Wojciech H. Zurek
Encyclopedia
Wojciech Hubert Zurek is a well-known physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...

 and a Laboratory Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico...

. He is a leading authority on quantum theory
Quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...

, especially decoherence. His work also has a lot of potential benefit to the emerging field of quantum computing.

Zurek earned his M.Sc. in Kraków, Poland
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

  in 1974 and completed his Ph.D. under advisor William C. Schieve at the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...

 in 1979. He spent two years at Caltech as a Tolman Fellow, and started at LANL as a J. Oppenheimer Fellow. He was the leader of the Theoretical Astrophysics Group at Los Alamos from 1991 until he was made a Laboratory Fellow in the Theory Division in 1996. Zurek is currently a foreign associate of the Cosmology
Physical cosmology
Physical cosmology, as a branch of astronomy, is the study of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of the universe and is concerned with fundamental questions about its formation and evolution. For most of human history, it was a branch of metaphysics and religion...

 Program of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research. He served as a member of the external faculty of the Santa Fe Institute
Santa Fe Institute
The Santa Fe Institute is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, including physical, computational, biological, and social systems.The Institute houses a...

, and has been a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...

. Zurek co-organized the Quantum Coherence and Decoherence as well as the Quantum Computing and Chaos Programs at UCSB's Institute for Theoretical Physics.

He researches decoherence, physics of quantum and classical information, foundations of statistical and of quantum physics, and astrophysics
Astrophysics
Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...

. He is also the co-author, along with William Wootters
William Wootters
William Kent Wootters is an American physicist, and a leading contributor to the field of quantum information theory. He proved the no cloning theorem in a joint paper with Wojciech H. Zurek. It was also independently discovered by Dennis Dieks. He has also worked on the quantification of...

 and Dennis Dieks
Dennis Dieks
Dennis Dieks is a Dutch physicist and philosopher of physics. In 1982 he proved the no-cloning theorem . In 1989 he proposed a new interpretation of quantum mechanics, later known as a version of the modal interpretation of quantum mechanics...

, of a proof stating that a single quantum
Quantum
In physics, a quantum is the minimum amount of any physical entity involved in an interaction. Behind this, one finds the fundamental notion that a physical property may be "quantized," referred to as "the hypothesis of quantization". This means that the magnitude can take on only certain discrete...

 cannot be cloned (see the no cloning theorem
No cloning theorem
The no-cloning theorem is a result of quantum mechanics that forbids the creation of identical copies of an arbitrary unknown quantum state. It was stated by Wootters, Zurek, and Dieks in 1982, and has profound implications in quantum computing and related fields.The state of one system can be...

). He also coined the terms einselection
Einselection
Einselection is short for environment - induced superselection, a nickname coined by Wojciech H. Zurek. Classicality is an emergent property induced in open quantum systems by their environments...

 and quantum discord
Quantum discord
In quantum information theory, quantum discord is a measure of nonclassical correlations between two subsystems of a quantum system. It includes correlations that are due to quantum physical effects but do not necessarily involve quantum entanglement....

. He is a pioneer in information physics, edited an influential book on "Complexity, Entropy and the Physics of Information", and spearheaded the efforts that finally exorcised Maxwell's demon
Maxwell's demon
In the philosophy of thermal and statistical physics, Maxwell's demon is a thought experiment created by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell to "show that the Second Law of Thermodynamics has only a statistical certainty." It demonstrates Maxwell's point by hypothetically describing how to...

.

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