Daniel Friedan

Last updated
Daniel Friedan
Born
Daniel Harry Friedan

(1948-10-03) October 3, 1948 (age 75)
New York City, US
OccupationTheoretical physicist at Rutgers University
Known for String theory, two-dimensional conformal field theory, quantum gravity
SpouseRagnheiður Guðmundsdóttir
Children3
Parent
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.

Contents

Biography

Education and career

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 teaches at Rutgers University currently.

Personal life

Daniel is married to an Icelandic physics teacher, Ragnheiður Guðmundsdóttir. They have two daughters and one son together.

Related Research Articles

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.

M-theory is a theory in physics that unifies all consistent versions of superstring theory. Edward Witten first conjectured the existence of such a theory at a string theory conference at the University of Southern California in 1995. Witten's announcement initiated a flurry of research activity known as the second superstring revolution. Prior to Witten's announcement, string theorists had identified five versions of superstring theory. Although these theories initially appeared to be very different, work by many physicists showed that the theories were related in intricate and nontrivial ways. Physicists found that apparently distinct theories could be unified by mathematical transformations called S-duality and T-duality. Witten's conjecture was based in part on the existence of these dualities and in part on the relationship of the string theories to a field theory called eleven-dimensional supergravity.

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 interact with each other. On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string looks just like an ordinary particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. In string theory, one of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries the gravitational force. Thus, string theory is a theory of quantum gravity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lars Onsager</span> American physical chemist and theoretical physicist (1903-1976)

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References

  1. Judith Adler Hennessee, Betty Friedan: her life, Random House, 1999, p.50
  2. Feminist author, icon Betty Friedan dies at 85, USA Today , February 4, 2006. Accessed August 1, 2011
  3. American Physical Society Recognizes Rutgers Professors for Outstanding Research, Rutgers University newstelease, March 16, 2010. Accessed August 1, 2011
  4. MacArthur `Genius Awards' To 32; Honors List Includes Washington Writer Archived 2016-03-07 at the Wayback Machine , The Washington Post , June 16, 1987
  5. D. Friedan, unpublished lectures given at the Mathematics and Physics Conference (Durham, England, July 1979), at the Nuffield Workshop on Quantum Gravity (Cambridge, England, August 13, 1979), and at the Nato Advanced Study Institute on Recent Developments in Gauge Theories (Cargese, France, August 1979), and unpublished manuscript, "Geometric Models for Critical Systems in 2 + ε Dimensions," subtitled "Expanded Version of a talk given at the Nuffield Workshop on Quantum Gravity, DAMTP, Cambridge University, August 13, 1979," commissioned by the directors of the 1979 Nuffield Workshop, and privately circulated to them at the conclusion of the workshop. See also arXiv : hep-ph/0204131.
  6. 2010 Lars Onsager Prize Recipient, American Physical Society. Accessed August 1, 2011