Stanford physicist Andrei Linde is one of the pioneers of the cosmic inflationary theory. New evidence from the BICEP2 experiment at the South Pole has found what one of the experiment’s leaders has called the “smoking gun” to support the theory. It has observed primordial gravitational waves consistent with the idea of the young universe’s rapid expansion after the Big Bang.

Here is the touching moment when Prof Linde learned of the new evidence to support his theory. He is surprised by his Stanford University colleague Chao-Lin Kuo, one of the scientists working on BICEP2, who breaks the news as only a physicist could. Credit: YouTube/Stanford University