A brief history of the multiverse
Andrei Linde
The theory of the inflationary multiverse changes the way we think about our
place in the world. According to its most popular version, our world may
consist of infinitely many exponentially large parts, exhibiting different sets
of low-energy laws of physics. Since these parts are extremely large, the
interior of each of them behaves as if it were a separate universe, practically
unaffected by the rest of the world. This picture, combined with the theory of
eternal inflation and anthropic considerations, may help to solve many
difficult problems of modern physics, including the cosmological constant
problem. In this article I will briefly describe this theory and provide links
to the some hard to find papers written during the first few years of the
development of the inflationary multiverse scenario.