Anthony Aguirre is a theoretical

cosmologist Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher ...

. Aguirre is a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

and holds the Faggin Presidential Chair for the Physics of Information at the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...

. He is the co-founder and associate scientific director of the

Foundational Questions Institute The Foundational Questions Institute, styled FQXi, is an organization that provides grants to "catalyze, support, and disseminate research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology." It was founded in 2005 by cosmologists Max Tegmark ...

and is also a co-founder of the

Future of Life Institute The Future of Life Institute (FLI) is a nonprofit organization that works to reduce global catastrophic and existential risks facing humanity, particularly existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence (AI). The Institute's work is mad ...

. In 2015, he co-founded the aggregated prediction platform

Metaculus Metaculus is an American Reputation system, reputation-based, massive online prediction solicitation and aggregation engine. One of the focuses of Metaculus is predicting the timing, nature and impact of scientific and technological advances and ...

with

Greg Laughlin Gregory Haines Laughlin (born January 21, 1942) is a politician from Texas. He is a former member of the United States House of Representatives. Early life and education Laughlin was born in Bay City, Texas, and was raised in West Columbia, T ...

. In 2019, he published the pop science book ''Cosmological Koans''.

Education

Aguirre received a B.S. in Mathematics/Physics from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 1995, an M.S. in Astronomy from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1998 and a Ph.D. in Astronomy from Harvard University.

Career

His research has focused on various topics in theoretical physics including early universe, inflation, the foundations of quantum mechanics, foundations of statistical mechanics, gravity physics, first stars, the intergalactic medium, galaxy formation and black holes. Together with

Max Tegmark Max Erik Tegmark (born 5 May 1967) is a Swedish-American physicist, cosmologist and machine learning researcher. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the president of the Future of Life Institute. He is also a scienti ...

he developed the cosmological interpretation of quantum mechanics.

In the media

*Aguirre appears in the ''How Vast is the Cosmos?'' part of the

Closer to Truth ''Closer to Truth'' is a television series on public television originally created, produced and hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn. The original series aired in 2000 for two seasons, followed by a second series aired in 2003 for a single season. The ...

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

series. *Aguirre appears on the show ''

Horizon The horizon is the apparent line that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This line divides all viewing directions based on whether i ...

'', in the episode "How Big is the Universe?" *Aguirre also appears in the episode "Living in a Parallel Universe" of the ''

Naked Science ''Naked Science'' is an American documentary television series that premiered in 2004 on the National Geographic Channel and ran through November 2011. The program featured various subjects related to science and technology. Some of the views e ...

'' documentary series on the

National Geographic Channel National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television television network, network and flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel owned by the National Geograp ...

. *Aguirre was a guest on Sean Carroll’s Mindscape podcast, which was released on June 17, 2019 under the title of Cosmology, Zen, Entropy, and Information. * Through the Wormhole#Season 4

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aguirre, Anthony Living people American cosmologists University of California, Santa Cruz faculty Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Brown University alumni Place of birth missing (living people) 1973 births