Lee Smolin

Lee Smolin ( born June 6, 1955 in New York City, USA) is an American theoretical physicist.

Life and work

Smolin attended Hampshire College, where in 1975 he earned a Bachelor of Arts, and Harvard University, where he in 1979 with Sidney Coleman and Stanley Deser in theoretical physics doctorate. From 1980 to 1981 he was at the University of California, Santa Barbara, then to 1983 at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, from 1983 to 1984 at the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago, 1984-1988 assistant professor at Yale University, 1988 to 1993, professor at Syracuse University and then at Pennsylvania State University. He is currently working at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada.

Smolin made ​​major contributions to loop quantum gravity and argues that the two main approaches to quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity and string theory to a single underlying theory can be fused.

Cosmological inheritance

Lee Smolin developed in his book Why there is the world? the idea of ​​a cosmological inheritance, which should make a contribution to basic cosmological and physical issues, such as after the fine tuning of the fundamental constants. He expects that of massive black holes in a universe created new " baby universes ", the essential qualities of the could take " mother universes ". In this way, it could be a " cosmological evolution", in which " successful " universes (for example, in terms of durability and thus the ability to produce more black holes ) prevail over others.

Although this idea by other scientists such as John D. Barrow, Brian Greene and Martin Rees is repeatedly taken up and discussed in her books, she has up to now not yet found any recognized distribution.

Works

  • Why does the world? ( The life of the cosmos ). Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1997, ISBN 0-297-81727-2.
  • Three roads to quantum gravity. Basic Books, New York 2001, ISBN 0-465-07835-4.
  • The future of physics: problems of string theory and how it goes ( The trouble with physics: the rise of string theory, the fall of a science, and what comes next). Houghton Mifflin, Boston (Mass. ) 2006, ISBN 0-618-55105-0. ( The Trouble with Physics )
  • Atoms of space and time, Scientific American, January 2004
Princeton (New Jersey) arXiv SETI Institute Integrated Authority File
504734
de