Lawrence M. Krauss

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Lawrence M. Krauss bigraphy, stories - American physicist

Lawrence M. Krauss : biography

May 27, 1954 –

Lawrence Maxwell Krauss (born May 27, 1954) is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who is Foundation Professor of the School of Earth and Space Exploration and director of Arizona State University’s Origins Project. He is the author of several bestselling books, including The Physics of Star Trek and A Universe from Nothing. He is an advocate of scientific skepticism, science education, the science of morality,The Science Network. 2010. November 6, 2010. and is a self-proclaimed antitheist.

Biography

Krauss was born in New York City but spent his childhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. On January 19, 1980 he married Katherine Kelley, a native of Nova Scotia. Their daughter, Lilli, was born November 23, 1984. Krauss and Kelley separated in 2010 and were divorced in 2012. Krauss received undergraduate degrees in mathematics and physics with first class honours at Carleton University (Ottawa) in 1977, and was awarded a Ph.D. in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982.

After some time in the Harvard Society of Fellows, he became an assistant professor at Yale University in 1985 and associate professor in 1988. He was named the Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics, professor of astronomy, and was chairman of the physics department at Case Western Reserve University from 1993 to 2005. In 2006, Krauss led the initiative for the no confidence vote against Case Western Reserve University’s president Edward M. Hundert and provost Anderson by the College of Arts and Sciences faculty. On March 2, 2006 both no-confidence votes carried: 131-44 against Hundert, and 97-68 against Anderson. In August 2008 he joined the faculty at Arizona State University as Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and the Department of Physics in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and director of a university initiative, the Origins Project. In 2009 he helped inaugurate this initiative with the Origins Symposium, in which eighty scientists participated and three thousand people attended.

He appears in national media for public outreach in science and has written editorials for The New York Times. His opposition to intelligent design gained national prominence as a result of his 2004 appearance before the state school board of Ohio.Ratliff, Evan. 2004. 12 (October): 157–161.

Krauss also is a critic of string theory, which he discusses in his 2005 book, Hiding in the Mirror. Another book released in March 2011 was titled, Quantum Man: Richard Feynman’s Life in Science, and a new book released in January 2012, is etitled, A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing, with an afterword by Richard Dawkins. This became a New York Times bestseller within a week of its release, and is being translated into 20 languages. A foreword written by Christopher Hitchens was planned originally, but Hitchens died before it could be finished.Overbye, Dennis, , New York Times, D1, February 21, 2012 In Jan 2013 the paperback version of the book appeared, with a new preface including material on the Higgs boson and a new Q&A with the author.

A July, 2012 article in Newsweek written by Krauss explained that the Higgs particle could explain how the Big Bang was caused. He also wrote a longer piece in the New York Times explaining the science and significance of the Higgs boson.

A new full-length feature film documentary called The Unbelievers, which follows Krauss and colleague Richard Dawkins around the world as they discuss science and reason, had its world premiere at the Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto in April 2013.http://www.hotdocs.ca/news#28_films_announced_in_special_presentations_program A number of celebrities including Woody Allen, Werner Herzog, Cameron Diaz, Ricky Gervais, Ian McEwan, Cormac McCarthy, and Sarah Silverman appear in the film, for which Krauss was the executive producer.

Scientific work

Working mostly in theoretical (as opposed to experimental) physics, Krauss has published research on a great variety of topics within that field. His primary contribution is to cosmology, as he was one of the first physicists to suggest that most of the mass and energy of the universe resides in empty space, an idea now widely known as dark energy. Furthermore, Krauss has formulated a model in which the universe could have potentially come from "nothing", as outlined in his 2012 book A Universe from Nothing. Although his model agrees with experimental observation such as the shape of the universe and the energy density of the universe, it is referred to as a "plausible hypothesis".