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 scientific director at the Foundational Questions Institute and a supporter of the

effective altruism Effective altruism is a philosophical and social movement that advocates "using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis". People who pursue the goals of effective altruism, c ...

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Biography

Early life

He was born in Sweden to Karin Tegmark and American-born professor of mathematics

Harold S. Shapiro Harold Seymour Shapiro (2 April 1928 – 5 March 2021) was a professor of mathematics at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, best known for inventing the so-called Shapiro polynomials (also known as Golay–Shapiro polynomia ...

. While in high school, Tegmark and a friend created and sold a word processor written in pure machine code for the Swedish eight-bit computer ABC 80, and a 3D Tetris-like game called Frac. Tegmark left Sweden in 1990 after receiving his

M.Sc. A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

in Engineering physics from the

Royal Institute of Technology The KTH Royal Institute of Technology ( sv, Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, lit=Royal Institute of Technology), abbreviated KTH, is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH conducts research and education in engineering and technolo ...

. (He had earned a B.A. in economics the previous year at the Stockholm School of Economics.) His first academic venture beyond Scandinavia brought him to California, where he studied physics at the University of California, Berkeley, earning his M.A. in 1992, and Ph.D. in 1994 under the supervision of

Joseph Silk Joseph Ivor Silk FRS (born 3 December 1942) is a British-American astrophysicist. He was the Savilian Chair of Astronomy at the University of Oxford from 1999 to September 2011. He is an Emeritus Fellow of New College, Oxford and a Fellow ...

. He worked as an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania receiving tenure in 2003. In 2004, he joined Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Physics.

Career

His research has focused on cosmology, combining theoretical work with new measurements to place constraints on cosmological models and their free parameters, often in collaboration with experimentalists. He has over 200 publications, of which nine have been cited over 500 times. He has developed data analysis tools based on information theory and applied them to cosmic microwave background experiments such as COBE,

QMAP QMAP was a balloon experiment to measure the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). It flew twice in 1996, and was used with an interlocking scan of the skies to produce CMB maps at angular scales between 0.7° and 9°. The gondola ...

, and WMAP, and to galaxy redshift surveys such as the

Las Campanas Redshift Survey The Las Campanas Redshift Survey is considered the first attempt to map a large area of the universe out to a redshift of ''z'' = 0.2. It was begun in 1991 using the Las Campanas telescope in Chile to catalog 26418 separate galaxies. It is conside ...

, the

2dF In astronomy, the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (Two-degree-Field Galaxy Redshift Survey), 2dF or 2dFGRS is a redshift survey conducted by the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) with the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope between 1997 and 11 Ap ...

Survey and the

Sloan Digital Sky Survey The Sloan Digital Sky Survey or SDSS is a major multi-spectral imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey using a dedicated 2.5-m wide-angle optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, United States. The project began in 2000 a ...

. With

Daniel Eisenstein Daniel Eisenstein (born 1970) is an American cosmologist and academic. Eisenstein's Ph.D. (1996) is from Harvard University. He held postdoctoral positions at the Institute for Advanced Study and the University of Chicago before moving to the Unive ...

and Wayne Hu, he introduced the idea of using baryon acoustic oscillations as a

standard ruler A standard ruler is an astronomical object for which the actual physical size is known. By measuring its angular size in the sky, one can use simple trigonometry to determine its distance from Earth. In simple terms, this is because objects of a fi ...

. With Angelica de Oliveira-Costa and Andrew Hamilton, he discovered the anomalous multipole alignment in the WMAP data sometimes referred to as the " axis of evil". With Anthony Aguirre, he developed the

cosmological interpretation of quantum mechanics There is a diversity of views that propose interpretations of quantum mechanics. They vary in how many physicists accept or reject them. An interpretation of quantum mechanics is a conceptual scheme that proposes to relate the mathematical formali ...

. His 2000 paper on quantum decoherence of neurons concluded that decoherence seems too rapid for

Roger Penrose Sir Roger Penrose (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford, an emeritus fello ...

's "quantum microtubule" model of consciousness to be viable. Tegmark has also formulated the " Ultimate Ensemble theory of everything", 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, described in his book ''

Our Mathematical Universe ''Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality'' is a 2014 nonfiction book by the Swedish-American cosmologist Max Tegmark. Written in popular science format, the book interweaves what a ''New York Times'' reviewer call ...

''. Tegmark was elected Fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

in 2012 for, according to the citation, "his contributions to cosmology, including precision measurements from cosmic microwave background and galaxy clustering data, tests of inflation and gravitation theories, and the development of a new technology for low-frequency radio interferometry". He was awarded the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science's Gold Medal in 2019 for, according to the citation, "his contributions to our understanding of humanity’s place in the cosmos and the opportunities and risks associated with artificial intelligence. He has courageously tackled these existential questions in his research and, in a commendable way, succeeded in communicating the issues to a wider public." Tegmark is interviewed in the 2018 documentary on artificial intelligence

Do You Trust This Computer? ''Do You Trust This Computer?'' is a 2018 American documentary film directed by Chris Paine that outlines the benefits and especially the dangers of artificial intelligence. It features interviews with a range of prominent individuals relevant to ...

He is also known for his seminal paper on the '' Mathematical Universe Hypothesis,'' in which he claims that our physical world is an abstract

mathematical structure In mathematics, a structure is a set endowed with some additional features on the set (e.g. an operation, relation, metric, or topology). Often, the additional features are attached or related to the set, so as to provide it with some additional ...

with an infinite number of initial random conditions. He points to fractals as proof that the equations used to describe all possible mathematical

multiverse The multiverse is a hypothetical group of multiple universes. Together, these universes comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that describe them. The di ...

s would fit on a single T-shirt.

Personal life

He married astrophysicist Angelica de Oliveira-Costa in 1997, and divorced in 2009. They have two sons. On August 5, 2012, Tegmark married Meia Chita.

In the media

* In 2006, Tegmark was one of fifty scientists interviewed by '' New Scientist'' 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 2007 documentary ''

Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives ''Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives'' is a BAFTA-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 ...

'' in which he is interviewed by Mark Oliver Everett, son of the founder of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, Hugh Everett. * Tegmark also appears in "Who's afraid of a big black hole?", "What time is it?", "To Infinity and Beyond", "Is Everything We Know About The Universe Wrong?", "What is Reality?" and "Which Universe Are We In?", all part of the BBC's ''

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 ...

'' scientific series of programmes. * He appears in several episodes of '' Sci Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible'', an American documentary television series on Science which first aired in the United States on December 1, 2009. The series is hosted by theoretical physicist Michio Kaku. * Tegmark was interviewed by

Morgan Freeman Morgan Freeman (born June 1, 1937) is an American actor, director, and narrator. He is known for his distinctive deep voice and various roles in a wide variety of film genres. Throughout his career spanning over five decades, he has received ...

in seasons 2 and 3 of '' Through the Wormhole'' in 2011–2012. * Tegmark participated in the episode "Zooming Out" of

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...

's '' The Forum'', which first aired on BBC Radio 4 on April 26, 2014. * In 2014, Tegmark co-authored an op-ed in '' The Huffington Post'' with Stephen Hawking, Frank Wilczek and Stuart Russell on the movie ''

Transcendence Transcendence, transcendent, or transcendental may refer to: Mathematics * Transcendental number, a number that is not the root of any polynomial with rational coefficients * Algebraic element or transcendental element, an element of a field exten ...

''. * In 2014, "The Perpetual Earth Program," a play based on Tegmark's book ''Our Mathematical Universe'', was mounted in New York City as part of the Planet Connections Theatre Festival. * In 2014, featured in '' The Principle'', a documentary examining the

Copernican Principle In physical cosmology, the Copernican principle states that humans, on the Earth or in the Solar System, are not privileged observers of the universe, that observations from the Earth are representative of observations from the average position ...

. * In 2015, Tegmark participated in an episode of Sam Harris' the Waking Up podcast entitled "The Multiverse & You (& You & You & You...)" where they discussed topics such as artificial intelligence and the mathematical universe hypothesis. * In 2017, Tegmark gave a talk entitled "Effective altruism, existential risk & existential hope" at the world's largest annual conference of the effective altruism movement. * In 2017, Tegmark participated in an episode of Sam Harris' the Waking Up podcast entitled "The Future of Intelligence" where they discussed topics such as artificial intelligence and definitions of life. * In 2018, Tegmark took part in a conversation with AI researcher

Lex Fridman Lex Fridman ( /'lɛks 'friːdmæn/; , Russian: ) is a Russian-American computer scientist, podcaster, and an artificial intelligence researcher. He is a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he hosts the ''Lex Fr ...

about Artificial General Intelligence as part of a MIT course on AGI. He was the first guest on

podcast. He was interviewed again on the Lex Fridman podcast in 2021.

Works

* ''

'' (2014) * '' Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence'' (2017)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tegmark, Max 1967 births 21st-century American astronomers Swedish expatriates in the United States Swedish cosmologists Living people Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty KTH Royal Institute of Technology alumni Stockholm School of Economics alumni 20th-century Swedish astronomers Swedish people of Jewish descent 20th-century American physicists MIT Center for Theoretical Physics faculty Quantum mind People associated with effective altruism Fellows of the American Physical Society