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Lee Smolin
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Lee Smolin (born 1955 in New York City) is an American theoretical physicist, a researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo.
Smolin is best known for devising several different approaches to quantum gravity, in particular loop quantum gravity. He advocates that the two primary approaches to quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity and string theory, can be reconciled as different aspects of the same underlying theory. His research interests also include cosmology, elementary particle theory, the foundations of quantum mechanics, and theoretical biology.
in was educated at Hampshire College and studied with noted physicist Herb Bernstein.
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Lee Smolin (born 1955 in New York City) is an American theoretical physicist, a researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo.
Smolin is best known for devising several different approaches to quantum gravity, in particular loop quantum gravity. He advocates that the two primary approaches to quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity and string theory, can be reconciled as different aspects of the same underlying theory. His research interests also include cosmology, elementary particle theory, the foundations of quantum mechanics, and theoretical biology.
Early life
Smolin was educated at Hampshire College and studied with noted physicist Herb Bernstein. He received his Ph.D in theoretical physics from Harvard University in 1979. His mother is the playwright Pauline Smolin, while his father Michael Smolin is an environmental and process engineer. His brother, David M. Smolin, is a professor in the Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama.
Theories and work
Fecund universes
The fecund universes theory (also called cosmological natural selection theory) of cosmology advanced by Lee Smolin suggests that the rules of biology apply on the grandest scales, and is often referred to as "cosmological natural selection". Smolin summarized the idea in a book aimed at a lay audience called The Life of the Cosmos.
The theory surmises that a collapsing black hole causes the emergence of a new universe on the "other side", whose fundamental constant parameters (speed of light, Planck length and so forth) may differ slightly from those of the universe where the black hole collapsed. Each universe therefore gives rise to as many new universes as it has black holes. Thus the theory contains the evolutionary ideas of "reproduction" and "mutation" of universes, but has no direct analogue of natural selection. However, given any universe that can produce black holes that successfully spawn new universes, it is possible that some number of those universes will reach heat death with unsuccessful parameters. So, in a sense, fecundity cosmological natural selection is one where universes could die off before successfully reproducing, just as any biological being can die without having children.
Leonard Susskind who now promotes a similar string theory landscape, stated: "I'm not sure why Smolin's idea didn't attract much attention. I actually think it deserved far more than it got."
He writes many articles for the popular media, often promoting loop quantum gravity and criticizing the strength of support for string theory in the physics community.
Smolin also points out that string theory landscape is not Popper falsifiable if other worlds are not observable. There are then only two ways out: traversable wormholes connecting the different parallel worlds and "signal nonlocality", as described by Antony Valentini, a scientist at the Perimeter Institute.
Controversy
The 2006 publication of The Trouble with Physics generated much controversy and debate about the merits of string theory, and the book was criticised by some leading physicists including string theorists Joseph Polchinski and Luboš Motl.
In his earlier book Three Roads to Quantum Gravity (2002), Smolin had stated that loop quantum gravity and string theory were essentially the same concept seen from different perspectives. In that book, he also favored the holographic principle. The Trouble with Physics, on the other hand, was strongly critical of string theory and of its prominence in contemporary theoretical physics. Smolin suggests that string theory suffers from serious deficiencies, and has an unhealthy near-monopoly in the particle theory community. He called for a diversity of approaches to quantum gravity, and argued that more attention should be paid to loop quantum gravity, an approach Smolin has devised. Finally, The Trouble with Physics is also broadly concerned with the role of controversy, and the value of diverse approaches, in the ethics and process of science.
Smolin found support in one corner. In the same year as that in which The Trouble with Physics was published, Peter Woit also published a book, written for nonspecialists, whose conclusion was similar to Smolin's, namely that string theory was a fundamentally flawed research program.
- Woit, Peter, 2006. Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory & the Continuing Challenge to Unify the Laws of Physics. ISBN 0-224-07605-1 (Jonathan Cape), ISBN 0-465-09275-6 (Basic Books)
Smolin was recently named as #21 on Foreign Policy Magazine's list of Top 100 Public Intellectuals.
Smolin is also one of many physicists dubbed the "New Einstein" by the media.
Views
Smolin does not believe that quantum mechanics is a "final theory":
"I am convinced that quantum mechanics is not a final theory. I believe this because I have never encountered an interpretation of the present formulation of quantum mechanics that makes sense to me. I have studied most of them in depth and thought hard about them, and in the end I still can't make real sense of quantum theory as it stands."
Personal life
He is married to Dina Graser, a communications lawyer in Toronto.
Publications
The following books are relatively non-technical, and can be appreciated by those who are not physicists.
External links
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