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Andrew Strominger
Andrew Eben Strominger (; born 1955) is an American theoretical physicist who is the director of Harvard's Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature. He has made significant contributions to quantum gravity and string theory. These include his work on Calabi–Yau compactification and topology change in string theory, and on the stringy origin of black hole entropy. He is a senior fellow at the Society of Fellows, and is the Gwill E. York Professor of Physics. Education Strominger received his bachelor's degree at Harvard College in 1977 and his master's degree at the University of California, Berkeley. He then received his PhD at MIT in 1982 under the supervision of Roman Jackiw. Prior to joining Harvard as a professor in 1997, he held a faculty position at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of over 200 publications. Research Notable contributions * a paper with Cumrun Vafa that explains the microscopic origin of the black hole entropy, o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 relates to the order of nature, or, in other words, to the regular succession of events." Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines, with its main goal being to understand how the universe behaves. "Physics is one of the most fundamental of the sciences. Scientists of all disciplines use the ideas of physics, including chemists who study the structure of molecules, paleontologists who try to reconstruct how dinosaurs walked, and climatologists who study how human activities affect the atmosphere and oceans. Physics is also the foundation of all engineering and technology. No engineer could design a flat-screen TV, an interplanetary spacecraft, or even a better mousetrap without first understanding the basic laws of physic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dirac Prize
Distributed Research using Advanced Computing (DiRAC) is an integrated supercomputing facility used for research in particle physics, astronomy and cosmology in the United Kingdom. DiRAC makes use of multi-core processors and provides a variety of computer architectures for use by the research community. DiRAC and DiRAC II Initially DiRAC was funded with an investment of £12 million from the Government of the United Kingdom's Large Facilities Capital Fund combined with funds from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and a consortium of universities in the UK. In 2012, the DiRAC facility was upgraded with a further £15 million of UK government capital to create DiRAC II which has five installations: # University of Cambridge HPC Service with 10000 cores and 1 Petabyte clustered file system # Cambridge Cosmos shared memory Service with 1856 cores, 14 Terabytes of globally shared memory with Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors # University of Leicester IT Services with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Society Of Fellows
The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intellectual growth. Junior fellows are appointed by senior fellows based upon previous academic accomplishments and receive generous financial support for three years while they conduct independent research at Harvard University in any discipline, without being required to meet formal degree requirements or to be graded in any way. The only stipulation is that they maintain primary residence in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the duration of their fellowship. Membership in the society is for life. The society has contributed numerous scholars to the Harvard faculty and thus significantly influenced the tenor of discourse at the university. Among its best-known members are philosopher W. V. O. Quine, Jf '36; behaviorist B. F. Skinner, Jf '36; do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Hole Entropy
In physics, black hole thermodynamics is the area of study that seeks to reconcile the laws of thermodynamics with the existence of black hole event horizons. As the study of the statistical mechanics of black-body radiation led to the development of the theory of quantum mechanics, the effort to understand the statistical mechanics of black holes has had a deep impact upon the understanding of quantum gravity, leading to the formulation of the holographic principle. Overview The second law of thermodynamics requires that black holes have entropy. If black holes carried no entropy, it would be possible to violate the second law by throwing mass into the black hole. The increase of the entropy of the black hole more than compensates for the decrease of the entropy carried by the object that was swallowed. In 1972, Jacob Bekenstein conjectured that black holes should have an entropy, where by the same year, he proposed no-hair theorems. In 1973 Bekenstein suggested \frac\approx ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calabi–Yau Manifold
In algebraic geometry, a Calabi–Yau manifold, also known as a Calabi–Yau space, is a particular type of manifold which has properties, such as Ricci flatness, yielding applications in theoretical physics. Particularly in superstring theory, the extra dimensions of spacetime are sometimes conjectured to take the form of a 6-dimensional Calabi–Yau manifold, which led to the idea of mirror symmetry. Their name was coined by , after who first conjectured that such surfaces might exist, and who proved the Calabi conjecture. Calabi–Yau manifolds are complex manifolds that are generalizations of K3 surfaces in any number of complex dimensions (i.e. any even number of real dimensions). They were originally defined as compact Kähler manifolds with a vanishing first Chern class and a Ricci-flat metric, though many other similar but inequivalent definitions are sometimes used. Definitions The motivational definition given by Shing-Tung Yau is of a compact K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 interact with each other. On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string looks just like an ordinary particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. In string theory, one of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries the gravitational force. Thus, string theory is a theory of quantum gravity. String theory is a broad and varied subject that attempts to address a number of deep questions of fundamental physics. String theory has contributed a number of advances to mathematical physics, which have been applied to a variety of problems in black hole physics, early universe cosmology, nuclear physics, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantum Gravity
Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics; it deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the vicinity of black holes or similar compact astrophysical objects, such as neutron stars. Three of the four fundamental forces of physics are described within the framework of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. The current understanding of the fourth force, gravity, is based on Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, which is formulated within the entirely different framework of classical physics. However, that description is incomplete: describing the gravitational field of a black hole in the general theory of relativity leads physical quantities, such as the spacetime curvature, to diverge at the center of the black hole. This signals the breakdown of the general theory of relativity and the need for a theory that goe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Center For The Fundamental Laws Of Nature
The Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature is a research center at Harvard University that focuses on theoretical particle physics and cosmology. About The Center for the Fundamental Laws of nature is the high-energy theory group in Harvard's Physics Department. , it had 12 faculty and affiliate faculty, 18 postdoctoral, and 19 graduate student members, in addition to multiple affiliates, visiting scholars, and staff. A number of prominent particle theorists have earned degrees or worked at Harvard, including Nobel Laureates David Politzer (PhD 1974), Sheldon Glashow (PhD 1959), David Gross, Steven Weinberg, and Julian Schwinger. Research Current areas of research listed include: * Quantum gravity * String theory * Black holes * Applications of AdS/CFT * Physics beyond the standard model * Dark matter Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 experimental tools to probe these phenomena. The advancement of science generally depends on the interplay between experimental studies and theory. In some cases, theoretical physics adheres to standards of mathematical rigour while giving little weight to experiments and observations.There is some debate as to whether or not theoretical physics uses mathematics to build intuition and illustrativeness to extract physical insight (especially when normal experience fails), rather than as a tool in formalizing theories. This links to the question of it using mathematics in a less formally rigorous, and more intuitive or heuristic way than, say, mathematical physics. For example, while developing special relativity, Albert Einstein was concerned with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xi Yin
Xi Yin (; born December 1983 ) is a Chinese-American theoretical physicist. Biography Yin was accepted to University of Science and Technology of China in 1996, at the age of 12, and completed the (then) 5-year bachelor program in 2001. He gained a PhD at Harvard University in 2006, under the supervision of Andrew Strominger. He was a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, and a Visiting Member at the Institute for Advanced Study. He joined the Harvard faculty in 2008, and is now a Professor of Physics. Yin is a recipient of NSF CAREER Award, Sloan Research Fellowship, and New Horizons in Physics Prize The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics is one of the Breakthrough Prizes, awarded by the Breakthrough Prize Board. Initially named Fundamental Physics Prize, it was founded in July 2012 by Russia-born Israeli entrepreneur, venture cap .... He is a Simons Investigator, and a principal investigator of the Simons Bootstrap Collaboration. Yin ran the Boston ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anastasia Volovich
Anastasia Volovich (born July 22, 1976) is a professor of physics at Brown University. She works on theoretical physics: quantum field theory, general relativity, string theory and related areas in mathematics. Early life and education Volovich was born in Moscow. She attended the Moscow State University for her undergraduate studies where she completed her master's degree in 1999. Volovich moved to the United States for her graduate studies and completed her doctorate under the supervision of Andrew Strominger at Harvard University in 2002. Research and career Volovich became Richard and Edna Salomon Assistant Professor at Brown University in 2006 after her post-doctoral research at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara and William D. Loughlin Membership at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 2011 she was promoted to an associate professor of physics with tenure, and in 2016 to Professor of Physics. Volovich's research interests incl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sabrina Pasterski
Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski (born June 3, 1993) is an American theoretical physicist from Chicago who studies high energy physics. She describes herself as "a proud first-generation Cuban-American and Chicago Public Schools alumna". She completed her undergraduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), earned her PhD from Harvard University and is a PCTS Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University. According to Google Trends, Pasterski was the #3 Trending Scientist for all of 2017. In 2015, she was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 Science list, named a Forbes 30 under 30 All Star in 2017, and returned as a judge in 2018 as part of Forbes' first ever all-female Science category judging panel. She is known for her unusual list of accomplishments including a 5.00 undergraduate GPA from MIT. Early life Pasterski was born in New Jersey on June 3 1993, to Mark Pasterski and Maria Gonzalez. Her father, an attorney and an electrical engineer, encouraged her to follow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
