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Max Tegmark

 
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Max Tegmark
 
 
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Max Tegmark (born 5 May 1967) is a Swedish
Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....
-American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 cosmologist
Physical cosmology

Physical cosmology, as a branch of astronomy, is the study of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of our universe and is concerned with fundamental questions about its formation and evolution....
. Tegmark is an Associate Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private university research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States....
 where he belongs to the scientific directorate of the Foundational Questions Institute
Foundational Questions Institute

The Foundational Questions Institute, styled FQXi, is an organization which provides grants to ?catalyze, support, and disseminate research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology.? ...
.

ark was born as Max Shapiro in Sweden, son of Karin Tegmark and Harold S. Shapiro
Harold S. Shapiro

Harold Seymour Shapiro is a professor emeritus of mathematics at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, bestknown for inventing the so-called Shapiro polynomials ...
, studied at the Royal Institute of Technology
Royal Institute of Technology

The Royal Institute of Technology is a university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH was founded in 1827 as Sweden's first polytechnic and is with TKK in Helsinki, depending on definition, Scandinavia's largest institution of higher education in technology and one of the leading technical universities in Europe ....
 in Stockholm
Stockholm

is the capital and largest city of Sweden. It is the site of the national Swedish Government of Sweden, the Parliament of Sweden, and the official residence of the Swedish Monarchy of Sweden....
, and later received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley is a public university research university located in Berkeley, California, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines....
. After having worked at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is America's first university and is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States....
, he is now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private university research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States....
.

art of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Sloan Digital Sky Survey

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey or SDSS is a major multi-filter imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey using a dedicated 2.5-metre wide-angle optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico....
 team, he has worked on data analysis, extracting the parameters of the Lambda-CDM model
Lambda-CDM model

ΛCDM or Lambda-CDM is an abbreviation for Lambda-Cold Dark Matter. It is frequently referred to as the concordance model of big bang physical cosmology, since it attempts to explain cosmic microwave background observations, as well as Large-scale structure of the cosmos observations and supernovae observations of th...
 from observational large-scale structure
Large-scale structure of the cosmos

In physical cosmology, the term large-scale structure refers to the characterization of observation distribution s of matter and light on the largest scales ....
 and cosmic microwave background data.

He developed the quantum suicide
Quantum suicide

In quantum mechanics, quantum suicide was a thought experiment. It was independently published in 1987 by Hans Moravec and in 1988 by Bruno Marchal, and further developed by Max Tegmark in 1998....
 thought experiment
Thought experiment

A thought experiment , sometimes called a Gedanken experiment, is a proposal for an experiment that would test or illuminate a hypothesis or theory....
 from earlier proposals by Hans Moravec
Hans Moravec

Hans Moravec is a adjunct faculty member at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. He is known for his work on robotics, artificial intelligence, and writings on the impact of technology....
 and Bruno Marchal, and has come up with a mathematical argument for the multiverse
Multiverse (science)

The multiverse is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise all of reality. The different universes within the multiverse are sometimes called parallel universes....
.

He has also been a strong critic of those who would infer a theory of consciousness
Consciousness

Consciousness is a difficult term to define, because the word is used and understood in a wide variety of ways, so that it frequently happens that what one person sees as a definition of consciousness is seen by others as about something else altogether....
 from quantum effects, such as Roger Penrose
Roger Penrose

Sir Roger Penrose, Order of Merit , Royal Society is an English mathematical physicist and Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College....
 and Stuart Hameroff
Stuart Hameroff

Stuart Hameroff is an anesthesiologist and professor at the University of Arizona known for his promotion of the scientific study of consciousness, and his speculative theories of the mechanisms of consciousness....
.

Tegmark has also formulated the "Ultimate ensemble
Ultimate ensemble

The mathematical universe hypothesis , also known as the Ultimate Ensemble, is a speculative theory of everything , suggested by Max Tegmark, closely related to J?rgen Schmidhuber's ultimate ensemble of all computable universes , both published in 1997....
 theory of everything
Theory of everything

The theory of everything is a putative theory of theoretical physics that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena. Initially, the term was used with an ironic connotation to refer to various overgeneralized theories....
", whose only postulate is that "all structures that exist mathematically exist also physically".






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Max Tegmark (born 5 May 1967) is a Swedish
Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....
-American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 cosmologist
Physical cosmology

Physical cosmology, as a branch of astronomy, is the study of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of our universe and is concerned with fundamental questions about its formation and evolution....
. Tegmark is an Associate Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private university research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States....
 where he belongs to the scientific directorate of the Foundational Questions Institute
Foundational Questions Institute

The Foundational Questions Institute, styled FQXi, is an organization which provides grants to ?catalyze, support, and disseminate research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology.? ...
.

Biography


Early life

Tegmark was born as Max Shapiro in Sweden, son of Karin Tegmark and Harold S. Shapiro
Harold S. Shapiro

Harold Seymour Shapiro is a professor emeritus of mathematics at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, bestknown for inventing the so-called Shapiro polynomials ...
, studied at the Royal Institute of Technology
Royal Institute of Technology

The Royal Institute of Technology is a university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH was founded in 1827 as Sweden's first polytechnic and is with TKK in Helsinki, depending on definition, Scandinavia's largest institution of higher education in technology and one of the leading technical universities in Europe ....
 in Stockholm
Stockholm

is the capital and largest city of Sweden. It is the site of the national Swedish Government of Sweden, the Parliament of Sweden, and the official residence of the Swedish Monarchy of Sweden....
, and later received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley is a public university research university located in Berkeley, California, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines....
. After having worked at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is America's first university and is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States....
, he is now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private university research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States....
.

Career

As part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Sloan Digital Sky Survey

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey or SDSS is a major multi-filter imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey using a dedicated 2.5-metre wide-angle optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico....
 team, he has worked on data analysis, extracting the parameters of the Lambda-CDM model
Lambda-CDM model

ΛCDM or Lambda-CDM is an abbreviation for Lambda-Cold Dark Matter. It is frequently referred to as the concordance model of big bang physical cosmology, since it attempts to explain cosmic microwave background observations, as well as Large-scale structure of the cosmos observations and supernovae observations of th...
 from observational large-scale structure
Large-scale structure of the cosmos

In physical cosmology, the term large-scale structure refers to the characterization of observation distribution s of matter and light on the largest scales ....
 and cosmic microwave background data.

He developed the quantum suicide
Quantum suicide

In quantum mechanics, quantum suicide was a thought experiment. It was independently published in 1987 by Hans Moravec and in 1988 by Bruno Marchal, and further developed by Max Tegmark in 1998....
 thought experiment
Thought experiment

A thought experiment , sometimes called a Gedanken experiment, is a proposal for an experiment that would test or illuminate a hypothesis or theory....
 from earlier proposals by Hans Moravec
Hans Moravec

Hans Moravec is a adjunct faculty member at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. He is known for his work on robotics, artificial intelligence, and writings on the impact of technology....
 and Bruno Marchal, and has come up with a mathematical argument for the multiverse
Multiverse (science)

The multiverse is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise all of reality. The different universes within the multiverse are sometimes called parallel universes....
.

He has also been a strong critic of those who would infer a theory of consciousness
Consciousness

Consciousness is a difficult term to define, because the word is used and understood in a wide variety of ways, so that it frequently happens that what one person sees as a definition of consciousness is seen by others as about something else altogether....
 from quantum effects, such as Roger Penrose
Roger Penrose

Sir Roger Penrose, Order of Merit , Royal Society is an English mathematical physicist and Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College....
 and Stuart Hameroff
Stuart Hameroff

Stuart Hameroff is an anesthesiologist and professor at the University of Arizona known for his promotion of the scientific study of consciousness, and his speculative theories of the mechanisms of consciousness....
.

Tegmark has also formulated the "Ultimate ensemble
Ultimate ensemble

The mathematical universe hypothesis , also known as the Ultimate Ensemble, is a speculative theory of everything , suggested by Max Tegmark, closely related to J?rgen Schmidhuber's ultimate ensemble of all computable universes , both published in 1997....
 theory of everything
Theory of everything

The theory of everything is a putative theory of theoretical physics that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena. Initially, the term was used with an ironic connotation to refer to various overgeneralized theories....
", whose only postulate is that "all structures that exist mathematically exist also physically". This simple theory, with no free parameters at all, suggests that in those structures complex enough to contain self-aware substructures (SASs), these SASs will subjectively perceive themselves as existing in a physically "real" world. This idea is formalized as the "Mathematical universe hypothesis" in his paper , a short version of which was published as

Personal life

He is married to astrophysicist Angelica de Oliveira-Costa and they have two sons, Philip and Alexander.

Trivia

  • In 2006, Tegmark was one of fifty scientists interviewed by New Scientist
    New Scientist

    New Scientist is a liberal weekly international science magazine and website covering recent developments in science and technology for a general English language-speaking audience....
     about their predictions for the future. His prediction: "In 50 years, you may be able to buy T-shirts on which are printed equations describing the unified laws of our universes."
  • Tegmark appears in the documentary "Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives
    Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives

    Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives is a British Academy of Film and Television Arts-winning television documentary broadcast in 2007 on BBC Scotland and BBC Four, in which American rock musician Mark Oliver Everett talks with physicists and the former colleagues of his father?Hugh Everett III?about his father's many-worlds interpretation of quan...
    " in which he is interviewed by Mark Oliver Everett
    Mark Oliver Everett

    Mark Oliver Everett is the lead singer, guitarist, keyboardist and sometime drummer of the independent music Eels . Also known as A Man Called E, Mr....
    , the son of the founder of the Many Worlds Interpretation, Hugh Everett
    Hugh Everett

    Hugh Everett III was an American physicist who first proposed the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, which he called his "relative state" formulation....
    .


See also

  • Quantum biology
    Quantum biology

    Quantum biology is a speculative and interdisciplinary field that seeks to link quantum physics and the life sciences. Essentially, it is an attempt to study biological processes in terms of quantum mechanics , using quantum theory to study the structure, energy transfer and chemical reactions of biological molecules in an effort to apply qu...


External links