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Scientific Contributions

  • The independent discovery of the string theory model of particle physics
  • The theory of quark confinement
  • The development of Hamiltonian lattice gauge theory known as Kogut-Susskind fermions
  • The theory of scaling violations in deep inelastic electroproduction
  • The theory of symmetry breaking sometimes known as "technicolor theory"
  • The second, yet independent, theory of cosmological baryogenesis
  • String theory of black hole entropy
  • The principle of black hole complementarity
  • The causal patch hypothesis
  • The holographic principle
  • M-theory, including development of the BFSS matrix model
  • Introduction of holographic entropy bounds in physical cosmology
  • The idea of an anthropic string theory landscape
  • The Census Taker's Hat

Black Hole Complementarity

  • Stephen Hawking - information is lost in an evaporating black hole once it passes through the event horizon and is inevitably destroyed at the singularity
  • Can turn pure quantum states into mixed states, some physicists have wondered if a complete theory of quantum gravity might be able to conserve information with a unitary time evolution.
  • How can this be possible if information cannot escape the event horizon without traveling faster than light?
  • Ruled out Hawking radiation as the carrier of the missing information
  • It also appears as if information cannot be "reflected" at the event horizon as there is nothing special about it locally
  • Leonard Susskind proposed a radical resolution - information is both reflected at the event horizon and passes through the event horizon and cannot escape, with the catch being no observer can confirm both stories simultaneously
  • This isn't to say there are two copies of the information lying about — one at or just outside the horizon, and the other inside the black hole — as that would violate the no cloning theorem
  • Instead, an observer can only detect the information at the horizon itself, or inside, but never both simultaneously
  • Complementarity is a feature of the quantum mechanics of noncommuting observables, and Susskind proposed that both stories are complementary in the quantum sense

String Theory

Awards

  • Pomeranchuk Prize (2008)
  • American Institute of Physics' Science Writing Award
  • Sakurai Prize (1998)
  • Boris Pregel Award
  • New York Academy of Sciences (1975)

Career

  • "Solution" to unified field theory issue
  • Treats point particles as strings, one dimensional objects
  • Describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other
  • One of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries gravitational force
  • Theory of quantum gravity
  • One of the leading theories, no real way to confirm or deny
  • Started as an assistant professor of physics at various universities
  • Has been professor of physics at Stanford University since 1979,
  • 1998 J. J. Sakurai Prize for his "pioneering contributions to hadronic string models, lattice gauge theories, quantum chromodynamics, and dynamical symmetry breaking".
  • Elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • Professor at Korea Institute for Advanced Study

Fame

  • Well known in academia and physics research community
  • Not as famous as he should be, relatively quiet personality
  • Thinker > Talker

Publications

  • The Cosmic Landscape
  • brings String theory to public eye
  • The Black Hole War
  • explains his efforts to resolve the information theory paradox on evaporating black holes
  • The Theoretical Minimum book series
  • More education based texts
  • Lecture series
  • Black Hole Complementarity and the Harlow-Hayden Conjecture
  • New Concepts for Old Black Holes

Early Life

Leonard Susskind

  • Grew up in the South Bronx of NYC
  • Now lives in Palo Alto, California.
  • First worked as a plumber
  • Attended City College of New York as an engineering student
  • Graduating with a B.S. in physics in 1962
  • Studied at Cornell University under Peter A. Carruthers where he earned his Ph.D. in 1965.
  • Married twice, first in 1960, and has four children.
  • Born in 1940
  • Professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University,
  • Director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics
  • "Father" of String Theory

Smolin–Susskind Debate

  • close with Richard Feynman
  • great-grandfather
  • Lee Smolin attacks Susskind's "anthropic principle" saying that it cannot yield any falsifiable predictions, and therefore cannot be a part of science
  • Susskind responded, saying that the logic Smolin followed "can lead to ridiculous conclusions"
  • 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."
  • Susskind comments on Smolin's theory of Cosmic Natural Selection
  • Ended debate with a final letter

Bibliography

Leonard Susskind

  • http://theoreticalminimum.com/biography
  • https://physics.stanford.edu/people/faculty/leonard-susskind
  • https://www.ted.com/talks/leonard_susskind_my_friend_richard_feynman
  • http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10654762/The-man-who-proved-Stephen-Hawking-wrong.html

American Physicist

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