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| Leonard Susskind | |
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| Born | 19401 New York City, New York |
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| Residence |  USA |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | Yeshiva University University of Tel Aviv Stanford University |
| Alma mater | City College of New York Cornell University |
| Doctoral advisor | Peter A. Carruthers |
| Known for | String theory Quark confinement Hamiltonian lattice gauge theory |
| Notable awards | Sakurai Prize (1998) |
| Religious stance | atheist2 |
Leonard Susskind (born 19401) 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.3
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Early life and education
Susskind was born in a poor Jewish family from the South Bronx section of New York City4 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.5 Later, he enrolled in the City College of New York as an engineering student, graduating with a B.S. in Physics in 1962.6 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.’" 7 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 1960,6 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,8 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.9
Susskind is the author of two popular science books, The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design10 published in 2005, and The Black Hole War: My battle with Stephen Hawking to make the world safe for quantum mechanics11 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.12
An entire course on quantum physics by Susskind can be downloaded on the iTunes platform from "Stanford on iTunes".[5] He is also a noted speaker, scheduled to speak at the Skeptics Society' "Origins Conference" at California Institute of Technology alongside Nancey Murphy, and Victor J. Stenger.13
Contributions
Susskind has also made contributions in the following areas of physics:
- The independent discovery of the string theory model of particle physics.
- The theory of quark confinement14
- The development of Hamiltonian lattice gauge theory15
- The theory of scaling violations in deep inelastic electroproduction
- The theory of symmetry breaking sometimes known as "technicolor theory"16
- The second, yet independent, theory of cosmological baryogenesis.17 (Sakharov's work was first, but was mostly unknown in the Western hemisphere.)
- String theory of black hole entropy18
- The principle of "black hole complementarity"19
- The holographic principle20
- M-theory21
- Introduction of holographic entropy bounds in physical cosmology
- The idea of an anthropic string theory landscape.22
See also
References
- ^ a b His 60th birthday was celebrated with a special symposium at Stanford University on May 20-21, 2000.[1]
- ^ Life in a landscape of possibilities[2]
- ^ NYAS Publication A Walk Across the Landscape
- ^ "Leonard Susskind discusses duel with Stephen Hawking", "LA Times", July 26, 2008
- ^ "Leonard Susskind discusses duel with Stephen Hawking", "LA Times", July 26, 2008
- ^ a b Edge.org Leonard Susskind - A Biography (last accessed August 12, 2007).
- ^ "Leonard Susskind discusses duel with Stephen Hawking", "LA Times", July 26, 2008
- ^ http://www.stanford.edu/dept/physics/people/faculty/susskind_leonard.html
- ^ Welcome To Kias
- ^ L. Susskind, The cosmic landscape: string theory and the illusion of intelligent design (Little, Brown, 2005).
- ^ L. Susskind, The Black Hole War: My battle with Stephen Hawking to make the world safe for quantum mechanics (Little, Brown, 2008)
- ^ String Theory: The Early Years, John H. Schwarz, 2000
- ^ "Origins Conference October 3–4, 2008", Skeptics Society (2008). Retrieved on 10 October 2008.
- ^ L. Susskind, Lattice Models Of Quark Confinement At High Temperature, Phys. Rev. D20 (1979) 2610.
- ^ J. Kogut and L. Susskind, Phys. Rev. D 11, 395 (1975).
- ^ Review of Particle Physics, (W.-M. Yao et al., J. Phys. G 33, 1 (2006)) Dynamical Electroweak Symmetry Breaking section cites two 1979 publications, one by Steven Weinberg, the other by L. Susskind to represent the earliest models with technicolor and technifermions.[3]
- ^ Biography at APS J. J. Sakurai Prize website (last accessed August 12, 2007).
- ^ L. Susskind, RU-93-44, hep-th/9309145.
- ^ L. Susskind, Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 2368 (1993). String theory and the principle of black hole complementarity.
- ^ "The insistence on unitarity in the presence of black holes led 't Hooft (1993) and Susskind (1995b) to embrace a more radical, holographic interpretation of ..." - The Holographic Principle, Raphael Bousso, Rev. Mod. Phys. 74 (2002) 825-874. [4]
- ^ T. Banks, W. Fischler, S. H. Shenker, and L. Susskind, M Theory as a Matrix Model: A Conjecture, Phys. Rev. D55 (1997) 5112–5128, hep-th/9610043.
- ^ L. Susskind, arXiv:hep-th/0302219.
External links
- Leonard Susskind's Homepage (Stanford University)
- The Edge:
- "Interview with Leonard Susskind."
- Susskind and Lee Smolin debate the Anthropic Principle.
- Leonard Susskind's Quantum Mechanics course lectures on YouTube, iTunes
- Radio Interview from This Week in Science March 14, 2006 Broadcast
- "Father of String Theory Muses on the Megaverse": Podcast.
- Leonard Susskind's page on the Internet Movie Database.
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 10 November 2008, at 15:33.
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