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Leonard Susskind (born 1940) is the Felix Bloch professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University in the field of string theory and quantum field theory. Susskind is widely regarded as one of the fathers of string theory for his early contributions to the String Theory model of particle physics.
kind was born in a poor Jewish family from the South Bronx section of New York City and now resides in Palo Alto, California. He began working as a plumber at the age of sixteen, taking over for his father who had become ill.
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Quotations
(Jokingly) Sex in ten dimensions is impossible... topologically.
Source: Lecture "Cosmic landscape and illusion of intelligent design", DESY Hamburg 28.09.2006
Encyclopedia
Leonard Susskind (born 1940) is the Felix Bloch professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University in the field of string theory and quantum field theory. Susskind is widely regarded as one of the fathers of string theory for his early contributions to the String Theory model of particle physics.
Early life and education
Susskind was born in a poor Jewish family from the South Bronx section of New York City and now resides in Palo Alto, California. He began working as a plumber at the age of sixteen, taking over for his father who had become ill. Later, he enrolled in the City College of New York as an engineering student, graduating with a B.S. in Physics in 1962. In an article with the LA Times, Susskind recalls the moment he discussed with his father this change in career path: "When I told my father I wanted to be a physicist, he said, ‘Hell no, you ain’t going to work in a drug store.’ I said no, not a pharmacist. I said, ‘Like Einstein.’ He poked me in the chest with a piece of plumbing pipe. ‘You ain’t going to be no engineer,’ he said. ‘You’re going to be Einstein.’"
He then studied at Cornell University under Peter A. Carruthers where he received his Ph.D. in 1965. He has been married twice, originally in 1960, and has four children.
Career
Susskind was an Assistant Professor of Physics, then an Associate Professor at the Yeshiva University (1966-1970), after which he went for a year at the University of Tel Aviv (1971-72), returning to Yeshiva to become a Professor of Physics (1970-1979). Since 1979, he has been Professor of Physics at Stanford University, and since 2000, its Felix Bloch Professor of Physics.
In 2007, Susskind joined the Faculty of Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, as an Associate Member. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was awarded the 1998 Sakurai Prize for theoretical physics. He is also a distinguished professor at Korea Institute for Advanced Study.
Susskind is the author of two popular science books, The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design published in 2005, and The Black Hole War: My battle with Stephen Hawking to make the world safe for quantum mechanics published in 2008.
He was one of at least three physicists who independently discovered during or around 1970 that the Veneziano dual resonance model of strong interactions could be described by a quantum mechanical model of strings.
An entire course on quantum physics by Susskind can be downloaded on the iTunes platform from "Stanford on iTunes". He is also a noted speaker, scheduled to speak at the Skeptics Society's "Origins Conference" at California Institute of Technology alongside Nancey Murphy, and Victor J. Stenger.
Contributions
Susskind has also made contributions in the following areas of physics:
See also
Further reading
- Chown, Marcus, , New Scientist, 15 January 2009, magazine issue 2691. "The holograms you find on credit cards and banknotes are etched on two-dimensional plastic films. When light bounces off them, it recreates the appearance of a 3D image. In the 1990s physicists Leonard Susskind and Nobel prizewinner Gerard 't Hooft suggested that the same principle might apply to the universe as a whole. Our everyday experience might itself be a holographic projection of physical processes that take place on a distant, 2D surface."
External links
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- The Edge:
- ,
- from This Week in Science March 14, 2006 Broadcast
- "Father of String Theory Muses on the Megaverse":
- on the Internet Movie Database.
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