

56:46

his understanding of physics and

56:49

knew the connections I would have thought early on

56:51

to condensed matter. But he didn't,

56:56

early on,

56:57

when he was developing this, he

56:59

didn't

57:00

ever discuss the restoration of symmetry.

57:03

It was only after your work that he did that, is that

57:05

right? It was after, but nevertheless,

57:07

he was early, it was 74, he's speaking.

57:10

Yeah, well, I mean, you would imagine he would be

57:12

one of the people that understand that. But now let's talk

57:14

about, because this is important for later on, the

57:16

physics that we wanna talk about,

57:19

so a

57:20

first order, when things change,

57:25

like in a superconductor, it becomes

57:27

a superconductor and then

57:30

it's not superconducting or a magnet.

57:32

When you heat up a magnet, it's no longer magnetized.

57:35

That's what we call a phase transition in condensed matter

57:37

physics and now in all

57:39

of physics.

57:40

But so that means something changes.

57:43

And the question is, is the change

57:46

smooth? In which case we

57:48

call it a second order phase transition, namely,

57:50

does it go from one stage to another very

57:53

smoothly without a lot of weird things happening?

57:56

Or something else happened. If it's a first

57:59

order phase transition,

57:59

Can you describe just so people understand

58:02

what happens during a first order phase transition? Oh,

58:04

it's very easy.

58:06

You take your

58:08

teapot and boil it. So

58:10

this is what happens. You have bubbles

58:14

appearing in water

58:15

and these bubbles expand, expand, and

58:18

eventually all water evaporates. So

58:20

that was the simplest

58:23

example of the first phase transition. It's

58:26

a formation of bubbles. They have

58:29

two different phases existing at the same time,

58:31

very different properties.

58:33

A bubble and water are very different. Especially if your

58:36

water is very, very clean.

58:38

So then it can be superheated.

58:42

Then for a while you increase

58:44

temperatures even above 100 Celsius

58:48

and it still does not boil. And

58:50

then you just drop a little bit of coffee

58:52

and pshh!

58:54

And it suddenly exactly boom. Yeah. And

58:56

also I like to use the analogy often

58:58

of not heating but cooling. If you have

59:01

water as you would have had in Moscow and

59:03

I had growing up in Canada, if you have a street

59:05

and it's well below zero Celsius, if

59:07

the cars are going the water gets sloshed

59:10

around and it's still liquid even though it should be

59:12

frozen. And then later on at night

59:14

when the cars aren't there it suddenly goes boom and

59:17

freezes and releases some heat at the same time

59:20

when it freezes because the state

59:22

it wants to be in is frozen

59:24

and it's not. And so there is a

59:27

possibility in the case of these

59:31

phase transitions to have

59:33

it supercooled or superheated

59:35

where the transition should happen

59:38

but because it

59:39

takes something to make it happen.

59:41

And of course we'll get there and that whole idea

59:43

is central to inflation.

59:45

So the important

59:48

point is that the theory that

59:50

we know and love, the theory that we know exists, the

59:52

electroweak theory,

59:53

as you showed and as we now understand,

59:56

unless you do something strange to it, when

59:58

it goes from the state

59:59

that we live in to

1:00:01

the state that at early times in the early

1:00:04

history of the universe when it was hot

1:00:06

that that transition or if you want to say

1:00:08

it the other way around the transition from when it's hot to

1:00:11

cold is first order

1:00:13

in the theory that we know and love in most cases.

1:00:16

It's a bit tricky in real

1:00:19

life when you come

1:00:21

to the point close to the phase

1:00:23

transition

1:00:24

then physics sometimes become more complicated

1:00:27

than a textbook. So we thought

1:00:29

that it is really first

1:00:32

order phase transition and sometimes

1:00:34

it might but in some other

1:00:36

places in some other cases there

1:00:39

are some special names for that also

1:00:41

coming so things may be more complicated.

1:00:44

It's dirty science you need

1:00:46

to make not quantum field theory

1:00:48

calculation but do them on lattice

1:00:50

or whatever to get the

1:00:52

final truth. Yeah it's very complicated.

1:00:55

I mean that's

1:00:56

understanding physics near the phase transition.

1:00:59

In grand unified theories you

1:01:01

would naturally mostly expect

1:01:04

first order phase transition. Yeah and

1:01:08

that's one of the reasons that

1:01:10

to preempt

1:01:13

ourselves that the universe didn't inflate when the

1:01:16

phase transition happened when the universe was

1:01:19

about a millionth of a millionth of a second old

1:01:21

I think is when the electroweak phase transition happened

1:01:23

when it was pretty old. It was already a millionth

1:01:25

of a millionth of a second old that's pretty old and

1:01:28

it didn't accelerate

1:01:31

but there was a phaser I can't resist

1:01:33

before we get on there was a phase transition in your

1:01:36

life

1:01:37

at the same time as this because as you pointed

1:01:39

out in the seminar when

1:01:42

not to ask who's Linde

1:01:45

you tried to follow her around and learn what she

1:01:47

was doing but it was two years

1:01:49

later and my understanding

1:01:51

and I could because I mentioned it earlier I think it's

1:01:53

important that I bring it up now that that

1:01:56

ability of yours to learn the Russian poets

1:01:58

by heart when

1:01:59

you were. high school student paid

1:02:01

off. Do you want to explain how?

1:02:03

Well, it just,

1:02:06

we happened to be,

1:02:09

and this was really a coincidence,

1:02:12

we happened to be at the same lake

1:02:16

at the same time, and then what

1:02:19

to do? Well, on the boat, and I

1:02:21

was reading, I came, we

1:02:26

came there in my, again,

1:02:29

in a car of my

1:02:31

parents, just a complex

1:02:33

place, and I

1:02:36

was reading poetry,

1:02:39

like maybe three days nonstop

1:02:43

by heart, and singing songs.

1:02:46

Don't ask me to sing songs now. I'm

1:02:48

not going to. Okay. So somehow

1:02:50

it worked. It

1:02:54

worked. Somehow you convinced her. Somehow

1:02:57

you won her heart, and she

1:02:59

had already won yours, and the rest is history,

1:03:02

and you've been happily married ever since. And

1:03:04

it's a lovely story. I thought that story

1:03:07

of the poetry was worth mentioning in

1:03:09

the midst of this physics, because, well,

1:03:11

it not only actually formed a love

1:03:13

collaboration and a family collaboration, but later

1:03:15

on

1:03:16

led to physics collaborations,

1:03:18

which is also a nice thing, and affected

1:03:21

your work later on, which we'll get to. But

1:03:25

the other, to get to

1:03:27

this first order phase transition, one of the characteristics

1:03:31

that happens clearly in boiling

1:03:33

water,

1:03:34

that you notice, is that the system

1:03:36

is very, as we say, inhomogeneous.

1:03:39

If you look at it, it's very different in different places,

1:03:42

where it's

1:03:43

vapor and water. I mean, you couldn't imagine a more,

1:03:46

forgive me for the word, chaotic situation,

1:03:49

where you have

1:03:51

great inhomogeneities,

1:03:57

and you would imagine, in fact, that would not reflect

1:04:00

our universe, which seems to be uniform, as

1:04:03

far as you can see everywhere. And that

1:04:05

inhomogeneity of a first order phase

1:04:09

transition,

1:04:11

in fact,

1:04:14

it's surprising. It's recognized immediately

1:04:16

in condensed matter systems,

1:04:19

but very shortly thereafter, a

1:04:22

proposal was made to describe our

1:04:24

universe by our good friend, Alan Guth, which

1:04:29

he called inflation, which relied on a first order

1:04:31

phase transition. And

1:04:34

one might say in retrospect, one

1:04:36

could say, how could that describe our universe?

1:04:38

Because our universe is smooth and a first order phase

1:04:40

transition isn't. And it's

1:04:43

kind of remarkable

1:04:45

that it persisted. And

1:04:47

we'll explain, well, I'll take

1:04:49

your take on it in a second. But before we

1:04:51

get there, I

1:04:54

was there in the United States when Alan was there.

1:04:56

In fact, Alan was on my thesis committee when I

1:04:58

was at MIT. He

1:05:00

was one of the few nice people and

1:05:05

encouraged me. But

1:05:08

there was a hero or at least a star

1:05:10

in Russia that I never heard of named Stereobinsky.

1:05:14

And

1:05:15

what I learned from reading your stuff

1:05:17

is that Stereobinsky had proposed a

1:05:19

model that was essentially

1:05:21

similar to Al-Nagus, although he didn't emphasize

1:05:24

the important

1:05:25

physics that made inflation suddenly capture

1:05:27

the world. But he was already well known

1:05:30

and his ideas were

1:05:31

lauded in the Soviet Union in 1979, which

1:05:35

is a year before Guth.

1:05:36

So you wanna explain that a little bit?

1:05:38

We were actually in the same group

1:05:41

in Moscow State University learning

1:05:44

physics. But he was

1:05:46

working with Zildovich

1:05:49

and he was very good in

1:05:52

studying quantum effects in

1:05:55

gravitational field.

1:05:56

So at some

1:05:59

moment,

1:05:59

he issued a

1:06:02

paper saying that if you

1:06:04

consider many, many, many, many particles,

1:06:07

giving contribution to vacuum energy

1:06:10

or gravitational field,

1:06:11

then it's equivalent to changing

1:06:14

Einstein equations a little bit.

1:06:16

And if you take these extra terms

1:06:18

into account, you may find the

1:06:20

regime of de-sitter expansion

1:06:23

of the universe, exponential expansion. And

1:06:25

he wanted to use it for

1:06:27

solving singularity problem. He

1:06:30

actually read, written

1:06:33

in this paper something where we assume

1:06:36

that our universe initially is absolutely homogeneous.

1:06:39

Okay. And he used it

1:06:41

to address the singularity

1:06:44

problem. There was a problem with this

1:06:47

addressing because it

1:06:50

was also clear from his paper and from

1:06:52

subsequent paper by Mokhanov and Chibisov

1:06:55

that this vacuum state,

1:06:58

due to quantum corrections, is unstable and decays

1:07:00

quickly.

1:07:02

So you cannot really

1:07:04

have the universe living infinitely

1:07:07

long until this time because you would

1:07:09

die first. Okay. So it

1:07:11

cannot be an initial state

1:07:14

unless

1:07:16

the universe was continuously created

1:07:19

from nothing. Yes.

1:07:21

Okay. But yeah,

1:07:23

we both like a universal nothing. It's been

1:07:26

very good to me and it's been very good to you too.

1:07:28

But yeah. Okay. But, but

1:07:31

Mr. Avinsky, this was a gap

1:07:33

in also whether it works

1:07:36

or not. And Sakharov

1:07:39

loved this work.

1:07:42

It became pretty famous among

1:07:44

Russian cosmologists.

1:07:46

I did not like it for

1:07:48

two reasons. First,

1:07:50

it is this

1:07:53

fact that what

1:07:55

was the initial point? Okay. Okay.

1:07:58

And the second,

1:07:59

is that really to make it work,

1:08:02

you need to have like billions

1:08:04

of different types of particles

1:08:08

to give a contribution of a very special

1:08:10

type, et cetera, et cetera, okay? So,

1:08:13

but later he just will

1:08:15

gradually change this story

1:08:18

and he just

1:08:19

forget about this initial suggestion

1:08:23

to do it all by this quantifications

1:08:25

and instead just left one additional

1:08:28

terms in the R-squared term in

1:08:30

the Einstein equation and this was sufficient

1:08:33

if the coefficient in front with was

1:08:35

a normal large, okay? So

1:08:38

it worked

1:08:39

and what we learned right now that this

1:08:41

idea which was more than 40 years

1:08:44

ago, it was 1980.

1:08:47

Right now it is still one

1:08:49

of the most successful models of inflationary

1:08:51

cosmology. At that time it

1:08:53

was not even considered inflation because he

1:08:56

did not pretend solving all these problems.

1:08:59

Yeah, that was the difference. I mean, I think that there's

1:09:01

a difference in it's interesting. There's different

1:09:04

people who do the work and people who do

1:09:06

the work and convince the world that it's interesting and

1:09:08

the key thing that Alan Guth did that was, well,

1:09:11

many things. I'm a,

1:09:13

we're both friends with Alan and he's a good friend and

1:09:15

I admire him tremendously but is

1:09:20

that Alan realized suddenly

1:09:23

that not only if you had this period when

1:09:25

the universe was in

1:09:27

this

1:09:28

super cool state,

1:09:31

if you wanna call it that, where it was

1:09:34

dominated by what we now call vacuum energy

1:09:37

where and then the phase transition happened. If

1:09:39

that phase was long enough, the universe could

1:09:41

expand exponentially for a very long time

1:09:43

and on least on the time scales of

1:09:46

interest, which is not something that

1:09:48

Stereobinski had emphasized and that

1:09:50

could solve all at least

1:09:53

at the time, the three fundamental problems

1:09:56

in cosmology that were otherwise inexplicable, why

1:09:58

the universe should be so flat,

1:09:59

So uniform and why it should be hot if

1:10:02

you want and also as people

1:10:04

don't realize now solve another big problem,

1:10:06

which was really

1:10:07

Bothering us particle physicists at the time.

1:10:10

I remember vividly why it there

1:10:12

should not be so many things called monopoles That's

1:10:14

a more sophisticated problem But I think

1:10:17

I remember in the United States at least because

1:10:19

I was there at the time as a student

1:10:21

and then and then at Harvard

1:10:23

That was the thing that made inflation

1:10:25

so impressive This

1:10:28

Grand unified theory this theory that

1:10:30

unified the forces would automatically produce these

1:10:32

particle comonopoles They'd be super

1:10:34

heavy and the universe should be full of them and

1:10:36

there seemed no way to get rid of them And it's

1:10:38

funny now you never hear that talked about but

1:10:41

at the time that I think that was the thing that got

1:10:43

most of The particle physics community interested

1:10:46

in the least United States. I'm wondering I

1:10:48

want to know in Russia at the time

1:10:51

First of all, how did you learn about the goose result? And

1:10:53

was that and what impressed people about

1:10:56

goose work? Was it the monopoles or was it

1:10:58

the other stuff? So So I

1:11:01

tell you So

1:11:03

I actually Together with

1:11:06

cheapest of who later cheapest of an

1:11:08

important paper So

1:11:11

we studied with him what happened

1:11:13

when you have a strong strong strong super

1:11:16

pudding

1:11:17

and we realized of course That

1:11:19

the universe because this cosmological constant

1:11:22

there that it should be exponentially expanding

1:11:25

And then it produced bubbles and these

1:11:27

bubbles collide and the universe becomes

1:11:29

immensely Incomogeneous and then

1:11:31

therefore it is not our universe

1:11:34

Okay. Yeah, and so

1:11:37

I've written about this something

1:11:39

very very short in one of my reviews

1:11:42

in 78 and

1:11:44

after that, I Remember

1:11:48

how cheapest of told me and

1:11:50

you know what he was kind of melancholic

1:11:53

person said

1:11:54

maybe it is also possible

1:11:56

to use this for solving entropy

1:11:59

problem and And they told

1:12:01

him what problem? What,

1:12:03

so that was how it was,

1:12:05

okay? So we knew everything and

1:12:08

we did not do nothing about

1:12:10

that at this time.

1:12:12

Then I was at the seminar, which

1:12:14

was organized by Rubikov, one

1:12:18

famous person who- Yeah,

1:12:20

personally, I learned a lot from him. I have, again,

1:12:22

admire him tremendously about the other way

1:12:25

of Rubikov. So they discussed

1:12:27

the possibility of solving

1:12:30

a flatness problem due

1:12:33

to cosmological before Goof,

1:12:35

okay? For Goof. Before Goof.

1:12:37

Due to, before

1:12:40

Goof became known in Russia.

1:12:43

We did not get some information,

1:12:45

so I cannot right now tell you

1:12:47

exactly who said something first,

1:12:50

okay? But before we

1:12:52

learned anything about Goof, this was the seminar,

1:12:55

and they discussed this flatness problem,

1:12:58

which maybe can't be solved due

1:13:00

to phase transitions in

1:13:03

the Kolomon-Weinberg model.

1:13:05

And I was there, and they

1:13:07

explained why it cannot be

1:13:09

solved. Because you know,

1:13:12

this phase transition goes down and

1:13:14

it does not, and I said, what flatness

1:13:17

problem?

1:13:18

And then they explained this to me.

1:13:20

And then I knew both over

1:13:23

the sides that, well, it

1:13:25

does not work anyway. And

1:13:28

then there was a quote, one quote to

1:13:30

me a couple of months later by

1:13:32

Lev Oakland. He was a

1:13:35

well, famous physicist

1:13:37

in Russia studying electrocute theory,

1:13:39

whatever. And

1:13:41

he asked me, Andre, did you hear

1:13:43

anything about these

1:13:46

Alan Goof people, how you can solve the

1:13:49

flatness problem? I told

1:13:51

him, no, I don't

1:13:54

know anything about that, but let me explain

1:13:56

you why it does not work.

1:13:57

And it's a couple of months later.

1:14:00

I was explaining him why it does not

1:14:02

work and stuff. And

1:14:04

then, and

1:14:07

then I received the preprint and

1:14:10

indeed it did not work, but

1:14:12

the idea was so exciting.

1:14:14

Okay. Because he emphasized not why the

1:14:16

problem, but the solutions, if you wish. So

1:14:19

that was why I got

1:14:20

an ulcer. I

1:14:24

believe ulcer would do it. I

1:14:27

got it because I was stressed.

1:14:30

This is such a beautiful idea.

1:14:34

And I need just a little bit,

1:14:37

maybe to make it work. Okay.

1:14:39

I see. So you, and

1:14:42

I didn't know how to do it. I didn't know how to do

1:14:45

it.

1:14:45

And then eventually in

1:14:48

summer of 81, I realized

1:14:50

something very simple.

1:14:52

I was actually using

1:14:54

a very bad

1:14:56

computer is somewhere in the basement

1:14:59

of Liberty physical institute studying tunneling.

1:15:02

And they noticed that sometimes

1:15:05

tunneling does not go from the

1:15:07

minimum to the not the minimum.

1:15:09

Sometimes it goes some strange way.

1:15:11

And I studied the condition

1:15:13

for the strange way and realized

1:15:16

that actually it

1:15:17

quite often possibility. And

1:15:19

somehow nobody studied it. Everybody

1:15:22

assumed that you go from one, one

1:15:24

vacuum to another vacuum,

1:15:26

but they get powerful computer.

1:15:28

Okay. And then I

1:15:32

still did not put one,

1:15:33

one, one, one, one together. And

1:15:36

then some night I realized

1:15:38

that actually this solves the problem because

1:15:41

the tunneling, if it is

1:15:43

there goes almost horizontally.

1:15:46

So vacuum energy almost preserved.

1:15:48

And after that you roll down, but

1:15:51

you still have for a while, large

1:15:53

vacuum energy and then interior

1:15:55

of the bubble explodes.

1:15:57

And I decided,

1:16:00

that must be everybody must

1:16:02

know it because it's so simple.

1:16:04

So I decided to call

1:16:07

Valérie Rubico. He was the first. And

1:16:11

they

1:16:12

came, hide somewhere with a telephone

1:16:14

not to wake up my family. And

1:16:16

they called him and asked, whatever did you think

1:16:18

about this? And he

1:16:21

said, no,

1:16:22

no, I don't know.

1:16:24

And then I got really excited, and

1:16:28

I wake my wife and I told her, it

1:16:30

seems that I know how the universe was working.

1:16:33

But this was... She said, go back to

1:16:36

sleep or did... Well,

1:16:38

we had a discussion. Oh, she woke up.

1:16:40

Good. That was very good of her. Okay.

1:16:43

Let's, I want to step back because

1:16:45

obviously you and I can talk in the language we

1:16:47

understand, but for the people hearing, they

1:16:49

may not. Let me, I want to parse

1:16:52

a few of these things more carefully before we go on.

1:16:55

First of all,

1:16:57

this flatness problem, just to

1:16:59

make it clear, once again,

1:17:02

is that the universe looks

1:17:05

very, looks like it's flat in the

1:17:07

sense that it, the

1:17:09

curvature of the universe is not really observable

1:17:12

on any scales. Like, Earth

1:17:14

is flat.

1:17:15

Yeah, like the Earth is.

1:17:18

Like, if I look out, or here I can see a little curvature,

1:17:21

but if I'm in Kansas, I don't see any, and

1:17:23

the Earth seems flat. And

1:17:25

it's, the curvature of the Earth is so

1:17:27

small on human scales that it looks like it's flat.

1:17:30

And

1:17:32

that was a problem because

1:17:35

it seems to be very, in order to have a universe

1:17:37

that looks flat after 14 billion years,

1:17:40

the mathematics has to be incredibly fine

1:17:42

tuned. But the reason

1:17:45

this, that this idea of inflation solves that, that

1:17:47

even the original Gooth idea

1:17:49

of inflation is that like blowing up a balloon,

1:17:52

if the universe expands exponentially,

1:17:54

any flat,

1:17:56

any curvature gets pushed

1:17:58

very, very far away.

1:17:59

you want, it becomes very small. And so it's

1:18:02

just like blowing up a balloon and it automatically,

1:18:04

a period of exponential expansion will

1:18:06

solve if it even has, as

1:18:09

we say, even if the exponential expansion

1:18:11

is only 50 times the original

1:18:13

time scale, 50 E-foldings, as we say, already

1:18:16

you've basically made a universe that's flat to

1:18:18

any measurable value. And that was a huge

1:18:22

result. And that's one of the things that Guth emphasized

1:18:25

that one of the otherwise inexplicable

1:18:27

problems that he solved.

1:18:29

But

1:18:30

the problem that you recognized

1:18:33

early on and the problem that Guth

1:18:35

alluded to at the end of the paper is, well, it

1:18:38

solves that problem and it solves the other problems

1:18:40

we briefly mentioned. But

1:18:42

if the phase transition is first order, then

1:18:46

these bubbles form of new phase,

1:18:49

just like water. And in principle, you're

1:18:51

gonna end up with a universe

1:18:54

that's totally

1:18:56

inhomogeneous and that doesn't look like our universe

1:18:58

at all, which is very smooth

1:19:01

now and uniform. That's actually

1:19:04

an interesting interpretation. But

1:19:07

if you want to go ahead, but- No,

1:19:09

no, no, no. If you want, I'm always, I told you, you

1:19:11

always correct me. So go ahead and interpret

1:19:14

that now. In interpretation of the following.

1:19:16

The idea was that we live

1:19:19

for a while in some state

1:19:21

which is called false vacuum. Yes,

1:19:23

false vacuum. Real

1:19:26

vacuum, which means that the state

1:19:28

where all the variances are present, you

1:19:30

move, you walk with respect to

1:19:32

anything, but there is nothing with respect

1:19:35

to move. It is totally

1:19:37

absolutely homogeneous and

1:19:39

uniformer and whatever. So there is no

1:19:41

preferable coordinate system. There

1:19:44

is no preferable choice of time

1:19:47

because in decider space, the same

1:19:49

exponential expansion universe that describes decider

1:19:52

space, which was the point

1:19:55

of so many confusions from 1917.

1:19:59

when it was first discovered,

1:20:03

it in some coordinates, it

1:20:05

looks like collapsing, in some others

1:20:08

look like expanding, and in some other

1:20:10

coordinates look like static. So

1:20:13

if you do not have any

1:20:15

orienteers, any thing

1:20:18

with respect to which it expands, does

1:20:20

it actually make sense to say that

1:20:22

it is expanding at all?

1:20:24

And if there is no preferable choice

1:20:26

of hyper, and this is most important, preferable

1:20:29

choice of time,

1:20:31

then you do not have

1:20:33

any preferable time for

1:20:35

the universe to start expanding, well,

1:20:39

to start decaying. And that

1:20:41

is why decay of this vacuum-like

1:20:43

state

1:20:44

happens completely calorically,

1:20:46

and that destroys the homogeneity.

1:20:49

Okay, that's a wonderful way of thinking about it. Yes, in fact,

1:20:51

I've heard you say that, so that's great. But

1:20:54

the solution that you came up with that night

1:20:56

in the summer of 1981, when you woke up

1:20:58

your wife, and she was very kind

1:21:00

to you and didn't yell at you for doing that,

1:21:02

was the fact that,

1:21:05

well, when these, I mean, physically

1:21:07

the way this is manifest, you talked about mathematically

1:21:09

how we know this, but physically it's manifested

1:21:12

by the collision of bubbles and this and

1:21:15

reminding yourself of water,

1:21:17

that,

1:21:18

and the goose universe had lots of, at the end of

1:21:20

inflation, there'd be lots of bubbles forming, and that

1:21:22

would screw everything up.

1:21:24

But your realization was,

1:21:26

it's possible to have inflation

1:21:28

inside of a single bubble. And

1:21:31

so the whole universe can be not many bubbles,

1:21:33

but one bubble. And because, as you point

1:21:35

out in the language you said it, that if

1:21:37

by tunneling, the universe can go from one

1:21:40

state to another, even inside

1:21:42

the bubble,

1:21:43

when naively you think

1:21:45

there's no energy stored,

1:21:47

it can happen that there's energy stored inside a

1:21:49

single bubble, so the single bubble can

1:21:51

expand exponentially. And that

1:21:54

was the birth

1:21:55

of what then I guess quickly became

1:21:57

called new inflation. And that suddenly,

1:22:00

I think I remember the graceful

1:22:02

exit. There was no graceful exit from the

1:22:04

old inflation because it was a mess. But

1:22:07

in this new inflation, if the field, if you want

1:22:09

to call

1:22:10

whatever was governing this

1:22:11

system at the time, caused

1:22:14

the universe to explode,

1:22:15

that field could gracefully go away slowly

1:22:17

and uniformly everywhere throughout

1:22:19

that bubble and

1:22:22

turn into, as you were one of the people

1:22:24

to calculate, and turn into the energy of

1:22:27

normal stuff and end

1:22:29

up with a hot, what

1:22:30

we would now call a hot big bang. And then

1:22:32

suddenly you solve the last remaining problem of inflation.

1:22:37

Well, it looked like it solved the last remaining

1:22:39

problem of inflation.

1:22:40

It didn't. No, it

1:22:41

didn't. Because, and as Stephen Hawking,

1:22:43

and you and I both know Stephen

1:22:46

and Mark, but

1:22:48

we also knew that

1:22:49

Stephen was not a fan because he didn't

1:22:52

invent it, partly. And

1:22:54

he realized, and I think he learned from

1:22:56

you, that there was a problem, right?

1:23:02

He was in 1981 at a conference in the Soviet Union. No,

1:23:07

he, the story was like that. There

1:23:10

was a conference, and they gave a talk.

1:23:12

Yeah. And at that time, he was like,

1:23:14

I'm not going to talk about it. Yeah.

1:23:16

And at that time, this

1:23:18

was like almost, well, four

1:23:21

months after I actually read

1:23:23

the paper, and I finally got the permission.

1:23:26

It was in October 1981. And

1:23:28

everybody started suggesting

1:23:30

to me that we can smuggle the paper abroad. But

1:23:32

that's important. You were still at

1:23:35

a time when a Russian scientist, you

1:23:37

could do stuff, but you couldn't, you weren't allowed to publish

1:23:39

it abroad, and people like us didn't hear about it. So

1:23:42

go on. So,

1:23:44

but the

1:23:47

day after my talk, I took

1:23:49

and gave a talk at Sternberg Institute of

1:23:52

Astronomy at Moscow State University.

1:23:55

And I had heard about it, and I

1:23:57

came there.

1:23:59

they asked me to translate what

1:24:02

he said.

1:24:03

And that was one of the experiences of

1:24:05

my life, because at first,

1:24:07

usually, Steve

1:24:08

at that time,

1:24:10

he would just

1:24:11

ask his student to give a talk.

1:24:14

And then if he was unhappy, he would

1:24:16

say, voila, and his

1:24:18

student will change something

1:24:21

other.

1:24:21

But this time, they came completely

1:24:24

unprepared. So

1:24:26

Steve would say one word, students

1:24:28

would say one word, and then I would

1:24:30

translate this word.

1:24:32

But fortunately, they were

1:24:34

discussing exactly this old

1:24:36

inflation.

1:24:38

And Steve Hawking had

1:24:40

another way of proving that it's

1:24:42

impossible to improve it. Okay,

1:24:45

that was the origin of my culture,

1:24:47

you know. And Alan

1:24:50

have written a paper with Eric Weyandert proving

1:24:52

that it's impossible to improve it. So

1:24:55

I was translating what Steve said.

1:24:58

At some moment, it became intolerable

1:25:01

that it just was so slow.

1:25:04

So after Steve say one word,

1:25:06

and students say one word, then I will speak

1:25:08

for five minutes. So

1:25:11

it will continue. I explained why

1:25:13

it cannot be improved.

1:25:15

And then Steve

1:25:17

said

1:25:18

something which was translated by

1:25:20

his students, something like that. But recently,

1:25:22

Andrea Linde suggested a way how

1:25:24

to improve it and they have it translated.

1:25:27

And then next word was, but

1:25:30

unfortunately, it's wrong. And he

1:25:33

start explaining why my paper

1:25:35

is wrong.

1:25:36

And I was translating it.

1:25:39

And, you know, me,

1:25:42

a young person who is not

1:25:44

yet will have a clear,

1:25:48

guaranteed future. And you're

1:25:50

the best people of Russia watching

1:25:54

how he explains why these

1:25:57

stupid things. Okay, so I

1:25:59

translated

1:25:59

And I say, I translated by disagree.

1:26:02

And they explained why.

1:26:04

And they asked, Steve, do you want me to

1:26:07

tell you more about that? And he said, Voila. And

1:26:10

we disappeared in one room of this

1:26:12

Institute.

1:26:13

And for about two hours, all Institute

1:26:15

was in clinic because they did not notice where

1:26:18

Steven disappeared. They thought that

1:26:20

the famous British scientist disappeared tomorrow.

1:26:22

It will be in newspapers. Okay.

1:26:25

And meanwhile, I was at the blackboard telling

1:26:27

him something and he from time to date

1:26:30

say, Voila. And his student would

1:26:32

say, oh, but you did not tell that

1:26:34

before. And we continue this manner.

1:26:37

And then he invited me to his hotel. And

1:26:39

then he starts showing whatever

1:26:42

else of his family. And we in

1:26:44

France, you know. Yes. I

1:26:46

remember the period I was, he, shortly

1:26:48

thereafter, he and I had a joining office as he was

1:26:50

visiting Harvard. So I got to know

1:26:52

him. And what people don't realize, because

1:26:55

they know the Steven of the computer now, but

1:26:57

at that stage, he could still talk. And

1:27:00

if you knew him well enough, which his students did,

1:27:02

they could understand what he was saying. To

1:27:04

most people, it sounded like a mumble.

1:27:06

I remember I was able to sort of understand

1:27:09

a little bit, but whenever he gave a talk, he would

1:27:11

say, and then a student

1:27:13

would repeat what he'd said. It was before the computer.

1:27:16

And that was what was happening when you were

1:27:18

doing that. And yeah, and

1:27:20

it must've been very weird to be repeating Stephen

1:27:22

Hawking saying that you were wrong when you knew you weren't.

1:27:25

And it

1:27:26

took some- Yeah,

1:27:28

a new equation have died its own death,

1:27:31

not for this reason.

1:27:32

Yeah. Just well, when

1:27:35

people calculated the amplitude of density

1:27:37

perpervations, it appeared

1:27:39

to be like way too high.

1:27:42

And that was clear. Yeah,

1:27:45

let me parse that. Because in fact, this whole idea,

1:27:47

which is beautiful, did appear to suffer

1:27:50

a fatal problem. And it's due to quantum mechanics.

1:27:53

And that actually, I believe my first

1:27:55

understanding of how it happened.

1:27:58

Well, my best understanding of it's happened.

1:27:59

I think I learned from you from one of your books early

1:28:02

on. I learned it a different way, but it really

1:28:04

made intuitive sense. And that basically

1:28:07

is,

1:28:08

and again, you'll correct me, I'm sure, but

1:28:12

that is that so everything's smooth,

1:28:14

but while the universe is expanding,

1:28:16

quantum fields are fluctuating.

1:28:19

And if it expands long enough, the fields, the

1:28:21

quantum fluctuations continue to grow and grow

1:28:23

and grow.

1:28:25

And so if you have this perfect

1:28:27

dissider expansion,

1:28:29

by the time it ends, there'll be huge

1:28:31

quantum fluctuations, and those will produce huge

1:28:35

inhomogeneities. So a field which

1:28:37

is an inflation, which

1:28:39

is almost exactly as we call the sitter,

1:28:41

which doesn't depart at all from where

1:28:45

the field doesn't change at all during

1:28:47

that time, will allow the quantum

1:28:49

fluctuations to grow, I

1:28:51

think it's linearly with time.

1:28:54

I forget whether it's linearly or quadratically. A square

1:28:56

goes linearly. Yeah, okay. The square

1:28:58

goes linearly with time. And

1:29:01

that would produce two large fluctuations.

1:29:04

And that was the fatal flaw

1:29:06

in this

1:29:07

perfect idea of new inflation, where

1:29:09

the field didn't change very radically. So now

1:29:12

you can improve my discussion. It

1:29:16

was actually, well, one's

1:29:19

main flaw and other main great discovery.

1:29:22

It was first discovered

1:29:24

in Stravinsky model by

1:29:27

Mokhanov and Chibysov in 1981. And

1:29:30

Mokhanov, I remember, he was sitting in a nearby

1:29:33

office,

1:29:34

and he was trying to explain what

1:29:36

is going on. And I told him, but it's nonsense

1:29:38

because it's quantum fluctuations, and

1:29:40

the galaxies, how can you get galaxy

1:29:43

from? And it took me some time to understand,

1:29:45

okay,

1:29:46

because these fluctuations,

1:29:49

which are produced

1:29:51

during inflation, they

1:29:54

stretch.

1:29:55

So the wavelengths,

1:29:58

they become exponentially large. And

1:30:00

during stretching also,

1:30:02

they do not oscillate.

1:30:04

There are some terms in the equation of motion

1:30:06

and it's freezing them. So they were

1:30:09

freezing and stretching and

1:30:11

then others freeze on the top

1:30:13

and the others, just like you said. So

1:30:17

in Stravinsky model, it

1:30:19

actually works great.

1:30:21

In new inflation,

1:30:24

the amplitude of fluctuations is

1:30:26

too large. And I first learned about it

1:30:28

from Stravinsky.

1:30:30

I attended some conference,

1:30:34

which was somewhere close to Karelia in Russia.

1:30:43

And it was

1:30:45

very, very disappointing

1:30:48

for me. I'm learning, oh, maybe

1:30:50

he is wrong or maybe he's wrong. He said that the

1:30:53

amplitude of fluctuations are too large.

1:30:55

Okay. So a couple

1:30:57

of months after that, there was a conference

1:30:59

in Nafil and Stravinsky

1:31:02

came there with his already paper.

1:31:05

And at that time, Hawking already

1:31:08

issued his paper saying that fluctuations

1:31:10

are too small.

1:31:11

No, they're just right.

1:31:15

And then there was a whole booth

1:31:17

sitting here and saying that, well,

1:31:20

let's calculate them and then calculate

1:31:22

that they haven't to be too large. And

1:31:26

then a group of three other people who

1:31:28

will here later publish their paper. One

1:31:31

way or another, it was Stravinsky

1:31:33

who I know that

1:31:35

he did it because the memory

1:31:38

you cannot erase from his

1:31:40

disappointment. Okay. So

1:31:43

it was Tartu, the

1:31:45

conference in Tartu. So

1:31:47

what can I do? So essentially

1:31:49

when we left Nafil conference

1:31:52

in Cambridge, which was the first

1:31:54

conference on inflation and recasibility. Yeah,

1:31:56

it was 1982. I remember that. I was

1:31:59

invited to it.

1:31:59

and Harvard wouldn't give me money to go. And I

1:32:02

really felt badly after this, but that was the conference where

1:32:04

all these independent groups were calculating

1:32:08

supposedly the same thing, which is

1:32:10

could you make galaxies and the coming up

1:32:12

with the

1:32:13

fact that,

1:32:14

and let me put it a slightly different way, the fact

1:32:17

that in order for

1:32:19

the fluctuations to be small enough to be the seeds

1:32:21

of galaxies and not too large

1:32:23

to destroy the isotropy,

1:32:25

the microwave background,

1:32:27

then there'd have to be some parameters in this

1:32:29

theory that had to be so fine tuned to

1:32:31

be like one part in a million or one part

1:32:34

in a million million. That's the lesson

1:32:36

I learned.

1:32:37

And it hurt me very much

1:32:39

because I knew that if I'd been there, I would have been part

1:32:41

of one of those groups. And I felt like I missed

1:32:43

out. Trust me, it hurt me more. Yeah,

1:32:47

I got it. Hurt you more. Okay. But

1:32:49

I think that the consequences of

1:32:51

that were not quite understood for quite a while.

1:32:55

And one of the consequences is that if

1:32:57

you need to change the theory

1:33:00

to make it work, how you do it.

1:33:02

And so what are ingredients? First ingredient

1:33:05

is high temperature,

1:33:06

sufficiently large coupling constants

1:33:10

to have these phase transitions

1:33:13

and to have thermalization in the early

1:33:16

universe.

1:33:17

And then this meta-stage- Heat universe up afterwards.

1:33:20

Yeah. Yeah, well, okay. So several

1:33:22

different assumptions.

1:33:25

And what

1:33:27

happened later, and that was for me, like

1:33:30

one of these few shocking experiences,

1:33:33

because when you know

1:33:35

that something is impossible

1:33:37

and then something becomes easy,

1:33:39

that is, oh, how

1:33:42

could it be?

1:33:43

Well, so what

1:33:46

I found is that if you just have

1:33:48

a simply scale field without

1:33:51

any maxima or, well,

1:33:53

this minimum, whatever,

1:33:56

and without any high temperature phase transitions

1:33:58

to get rid of heat.

1:34:00

was the main pain for me because this

1:34:02

was my theory, okay? With

1:34:05

high temperature phase transition, there was what,

1:34:08

what I remember what Kirznev told me was

1:34:10

just forget about it. Just

1:34:13

learn, okay? In fact, I think that's

1:34:15

really, I

1:34:18

mean, your life has been an example of that, but

1:34:20

that's one of the greatest beauty of science that

1:34:22

I wish

1:34:23

the public would

1:34:25

not only appreciate, but I wish it could disseminate

1:34:28

it, is that in

1:34:30

science you learn to

1:34:32

forget, that

1:34:34

something you're willing to be wrong

1:34:37

and also learn to throw out ideas,

1:34:40

bad ideas, like yesterday's newspaper,

1:34:42

regardless of how precious they are to

1:34:44

you. It's an experience you have. And

1:34:47

so many ideas in the real world are dogmatically

1:34:50

held even when they're obviously wrong.

1:34:52

It happens in science too, but what makes

1:34:54

science great and what makes some scientists

1:34:57

great is that they can learn to throw

1:34:59

out the bad ideas and accept the new ones. And your

1:35:01

life throughout your career

1:35:03

has been an example of

1:35:05

taking your own ideas

1:35:07

in some sense and be willing to throw them out.

1:35:10

But the problem is this mostly

1:35:12

psychological. Well,

1:35:15

I do not consider myself like a

1:35:18

great physicist in the sense

1:35:20

that there are

1:35:22

quite a lot of people who do

1:35:24

math way, way better than me.

1:35:28

I have something like intuition maybe.

1:35:32

And another thing is yes

1:35:35

indeed, if I see something

1:35:37

clearly,

1:35:38

then I don't care what other thing.

1:35:41

And

1:35:43

this like having a theory

1:35:46

with a potential like a harmonic

1:35:48

oscillator or something like that

1:35:50

and having it

1:35:52

lead to inflation, then,

1:35:54

oh wow.

1:35:56

And then you do not need the universe

1:35:59

to be hot.

1:35:59

I mean, this is like

1:36:02

you have this snake

1:36:04

which hypnotizes you.

1:36:07

You know that there was

1:36:09

a hot big bang. You know that

1:36:11

there was a hot big bang. You know, right

1:36:14

now I'm opening every

1:36:16

textbook on cosmology.

1:36:20

They all start with describing

1:36:23

the hot big bang.

1:36:25

Okay. And it is not

1:36:27

necessary. In fact, it is much more difficult

1:36:31

to make a universe inflate if

1:36:33

it starts with hot big bang. So I

1:36:35

wonder what is going on. I sending

1:36:38

this people message. Let me help you

1:36:40

to write it properly because

1:36:42

your theory was actually

1:36:45

ruled out 40 years ago and

1:36:47

you are still teaching your students

1:36:49

this

1:36:50

and they say, yeah, but what can we do?

1:36:53

We copied it from one particular

1:36:55

place and now we have a copyright

1:36:57

and we cannot change what all these guys. So

1:37:00

it's amazing.

1:37:04

Well, you take what is

1:37:07

good and you just go

1:37:09

forward. This idea was revolutionary and

1:37:13

surprising. Again,

1:37:16

like many things in physics, it's

1:37:18

simple in retrospect, but the notion

1:37:21

that you realize when you went

1:37:23

from this new inflation, which required just, I

1:37:25

want people to be confused, it

1:37:27

still required a phase transition, but it was

1:37:29

a phase transition that was different that

1:37:32

had a bubble and our universe existed within

1:37:34

one bubble. But what you realized

1:37:36

is that,

1:37:37

hey, you don't have a phase transition. No, this

1:37:39

part was easy. I

1:37:42

will not allow you. Okay. That's

1:37:44

all right. It's a beautiful thought. In

1:37:47

new inflation, these were the universe

1:37:49

inside the bubble.

1:37:51

In chaotic inflation, you do not need the bubbles.

1:37:53

Exactly. That's the whole point. Yeah. Okay.

1:37:55

I was just going to get there. Suddenly

1:37:58

new

1:37:58

inflation had a. And

1:38:01

suddenly you realize you don't need a bubble at all. You don't even

1:38:03

need a phase transition. That if you have a universe

1:38:07

with the simplest possible example

1:38:09

of what we call a harmonic oscillator,

1:38:11

but that may not mean anything to anyone, but

1:38:13

you don't have to have anything weird kind of special

1:38:16

initial conditions.

1:38:18

And then you can you explain what happens? Actually,

1:38:22

one of the things which brought me to it

1:38:25

also about this initial conditions, you

1:38:27

may consider as small as

1:38:29

possible universes, like for example,

1:38:32

close it universe of a Planckian

1:38:34

mass, of a Planckian

1:38:37

density,

1:38:38

but it is 10 to the

1:38:40

minus five grams. Yeah. It's

1:38:43

nothing, okay? That's nothing. And

1:38:45

if it is filled with

1:38:48

a scalar field with maximal

1:38:50

energy, which is Planckian energy, okay?

1:38:53

If a potential energy of

1:38:55

the field is greater than gradient

1:38:57

and kinetic energy,

1:38:59

then this thing becomes expanding.

1:39:02

And within not 10 to the minus 20

1:39:04

seconds, it

1:39:07

is within 10 to the minus 40

1:39:10

seconds, it becomes much greater than our

1:39:12

universe. So you

1:39:14

get energy from nothing. This

1:39:17

looks like a more sophisticated,

1:39:19

no, it's stupid. It is

1:39:22

incredible way of cheating because

1:39:24

you start from nothing. If you got

1:39:26

used to the idea that energy is conserved,

1:39:29

how you get, well,

1:39:31

these 10 to the 90 almost particles

1:39:35

surrounding us in visible part of the

1:39:37

universe, starting from

1:39:40

no single particle at all. Yeah.

1:39:43

So this is, well,

1:39:48

in no violation of laws

1:39:50

of physics. This is what is strange,

1:39:52

no violation of laws of physics.

1:39:55

And that's the hardest thing to get

1:39:57

to people to understand is that you can do it without any, as

1:39:59

I like to say.

1:39:59

book and he's supernatural shenanigans. Yeah,

1:40:02

yeah. And then I got in trouble.

1:40:05

Well, I don't get in trouble. I just some people don't like

1:40:07

it. Although I the way I heard it. I

1:40:09

still think Alan's description

1:40:12

because of the uses in an act

1:40:15

of phrase that use that Americans are used to

1:40:17

is what the one that convinced me of calling it the ultimate

1:40:20

free lunch. You know, people say there's no such

1:40:22

thing as a free lunch and he would say the universe is not

1:40:24

the ultimate free lunch because apparently from

1:40:26

nothing you can get everything and it doesn't violate any

1:40:28

laws of physics. It's really kind

1:40:31

of remarkable.

1:40:32

Now, in fact, we understand how that happens.

1:40:34

It turns out

1:40:35

the way granular relativity works is that

1:40:38

as the universe is expanding the universe

1:40:40

is doing work

1:40:41

on the stuff inside. So it's not as if energy

1:40:43

is violated. It's that universe is doing

1:40:46

work on the expansion and dumping

1:40:48

energy into that system because of the

1:40:50

of what we call negative pressure. But

1:40:53

since you mentioned the sentence of Alan

1:40:55

Guth, you know, I

1:40:58

first time made an extension

1:41:00

of what he did and now

1:41:03

in 82 when there was this

1:41:06

naphylsimposition, I actually

1:41:08

issued a preprint about eternal

1:41:11

inflation in new inflation scenario.

1:41:14

And this was also after now

1:41:18

Stainford gave a talk there about that

1:41:20

and I still

1:41:23

have a copy of the preprint. What

1:41:25

was important there

1:41:27

that once you have this

1:41:30

bubble or normal, whatever happens

1:41:33

in different parts of the universe,

1:41:36

you may have this transition

1:41:38

at that time. It was transition, but later it was

1:41:41

different happening independently.

1:41:45

So if that

1:41:47

is the way I know, for example, that in Su 5,

1:41:50

especially in super-stimantic, it

1:41:53

doesn't have different minimum.

1:41:54

So you can fall to the right

1:41:56

to the left, straightforward, whatever

1:41:59

your fall into red minimum, blue

1:42:01