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Paul J. Steinhardt is the Albert Einstein Professor of Science at Princeton University and a professor of theoretical physics. He received his B.S. at the California Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in Physics at Harvard University. He was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows and Mary Amanda Wood Professor of Physics at the University of Pennsylvania before joining the faculty at Princeton University in 1998. He is currently the Director of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science.
He is best known for his work in theoretical cosmology, where he helped develop the theory of cosmic inflation, which attempts to explain the homogeneity and geometry of the universe and the origin of the fluctuations that seeded the formation of galaxies and large-scale structure. He introduced the concept of quintessence, a time-varying form of dark energy to explain the current accelerating expansion of the universe. His recent work has been on brane cosmology, especially the ekpyrotic and cyclic models. The cyclic theory of the universe is a radical alternative to big bang/inflationary cosmology in which the evolution of the universe is periodic and the key events shaping the large scale structure of the universe occur before the big bang.
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