Daniel Friedan | |
---|---|
Born | Daniel Harry Friedan October 3, 1948 New York City, US |
Occupation | Theoretical physicist at Rutgers University |
Known for | String theory, two-dimensional conformal field theory, quantum gravity |
Spouse | Ragnheiður Guðmundsdóttir |
Children | 3 |
Mother | Betty Friedan |
Awards | Lars Onsager Prize (2010) |
Daniel Harry Friedan (born October 3, 1948) [1] is an American theoretical physicist and one of three children of the feminist author and activist Betty Friedan. [2] He is a professor at Rutgers University.
Friedan earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1980 and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1987. [3] [4]
In 1979, he showed that the equations of motions of string theory, which are generalizations of the Einstein equations of general relativity, emerge from the renormalization group equations for the two-dimensional field theory. [5]
Friedan has worked in string theory and condensed matter theory, specializing in (1 + 1)-dimensional systems. His current research focuses on applications to quantum computers.
Friedan received the 2010 Lars Onsager Prize from the American Physical Society "for seminal work on the classification and characterization of two-dimensional unitary conformal field theories of critical states." [6] He currently teaches at Rutgers University.
Daniel is married to an Icelandic physics teacher, Ragnheiður Guðmundsdóttir. They have two daughters and one son together.
The holographic principle is a property of string theories and a supposed property of quantum gravity that states that the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a lower-dimensional boundary to the region – such as a light-like boundary like a gravitational horizon. First proposed by Gerard 't Hooft, it was given a precise string theoretic interpretation by Leonard Susskind, who combined his ideas with previous ones of 't Hooft and Charles Thorn. Leonard Susskind said, "The three-dimensional world of ordinary experience—the universe filled with galaxies, stars, planets, houses, boulders, and people—is a hologram, an image of reality coded on a distant two-dimensional surface." As pointed out by Raphael Bousso, Thorn observed in 1978 that string theory admits a lower-dimensional description in which gravity emerges from it in what would now be called a holographic way. The prime example of holography is the AdS/CFT correspondence.
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