Russian-born scientist Andrei Linde — a theoretical physicist — spent the majority of his life working on the Big Bang theory (the actual one, not the awful TV series) and is considered the founding father of inflation theory, the idea that the universe rapidly inflated upon its creation immediately following the Big Bang.

Well yesterday the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics announced that they’d detected ripples/gravitational waves in the fabric of space. It’s a massive discovery that proves Andrei Linde right and validates everything he had worked on and dedicated his adult life to. What a feeling that must be.

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Watch the moment he was surprised with the news at his home below:

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