Lee Smolin is a theoretical physicist who has made major contributions to loop quantum gravity. He is currently a long term researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He is the author of The Life of the Cosmos and Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, physics books written for a popular audience.

Smolin is well known to researchers in quantum gravity for advocating that the two primary approaches to that subject, loop quantum gravity and string theory, may eventually be reconciled as different aspects of the same underlying theory. But his most famous suggestion may be his fecund universes theory, which attempts to apply principles of biological evolution to cosmology, suggesting that universes evolve in favor of the production of black holes (see Gaia philosophy).

Smolin was born in New York City and educated at Hampshire College and Harvard University.

Smolin enjoys the tea and crumpets served at the Symposium cafe in uptown Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Quotes

"I am convinced that quantum mechanics is not a final theory. I believe this because I have never encountered an interpretation of the present formulation of quantum mechanics that makes sense to me. I have studied most of them in depth and thought hard about them, and in the end I still can't make real sense of quantum theory as it stands."

History of loop quantum gravity

Links

Web page at the Perimeter Institute

Lee Smolin's web site