Leonard Susskind (; born June 16, 1940)his 60th birthday was celebrated with a special symposium at Stanford University.in Geoffrey West's introduction, he gives Suskind's current age as 74 and says his birthday was recent. is an American physicist, who is a professor of
theoretical physics
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...
at
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
, and founding director of the
Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics
The Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics (SITP) is a research institute within the Physics Department at Stanford University. Led by 16 physics faculty members, the institute conducts research in High Energy and Condensed Matter theoretica ...
. His research interests include
string theory
In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interac ...
,
quantum field theory
In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines classical field theory, special relativity, and quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct physical models of subatomic particles and ...
,
quantum statistical mechanics
Quantum statistical mechanics is statistical mechanics applied to quantum mechanical systems. In quantum mechanics a statistical ensemble (probability distribution over possible quantum states) is described by a density operator ''S'', which is a ...
and
quantum cosmology
Quantum cosmology is the attempt in theoretical physics to develop a quantum theory of the universe. This approach attempts to answer open questions of classical physical cosmology, particularly those related to the first phases of the universe.
...
. He is a member of the US
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
, and the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
, an associate member of the faculty of
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
's
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI, Perimeter, PITP) is an independent research centre in foundational theoretical physics located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 1999. The institute's founding and major benefactor i ...
, and a distinguished professor of the
Korea Institute for Advanced Study
The Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS) is an advanced research institute in South Korea. It is located on a campus in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul.
KIAS was founded in 1996, aiming to become a world leading research institute where internati ...
.
Susskind is widely regarded as one of the fathers of
string theory
In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interac ...
. He was the first to give a precise string-theoretic interpretation of the
holographic principle
The holographic principle is an axiom in string theories and a supposed property of quantum gravity that states that the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a lower-dimensional boundary to the region — such as a ...
in 1995 and the first to introduce the idea of the
string theory landscape
The string theory landscape or landscape of vacua refers to the collection of possible false vacua in string theory,The number of metastable vacua is not known exactly, but commonly quoted estimates are of the order 10500. See M. Douglas, "The ...
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family from the
South Bronx
The South Bronx is an area of the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of the Bronx. The area comprises neighborhoods in the southern part of the Bronx, such as Concourse, Bronx, Concourse, Mott Haven, Bronx, Mott Haven, Melrose, B ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. He began working as a
plumber
A plumber is a tradesperson who specializes in installing and maintaining systems used for potable (drinking) water, and for sewage and drainage in plumbing systems.
at the age of 16, taking over from his father who had become ill. Later, he enrolled in the
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...
as an engineering student, graduating with a
B.S.
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...
in
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
in 1962. In an interview in the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'', Susskind recalls a discussion with his father that changed his 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.'" Susskind then studied at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
under
Peter A. Carruthers
Peter Carruthers (1935 – August 3, 1997) was an American physicist best known for leading the theoretical division of Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1973 until 1980.
Early life and education
Peter Carruthers was born in Lafayette, Indi ...
, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1965.
Career
Susskind was an assistant professor of physics, then an associate professor at
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City."About YU on the Yeshiva Universit ...
(1966–1970), after which he went for a year to the
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...
(1971–72), returning to Yeshiva to become a professor of physics (1970–1979). Since 1979 he has been professor of physics at
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
, and since 2000 has held the
Felix Bloch
Felix Bloch (23 October 1905 – 10 September 1983) was a Swiss-American physicist and Nobel physics laureate who worked mainly in the U.S. He and Edward Mills Purcell were awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics for "their development of ne ...
quantum chromodynamics
In theoretical physics, quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the theory of the strong interaction between quarks mediated by gluons. Quarks are fundamental particles that make up composite hadrons such as the proton, neutron and pion. QCD is a type ...
, and dynamical symmetry breaking." Susskind's hallmark, according to colleagues, has been the application of "brilliant imagination and originality to the theoretical study of the nature of the elementary particles and forces that make up the physical world."
In 2007, Susskind joined the faculty of
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI, Perimeter, PITP) is an independent research centre in foundational theoretical physics located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 1999. The institute's founding and major benefactor i ...
in Waterloo,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
, Canada, as an associate member. He has been elected to the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
and the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
. He is also a
distinguished professor
Distinguished Professor is an academic title given to some top tenured professors in a university, school, or department. Some distinguished professors may have endowed chairs.
In the United States
Often specific to one institution, titles such ...
at
Korea Institute for Advanced Study
The Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS) is an advanced research institute in South Korea. It is located on a campus in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul.
KIAS was founded in 1996, aiming to become a world leading research institute where internati ...
.
Scientific career
Susskind was one of at least three physicists, alongside
Yoichiro Nambu
was a Japanese-American physicist and professor at the University of Chicago. Known for his contributions to the field of theoretical physics, he was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2008 for the discovery in 1960 of the mechanism ...
and
Holger Bech Nielsen
Holger Bech Nielsen (born 25 August 1941) is a Danish theoretical physicist and professor emeritus at the Niels Bohr Institute, at the University of Copenhagen, where he started studying physics in 1961.
Work
Nielsen has made original contribut ...
, who independently discovered during or around 1970 that the Veneziano
dual resonance model
In theoretical physics, a dual resonance model arose during the early investigation (1968–1973) of string theory as an S-matrix theory of the strong interaction.
Overview
The dual resonance model was based upon the observation that the amplitud ...
of strong interactions could be described by a quantum mechanical model of oscillating strings, and was the first to propose the idea of the
string theory landscape
The string theory landscape or landscape of vacua refers to the collection of possible false vacua in string theory,The number of metastable vacua is not known exactly, but commonly quoted estimates are of the order 10500. See M. Douglas, "The ...
. Susskind has also made important contributions in the following areas of physics:
* The independent discovery of the string theory model of particle physics
* The theory of
quark
A quark () is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei. All commonly o ...
confinement
Confinement may refer to
* With respect to humans:
** An old-fashioned or archaic synonym for childbirth
** Postpartum confinement (or postnatal confinement), a system of recovery after childbirth, involving rest and special foods
** Civil confi ...
* The development of
Hamiltonian lattice gauge theory
In physics, Hamiltonian lattice gauge theory is a calculational approach to gauge theory and a special case of lattice gauge theory in which the space is discretized but time is not. The Hamiltonian is then re-expressed as a function of degrees ...
known as Kogut–Susskind fermions
* The theory of scaling violations in deep inelastic electroproduction
* The theory of symmetry breaking sometimes known as "
technicolor
Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades.
Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...
theory"
* The second, yet independent, theory of cosmological
baryogenesis
In physical cosmology, baryogenesis (also known as baryosynthesis) is the physical process that is hypothesized to have taken place during the early universe to produce baryonic asymmetry, i.e. the imbalance of matter (baryons) and antimatter (a ...
(
Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov ( rus, Андрей Дмитриевич Сахаров, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ˈdmʲitrʲɪjevʲɪtɕ ˈsaxərəf; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident, nobel laureate and activist for nu ...
's work was first, but was mostly unknown in the Western hemisphere)
* String theory of
black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravitation, gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other Electromagnetic radiation, electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts t ...
entropy
* The principle of
black hole complementarity
Black hole complementarity is a conjectured solution to the black hole information paradox, proposed by Leonard Susskind, Larus Thorlacius, and Gerard 't Hooft.
Overview
Ever since Stephen Hawking suggested information is lost in an evaporating ...
holographic principle
The holographic principle is an axiom in string theories and a supposed property of quantum gravity that states that the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a lower-dimensional boundary to the region — such as a ...
*
M-theory
M-theory is a theory in physics that unifies all consistent versions of superstring theory. Edward Witten first conjectured the existence of such a theory at a string theory conference at the University of Southern California in 1995. Witten's ...
, including development of the matrix model
* Introduction of holographic
entropy
Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynam ...
bounds in
physical cosmology
Physical cosmology is a branch of cosmology concerned with the study of cosmological models. A cosmological model, or simply cosmology, provides a description of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of the universe and allows study of f ...
* Cool horizons for entangled black holes
* The idea of an
anthropic
{{Short pages monitor refers to the series of intense postings in 2004 between
Lee Smolin
Lee Smolin (; born June 6, 1955) is an American theoretical physicist, a faculty member at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo and a member of the graduate faculty of the ...
and Susskind, concerning Smolin's argument that the "
anthropic principle
The anthropic principle, also known as the "observation selection effect", is the hypothesis, first proposed in 1957 by Robert Dicke, that there is a restrictive lower bound on how statistically probable our observations of the universe are, beca ...
cannot yield any falsifiable predictions, and therefore cannot be a part of science." It began on July 26, 2004, with Smolin's publication of "Scientific alternatives to the anthropic principle." Smolin e-mailed Susskind asking for a comment. Having not had the chance to read the paper, Susskind requested a summarization of his arguments. Smolin obliged, and on July 28, 2004, Susskind responded, saying that the logic Smolin followed "can lead to ridiculous conclusions." The next day, Smolin responded, saying that "If a large body of our colleagues feels comfortable believing a theory that cannot be proved wrong, then the progress of science could get stuck, leading to a situation in which false, but unfalsifiable theories dominate the attention of our field." This was followed by another paper by Susskind which made a few comments about Smolin's theory of "cosmic natural selection." The Smolin–Susskind debate finally ended with each of them agreeing to write a final letter which would be posted on the edge.org website, with three conditions attached: (1) No more than one letter each; (2) Neither sees the other's letter in advance; (3) No changes after the fact.
Personal life
He has been married twice, first in 1960,www.edge.org • ''Leonard Susskind - A Biography'' (last accessed August 12, 2007). and he has four children. Susskind is a great-grandfather.
See also
*
Supersymmetry
In a supersymmetric theory the equations for force and the equations for matter are identical. In theoretical and mathematical physics, any theory with this property has the principle of supersymmetry (SUSY). Dozens of supersymmetric theories e ...
*
List of theoretical physicists
The following is a partial list of notable theoretical physicists. Arranged by century of birth, then century of death, then year of birth, then year of death, then alphabetically by surname. For explanation of symbols, see Notes at end of this art ...
New Scientist
''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishe ...
'', 15 January 2009, 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 prize winner
Gerard 't Hooft
Gerardus (Gerard) 't Hooft (; born July 5, 1946) is a Dutch theoretical physicist and professor at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics with his thesis advisor Martinus J. G. Veltman "for elucidating th ...
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."
Lee Smolin
Lee Smolin (; born June 6, 1955) is an American theoretical physicist, a faculty member at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo and a member of the graduate faculty of the ...
debate the
Anthropic principle
The anthropic principle, also known as the "observation selection effect", is the hypothesis, first proposed in 1957 by Robert Dicke, that there is a restrictive lower bound on how statistically probable our observations of the universe are, beca ...
Amer
Amer may refer to:
Places
* Amer (river), a river in the Dutch province of North Brabant
* Amer, Girona, a municipality in the province of Girona in Catalonia, Spain
* Amber, India (also known as Amer, India), former city of Rajasthan state
** Am ...
Scientists
A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences.
In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophica ...