Smolin, Lee 1955-

PERSONAL:

Born June 6, 1955, in New York, NY; son of Michael and Pauline Smolin. Education: Hampshire College, B.A., 1975; Harvard University, M.A., 1978, Ph.D., 1979. Hobbies and other interests: Jazz guitar, sailing, philosophy.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 31 Caroline St. N, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5, Canada.

CAREER:

Physicist and professor. Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California at Santa Barbara, postdoctoral fellow, 1980-81; Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, fellow, 1981-83; Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, postdoctoral fellow, 1983-84; Yale University, New Haven, CT, assistant professor, 1984-88; Syracuse University, New York, associate professor, 1988-91, professor, 1991-93; Pennsylvania State University, University Park, professor, 1993-2001; Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, researcher, 2001—; University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, Physics Department, adjunct professor, 2001—.

WRITINGS:

The Life of the Cosmos, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, Basic Books (New York, NY), 2001.

The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2006.

Contributor to The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing, edited by Richard Dawkins, Oxford University Press, 2008.

SIDELIGHTS:

Physicist Lee Smolin has long been known in his field as a maverick. Even fellow scientists who respect his work acknowledge that much of it is controversial and often speculative. His main research interest for much of his career has been quantum gravity, or the search for a theory that could link together the quantum theory of subatomic particles and the theory of general relativity, usually applied to large bodies such as galaxies or the universe. In The Life of the Cosmos and Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, Smolin has attempted to make his speculations available to the non-scientist reader. He presents physics from a personal perspective, addressing philosophical questions and telling the story of his own development as a physicist.

Smolin's early educational path did not suggest that he would eventually become a leader in the field of quantum gravity. As a high school student he was a mediocre performer, eventually dropping out and playing with his short-lived rock band, Ideoplastos. Smolin was also an admirer of Buckminster Fuller, and he attempted to make a business selling geodesic dome pool covers based on Fuller's ideas. The mathematics involved in the structure of the domes led him to tensor calculus and to Albert Einstein, who had based his theory of relativity on the same type of math. Then Smolin went to Hampshire College, not to enroll himself, but to drive his girlfriend to an admissions interview. While there he chatted with a physics instructor and was inspired to apply. Eventually, Smolin earned his Ph.D. from Harvard and began a string of postdoctoral fellowships at prestigious universities across the United States before starting as an assistant professor at Yale University.

In 1986, Smolin made an important connection, meeting Indian physicist Abhay Ashtekar at a workshop on quantum gravity at the Institute for Theoretical Physics. Ashtekar was a leader in the field, developing equations that began building a bridge between Einstein's equations for general relativity and the mathematics of quantum mechanics. Smolin began working with Ashtekar and went to Syracuse University, where Ashtekar was also a professor, in 1988. Carlo Rovelli came from Italy to work with the pair, and soon the three were drawing attention due to the potential of their theory to alter the way scientists think of space. Marcia Bartusiak summarized the trio's work for Discover magazine in 1993: "What is emerging from their initial explorations is a tantalizing picture of what space might look like on the tiniest levels. Instead of a space-time structure that's immeasurably smooth, their calculations hint that it might have a fine-grained structure, a texture that resembles a carpet woven out of an endless series of ultrasmall loops, interlinked in every direction." Where there are no loops—in the tiny spaces between the threads—there is no time or space. The challenge for their theory was its wholly speculative nature. Speaking to Bartusiak in Discover, professor Bryce DeWitt, also a researcher in quantum gravity, said: "They have to tie their method to something that could, at least in theory with some sort of thought experiment, be observed in the real world."

In 1997, Smolin published his first book attempting to explain the potential for connecting relativity theory and quantum theory, aimed at engaging not only his fellow physicists but also interested laypeople with little background in the subject. With The Life of the Cosmos, Smolin asks how the universe came into being and how it came to support life, using his links between the properties of subatomic particles and the properties of stars and galaxies as the foundation for his answers. The crux of Smolin's argument is his theory of self-generating universes, comparable to the biological reproduction of life forms like humans. John Maddox, reviewing The Life of the Cosmos for New Statesman, explained Smolin's thesis: "Smolin's crucial supposition is that inside each black hole is another universe, closely resembling the one from which it springs (not least in the kind of matter it contains), but with properties that are, by chance, slightly but significantly different. Then, given successive generations of universes inside the black holes of their parental universes, there will be a tendency for the ensemble of all the universes to be dominated by those that produce lots of black holes." Effectively, Smolin proposes a kind of natural selection on a universal scale, so that the kinds of universes most likely to dominate will be the kinds most likely to generate and support life. Smolin is also careful to explain that his theory is unproven and, as yet, unprovable. Though his theories were far from the mainstream of scientific thought, response to his book was generally positive. Reviewing the book for Astronomy, Jennifer Birriel wrote: "The Life of the Cosmos may not offer satisfactory answers to all of its readers, but the questions it raises are worth contemplation." Joseph Silk criticized Smolin's knowledge of astronomy in a Science review but nonetheless concluded: "I must admit, finally, that the book is worth reading."

Smolin pursues his theory further in Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, in which he presents the history of relativity theory and quantum theory, and the efforts to link the two in a "theory of everything," for the general reader. The "three roads" of the title refer to possible approaches to forging this link: string theory, the loop approach forged by Smolin, and a third path that is not yet clear, requiring a new understanding of space and time not yet developed. The third path would contain both quantum theory and general relativity as limited explanations in particular circumstances. Michael Redhead, in his review for the London Review of Books, wrote that although Smolin's discussion of that third path is "wildly speculative," it is nonetheless compelling, with ideas that are "remarkable and provocative." Reviewing the book online for the London Guardian, Mark Buchanan said Smolin writes with "impressive clarity" and has "a talent for explaining the core ideas behind the bewildering details." Reviewers also noted the need for more research to back up these ideas: physics professor Michael Riordan suggested in the New York Times that "without objective ways to verify their revolutionary claims, these imaginative theories of quantum gravity will remain rooted only in the misty realms of metaphysics." Smolin predicts in Three Roads to Quantum Gravity that these objective ways may come about as soon as 2010. Professor Paul Renteln responded to that claim in American Scientist, noting that Smolin is "one of a small handful of physicists around the world who have been able to make genuine progress on an extraordinarily difficult problem that has stumped some of the world's finest minds for eighty years." Whether or not his predictions bear out, Renteln said, "one has to admire his intrepid spirit and utopian vision."

In The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next, Smolin addresses what he perceives to be a serious turn in the way that physics is studied—a turn that he feels will have ongoing repercussions in the field. Smolin points out that string theory has become the ultimate in physics research, with the bulk of funding for the field being funneled into further investigations into ways to determine how the laws of gravity can be linked to those of quantum physics. Likewise, because so much emphasis is being placed on this particular area, the brightest and most intelligent students and scientists in the subject are placing all of their energies and attention into string theory as well. This leaves a dearth of resources and brain power to apply to other topics in physics, and in fact, scientists are often actively discouraged from pursing other topics. Smolin notes that this rise in string theory and its importance has already resulted in a lack of new research in theoretical physics, and that the shift in focus has proved detrimental to advances in science since the 1970s.

Rather than just attacking string theory, Smolin provides a thorough history of its development, including its earliest days when very few scientists put any stock in the concept, and continuing on to examine how so many scientists were gradually won over to the research. He also explains that string theory, despite all of the efforts put into research in this area, has yet to be tested, which in effect means that the majority of the resources poured into physics research have yielded no advances or progress of any kind. Instead of finding proof that backs up experiments, Smolin suggests that scientists are seeking a single explanation that causes the universe to fall into place, and that this sort of unrealistic expectation for a single scientific theory is holding back the advancement of physics as a whole. He urges young scientists in the field to experiment and to consider theoretical physics over string theory, both in an effort to keep the field on the cutting edge of discovery and to take the opportunity to actually accomplish something over the course of their work. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly commented of Smolin's work that "this isn't easy reading, but it will appeal to dedicated science buffs interested in where physics may be headed." Tom Siegfried, reviewing The Trouble with Physics for the New York Times Book Review, found Smolin's effort "worth taking seriously as a plea for more support for minority viewpoints." A reviewer for Internet Bookwatch dubbed the book "perfect for any who would understand the latest range of theories in physics."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Scientist, January-February, 2002, Paul Renteln, "Quantizing the Universe," pp. 76-78.

Astronomy, March, 1998, Jennifer Birriel, review of The Life of the Cosmos, pp. 100-101.

Discover, April, 1993, Marcia Bartusiak, "Loops of Space," pp. 60-68; July, 1997, Tim Folger, review of The Life of the Cosmos, pp. 120-121.

Internet Bookwatch, October, 2007, review of The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next.

London Review of Books, May 23, 2002, Michael Redhead, "Spin Foam," pp. 30-31.

New Statesman, June 6, 1997, John Maddox, review of The Life of the Cosmos, pp. 44-45.

New York Times Book Review, August 19, 2001, Michael Riordan, "Space-Time Is of the Essence," p. 11; September 17, 2006, Tom Siegfried, "A Great Unraveling," p. 16.

New York Times Magazine, July 13, 1997, Dennis Overbye, "The Cosmos according to Darwin."

Omni, October, 1992, Thomas R. McDonough and David Brin, "The Bubbling Universe," pp. 84-89.

Publishers Weekly, June 25, 2001, review of Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, p. 60; July 17, 2006, review of The Trouble with Physics, p. 150.

Science, August 1, 1997, Joseph Silk, review of The Life of the Cosmos, p. 644.

Times Higher Education Supplement, June 13, 1997, Ayala Ochert, "Can This Man Go Where No Physicist Has Gone Before?" p. 20.

ONLINE

2think.org,http://www.2think.org/ (July 13, 2002), review of The Life of the Cosmos.

Anthony Campbell's Home Page,http://www.acampbell.ukfsn.org/ (March 1, 2008), Anthony Campbell, reviews of The Life of the Cosmos and Three Roads to Quantum Gravity.

Guardian Online,http://books.guardian.co.uk/ (February 17, 2001), Mark Buchanan, "Quantum Leap."

Lee Smolin's Home Page,http://www.leesmolin.com (March 1, 2008).

Oxford University Press Web site,http://www.oup-usa.org/ (March 1, 2008), description of The Life of the Cosmos.

Physics Web,http://physicsweb.org/ (December 15, 1997), Bernard Carr, "Holes in a Final Theory?"; (December 1, 2000), Michael Duff, "A Maverick's Quest for Quantum Gravity"; (March 27, 2003), Robert May, "Smarter, Wiser, Happy or Sad?"; (December 1, 2004), "Shelf Life: Lee Smolin."