Luboš Motl (; born 5 December 1973) is a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

blogger A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

. He was an assistant professor in

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, 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 whi ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

from 2004 to 2007. His scientific publications were focused on

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 intera ...

Life and career

Motl was born in

Plzeň Plzeň (), also known in English and German as Pilsen (), is a city in the Czech Republic. It is the Statutory city (Czech Republic), fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 188,000 inhabitants. It is located about west of P ...

, present-day

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

. He won a Bronze Medal at the 1992

International Mathematical Olympiad The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a mathematical olympiad for pre-university students, and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. It is widely regarded as the most prestigious mathematical competition in the wor ...

. He received his master's degree from the

Charles University Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest universities in the world in conti ...

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

, and his

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

degree from

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

(2001) and has been a Harvard Junior Fellow (2001–2004) and assistant professor (2004–2007) at

. In 2007, he left Harvard and returned to the Czech Republic. Although an undergraduate at a Czech university where none of the faculty specialized in string theory, Motl came to the attention of string theorist Thomas Banks in 1996, when Banks read an

arXiv arXiv (pronounced as "archive"—the X represents the Chi (letter), Greek letter chi ⟨χ⟩) is an open-access repository of electronic preprints and postprints (known as e-prints) approved for posting after moderation, but not Scholarly pee ...

posting by Motl on matrix string theory. "I was at first a little annoyed by otl'spaper, because it scooped me," said Banks. "This feeling turned to awe when I realized that Lubos was still an undergraduate". He then became a graduate student of Banks, and wrote his PhD thesis on matrix theory. While at Harvard, Motl worked on the pp-wave limit of AdS/CFT correspondence,

twistor theory In theoretical physics, twistor theory was proposed by Roger Penrose in 1967 as a possible path to quantum gravity and has evolved into a widely studied branch of theoretical and mathematical physics. Penrose's idea was that twistor space should ...

and its application to

gauge theory In physics, a gauge theory is a type of field theory in which the Lagrangian, and hence the dynamics of the system itself, does not change under local transformations according to certain smooth families of operations (Lie groups). Formally, t ...

with

supersymmetry Supersymmetry is a Theory, theoretical framework in physics that suggests the existence of a symmetry between Particle physics, particles with integer Spin (physics), spin (''bosons'') and particles with half-integer spin (''fermions''). It propo ...

black hole A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...

thermodynamics and the conjectured relevance of quasinormal modes for

loop quantum gravity Loop quantum gravity (LQG) is a theory of quantum gravity that incorporates matter of the Standard Model into the framework established for the intrinsic quantum gravity case. It is an attempt to develop a quantum theory of gravity based direc ...

, deconstruction, and other topics. In 2006, he proposed the weak gravity conjecture with

Nima Arkani-Hamed Nima Arkani-Hamed (; born April 5, 1972) is an Iranian-American-Canadian

, Alberto Nicolis and

Cumrun Vafa Cumrun Vafa (, ; born 1 August 1960) is an Iranian-American theoretical physicist and the Hollis Professor of Mathematicks and Natural Philosophy at Harvard University. Early life and education Cumrun Vafa was born in Tehran, Iran on 1 August 1 ...

. He is the author of ''L'équation Bogdanov'', a 2008 French-language book discussing the scientific ideas and

controversy Controversy (, ) is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. The word was coined from the Latin '' controversia'', as a composite of ''controversus'' – "turned in an op ...

of the Bogdanov brothers.

The Reference Frame

Motl writes a science and politics

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

called "The Reference Frame: Supersymmetric world from a conservative viewpoint", in which he expresses his scientific and

right-wing Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property ...

political opinions, including invectives as well as personal insults. The blog has been described by George Musser as an "over-the-top" defense of string theory, defining one of the extremes of scientific opinions on that topic, with the other extreme being represented by

Peter Woit Peter Woit (; born September 11, 1957) is a Latvian-American mathematician who works in twistor theory. He works in the mathematics department at Columbia University. Woit, a critic of string theory, has published a book ''Not Even Wrong'' (2006 ...

. Following the example of

Oriana Fallaci Oriana Fallaci (; 29 June 1929 – 15 September 2006) was an Italian journalist and author. A member of the Italian resistance movement during World War II, she had a long and successful journalistic career. Fallaci became famous worldwide for h ...

, Motl characterizes himself as a Christian atheist. He also describes himself as a "champion of the consistent histories interpretation of

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

", and has strongly criticised Erik Verlinde's entropic gravity theory. In April 2022, Motl retired the blog, citing censorship pressures and general dissatisfaction.

References

External links

The Reference Frame
(), Luboš Motl's blog {{DEFAULTSORT:Motl, Lubos 1973 births Living people Czech physicists Charles University alumni Rutgers University alumni String theorists Scientists from Plzeň Czech male bloggers Czech critics of Islam