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Leonard Susskind

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Leonard Susskind

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Also known as Lenny Susskind, L. Susskind, Susskind

American physicist

OverviewAI-generated

Leonard Susskind is an American physicist, non-fiction writer, and university teacher. Born in New York City, he holds citizenship in the United States and has worked at Stanford University, Leiden University, Tel Aviv University, and Yeshiva University. His academic career includes serving as a director and working in the fields of physics, cosmology, and string theory. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Susskind received his education at City College of New York and Cornell University, where his doctoral advisor was Peter A. Carruthers. He has authored several works, including *General Relativity*, *Special Relativity and Classical Field theory*, *An Introduction to Black Holes*, and *What Are You Optimistic About?*. His contributions to science have been recognized with the Sakurai Prize, the Pomeranchuk Prize, and the ICTP Dirac Medal.

Synthesized by Vinony from 37 facts across 8 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, Open Library, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, Wikiquote, Vinony collections, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born
16 June 1940
Works
10

Top works

  • What Are You Optimistic About?
  • Elektrodynamik und Relativität
  • Special Relativity and Classical Field theory
  • General Relativity
  • An Introduction to Black Holes, Information and the String Theory Revolution

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Gender
Male
Country
United States
Active from
1939

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
1,242
Total plays
4,672

Tags

physicsspoken wordsciencespoken wor

Leonard Susskind (born 1940) is the Felix Bloch professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University, whose research interests include string theory, quantum field theory, quantum statistical mechanics and quantum cosmology. He is one of the founders of string theory. (from wikipedia). <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Leonard+Susskind">Read more on Last.fm</a>

via Last.fm · Leonard Susskind

Quotes

  • The standard SU(3)×SU(2)×U(1) theory of strong, electromagnetic, and weak interactions appears to correctly describe physics down to the smallest distance scales yet probed.
  • (Jokingly) Sex in ten dimensions is impossible... topologically.
  • The problem with general relativity is that the principles are pretty simple and the computations are always ugly.
  • A straight line is a special case of a curve. It's a curve which is uncurved.
  • Elegance requires that the number of defining equations be small. Five is better than ten, and one is better than five. On this score, one might facetiously say that String Theory is the ultimate epitome of elegance. With all the years that String Theory has been studied, no one has found even a single defining equation! The number at present count is zero. We know neither what the fundamental equations of the theory are nor even if it has any.
  • My physics has been extremely mainstream, ... It's not true that I'm some sort of a [radical thinker], not at all.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born
( 1940-06-16 ) June 16, 1940 (age 85) , New York City , U.S.
Alma mater
City College of New York ( BS ) , Cornell University ( PhD )
Awards
Dirac Medal (2023), Oskar Klein medal (2018), Pomeranchuk Prize (2008) , Science Writing Award (1998) , Sakurai Prize (1998) , Boris Pregel Award (1975)
Fields
Physics , mathematics
Institutions
Yeshiva University , Tel Aviv University , Stanford University , Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics , Korea Institute for Advanced Study , Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
Thesis
Quantum mechanical approach to strong interactions (1965)
Doctoral advisor
Peter A. Carruthers
Doctoral students
Eduardo Fradkin , Barak Kol , Douglas Stanford

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Instance of
human
Given name
Leonard
Gender
male
Citizenship
United States
Place of birth
New York City
Position held
director
Languages spoken
English language
Native language
English language
Religion
agnosticism
Notable work
string theory
Doctoral advisor
Peter A. Carruthers
Field of work
string theory
Image
LeonardSusskindStanfordNov2013.jpg
Work location
Stanford
Residence
United States
Show 6 more facts
Commons category
Leonard Susskind
date of birth
1946-00-00
Commons gallery
Leonard Susskind
name in native language
Leonard Susskind
maintained by WikiProject
WikiProject Mathematics
Sources (7)

via Wikidata · CC0

~12 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Leonard Susskind (/ˈsʌskɪnd/; born June 16, 1940) is an American theoretical physicist, professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University and founding director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics. His research interests are string theory, quantum field theory, quantum statistical mechanics and quantum cosmology. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an associate member of the faculty of Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and a distinguished professor of the Korea Institute for Advanced Study.

Susskind is widely regarded as one of the fathers of string theory. He was the first to give a precise string-theoretic interpretation of the holographic principle in 1995 and the first to introduce the idea of the string theory landscape in 2003.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Leonard Susskind” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (2)