Lawrence Krauss
A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. (November 2023) |
Lawrence Krauss | |
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Born | Lawrence Maxwell Krauss May 27, 1954 New York City, U.S. |
Nationality |
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Alma mater | |
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Awards | |
Thesis | Gravitation and Phase Transitions in the Early Universe (1982) |
Doctoral advisor | Roscoe Giles[1] |
Website | www |
Lawrence Maxwell Krauss (born May 27, 1954) is a Canadian-American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who taught at Arizona State University (ASU), Yale University, and Case Western Reserve University. He founded ASU's Origins Project in 2008 to investigate fundamental questions about the universe and served as the project's director.
Krauss is an advocate for
Krauss is the author of several bestselling books, including The Physics of Star Trek (1995) and A Universe from Nothing (2012), and chaired the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Board of Sponsors.[citation needed]
Upon investigating allegations about sexual misconduct by Krauss, ASU determined that Krauss had violated university policy, and did not renew his Origins Project directorship for a third term in July 2018.[3][4] Krauss retired as a professor at ASU in May 2019, at the end of the following academic year. He currently serves as president of The Origins Project Foundation.[5] Krauss hosts The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss[6] and publishes a blog titled Critical Mass.[7]
Early life and education
Krauss was born on May 27, 1954, in
Career
After some time in the Harvard Society of Fellows, Krauss became an assistant professor at Yale University in 1985 and associate professor in 1988. He left Yale for Case Western Reserve University in 1993 when he was named the Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics, professor of astronomy, and chairman of the physics department until 2005. In 2006, Krauss led the initiative for the no-confidence vote against Case Western Reserve University's president Edward M. Hundert and provost John L. Anderson by the College of Arts and Sciences faculty. On March 2, 2006, both no-confidence votes were carried: 131–44 against Hundert and 97–68 against Anderson.[11]
In August 2008, Krauss joined the faculty at Arizona State University as a foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at the Department of Physics in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He also became the director of the Origins Project, a university initiative "created to explore humankind's most fundamental questions about our origins".[12][13] In 2009, he helped inaugurate this initiative at the Origins Symposium, in which eighty scientists participated and three thousand people attended.[14]
Donors to the Origins Project included a foundation called "Enhanced Education", run by the financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Krauss appears in the media both at home and abroad to facilitate public outreach in science. He has also written editorials for The New York Times. As a result of his appearance in 2002 before the state school board of Ohio, his opposition to intelligent design has gained national prominence.[15]
Krauss attended and was a speaker at the
Krauss is a critic of string theory, which he discusses in his 2005 book Hiding in the Mirror.[18] In his 2012 book A Universe from Nothing Krauss says about string theory "we still have no idea if this remarkable theoretical edifice actually has anything to do with the real world".[19][20] Released in March 2011, another book titled Quantum Man: Richard Feynman's Life in Science, while A Universe from Nothing—with an afterword by Richard Dawkins—was released in January 2012, and became a New York Times bestseller within a week. Originally, its foreword was to have been written by Christopher Hitchens, but Hitchens grew too ill to complete it.[21][22] The paperback version of the book appeared in January 2013 with a new question-and-answer section and a preface integrating the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider. On March 21, 2017, his newest book, The Greatest Story Ever Told—So Far: Why Are We Here? was released in hardcover, paperback, and audio version.
A July 2012 article in
In January 2019, Krauss became President of the Origins Project Foundation,[24] a non-profit corporation intended to host public panel discussions on science, culture, and social issues.[25] On June 21, 2019, a new video podcast, The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss, launched with Krauss as host.[6] The first episodes included dialogues with Ricky Gervais, Noam Chomsky, and Jenny Boylan.
Scientific work
Krauss mostly works in theoretical physics and has published research on a variety of topics within that field. In 1995 he proposed that the energy-density of the universe was dominated by the energy of empty space.[26] In 1998 this prediction was confirmed by two observational collaborations and in 2011 the Nobel Prize was awarded for their discovery. 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. He explains that certain arrangements of relativistic quantum fields might explain the existence of the Universe as we know it while disclaiming that he "has no idea if the notion [of taking quantum mechanics for granted] can be usefully dispensed with".[27] As his model appears to agree with experimental observations of the Universe (such as its shape and energy density), it is referred to by some as a "plausible hypothesis".[28][29] His model has been criticized by cosmologist and theologian George Ellis,[30] who said it "is not tested science" but "philosophical speculation".
Initially, Krauss was skeptical of the existence of the Higgs boson.[31] However, after it was detected by CERN, he researched the implications of the Higgs field on the nature of dark energy.[32]
Activism
Krauss has argued that public policy debates in the United States should have a greater focus on science.[33][34][35][36] He criticized Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson's statements on science, writing that Carson's remarks "suggest he never learned or chooses to ignore basic, well-tested scientific concepts".[37][38]
Krauss has described himself as an
In his book
Honors
In an interview with Krauss in the
Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
Krauss helped to organize a 2006 conference on gravity, funded by Jeffrey Epstein's science foundation. The conference was held on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.[46]
Krauss defended Epstein after his 2008 guilty plea of procuring for prostitution a girl below age 18. In 2011, Krauss told an interviewer, "As a scientist I always judge things on empirical evidence and he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him, but I've never seen anything else, so as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people...I don't feel tarnished in any way by my relationship with Jeffrey; I feel raised by it."[47][48]
Harvard Professor Steven Pinker said that Krauss was one of several colleagues who invited him to "salons and coffee klatsches" that included Epstein.[49]
Allegations of sexual misconduct
In a February 2018 article describing allegations that "range from offensive comments to groping and non-consensual sexual advances",[50] BuzzFeed reported a variety of sexual misconduct claims against Krauss, including two complaints from his years at Case Western Reserve University.[51] Krauss responded that the article was "slanderous" and "factually incorrect".[50] In a public statement, he apologized to anyone he made feel intimidated or uncomfortable, but stated that the BuzzFeed article "ignored counter-evidence, distorted the facts and made absurd claims about [him]."[52][53]
ASU stated that they had not received complaints from faculty, staff, or students before the BuzzFeed article but subsequently began an internal investigation regarding an accusation that Krauss grabbed a woman's breast while at a convention in Australia.
In response to the university determination, Krauss produced a 51-page appeal document responding to the allegations, including a counter-claim that a photo claimed to be of Krauss grabbing a woman's breast was actually showing his hand moving away from the woman.[57][third-party source needed]
Several organizations also canceled scheduled talks by Krauss.[50] Krauss resigned from the position of chair of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Board of Sponsors when informed that its other members felt his presence was distracting "from the ability of the Bulletin to effectively carry out [its] work".[58][59]
Krauss retired from ASU at the end of the 2018–2019 academic year.[60]
Bibliography
Krauss has authored or co-authored more than three hundred scientific studies[citation needed] and review articles on cosmology and theoretical physics.
Books
- ISBN 978-0465023752
- ISBN 0-465-02367-3
- ISBN 0-465-00559-4
- ISBN 978-0060977573
- ISBN 0-465-03741-0
- ISBN 0-316-18309-1
- ISBN 0-670-03395-2
- ISBN 978-0-393-06471-1
- ISBN 978-1-4516-2445-8 [61]
- ISBN 978-1-4767-7761-0
- ISBN 978-1642938166
- The Known Unknowns (2023), Head of Zeus/Apollo, ISBN 978-1801100649
- The Edge of Knowledge (2023), Post Hill Press, ISBN 978-1637588567
Contributor
- 100 Things to Do Before You Die (plus a few to do afterwards). 2004. Profile Books. ISBN 978-1861979254
- The Religion and Science Debate: Why Does It Continue? 2009. Yale Press. ISBN 978-0300152999
Articles
- The Energy of Empty Space that isn't Zero. 2006. Edge.org [62]
- A dark future for cosmology. 2007. Physics World.
- The End of Cosmology. 2008. Scientific American.
- The return of a static universe and the end of cosmology. 2008. International Journal of Modern Physics.
- Late time behavior of false vacuum decay: Possible implications for cosmology and metastable inflating states. 2008. Physical Review Letters.
- The Cosmological Constant is Back, with M. S. Turner, Gen.Rel.Grav.27:1137–1144, 1995
- Krauss, Lawrence M. (June 2010). "Why I love neutrinos". PMID 20521478.
Media
Documentary films
- The Unbelievers (2013)
- The Principle (2014)
- The Choice is Ours on YouTube(2016)
- Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016)
- The Farthest (2017)
Television
- How the Universe Works (2010–2018)
Films
- London Fields (2015) (cameo)[63]
- Salt and Fire (2016)[64]
- Intersect (2020) [65]
Awards
- Gravity Research Foundation First Prize Award in the 1984 Essay Competition[66]
- American Association for the Advancement of Science's Award for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology (2000)[67]
- Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize (2001)[68]
- Andrew Gemant Award (2001)[69]
- American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award (2002)[70]
- Oersted Medal (2003)[71]
- Joseph A. Burton Forum Award (2005)[72]
- Center for Inquiry World Congress Science in the Public Interest Award (2009)[73]
- Helen Sawyer Hogg Prize of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and the Astronomical Society of Canada (2009)[13]
- Physics World Book of the Year 2011 for Quantum Man[74]
- National Science Board 2012 Public Service Award and Medal (2012)[75]
- Elected as Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism (2013)[76]
- Gravity Research Foundation First Prize Award in the 2014 Essay Competition[77]
- Humanist of the Year, 2015, American Humanist Association[78] (revoked in 2018 after allegations of sexual misconduct)[79][80]
- Atheist Alliance of America[81]
References
- ^ "Alumni Notes" (PDF). MIT. Retrieved May 15, 2014.
- PMID 20684370. Retrieved March 31, 2014.
- ^ "Lawrence Krauss replaced as director of The Origins Project". The Arizona State Press. Retrieved August 4, 2018.
- ^ a b c Wadman, Meredith (2018) "University finds prominent astrophysicist Lawrence Krauss grabbed a woman's breast." Science Aug. 3. doi:10.1126/science.aav0010
- ^ Origins Project Foundation website/
- ^ a b "The ORIGINS Podcast (now a part of the ORIGINS Project Foundation) – The Origins Project Foundation".
- ^ Critical Mass substack/
- ^ "On 'Radio Times:' Lawrence Krauss explains the 'curious accident' of human existence". WHYY. March 20, 2017. Retrieved March 21, 2020.
- ^ "Lawrence M. Krauss, BSc / 77". cualumni.carleton.ca. Carleton University Alumni Association. Archived from the original on April 7, 2014. Retrieved March 31, 2014.
- ^ "Alumni/ae Notes" (PDF). web.mit.edu. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 2003. Retrieved March 31, 2014.
- ^ "Inside Higher Ed's News". www.insidehighered.com.
- ^ "About The Origins Project". origins.asu.edu. Arizona State University. Archived from the original on July 31, 2018. Retrieved August 13, 2018.
- ^ a b Krauss, Lawrence. "Curriculum Vitae". Arizona State University. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
- ^ "Origins Symposium 2009". Arizona State University – Origins Project. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
- ^ Ratliff, Evan. 2004. "The Crusade Against Evolution." 12 (October): 157–161.
- ^ "The professoriate" Archived June 8, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, New College of the Humanities, accessed June 8, 2011.
- ^ "Renowned cosmologist makes ANU a long-term fixture". anu.edu.au. May 31, 2013. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
- ^ Boutin, Paul (November 23, 2005). "Theory of Anything? Physicist Lawrence Krauss Takes On His Own". Slate. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
- ^ Reynosa, Peter (April 12, 2016). "Some of the Changes Lawrence M. Krauss Should Make to the Second Edition of "A Universe From Nothing"". The Huffington Post. Retrieved April 14, 2016.
- ISBN 978-1-4516-2445-8.
- ^ "Afterword from Lawrence Krauss' New Book – A Universe From Nothing – Richard Dawkins – RDFRS". RichardDawkins.net. January 16, 2012. Retrieved February 23, 2012.
- ^ Overbye, Dennis (February 20, 2012). "There's More to Nothing Than We Knew". The New York Times. Retrieved January 2, 2020.
- ^ Krauss, Lawrence M. (July 9, 2012). "How the Higgs Boson Posits a New Story of our Creation". Newsweek. The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on September 2, 2013. Retrieved July 18, 2012.
The Higgs particle is now arguably more relevant than God.
- ^ "People – The Origins Project Foundation". Archived from the original on March 20, 2019. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
- ^ "Origins Project Foundation Events". The Origins Project Foundation. Retrieved June 18, 2019.
- S2CID 14652827.
- ^ "On the Origin of Everything". The New York Times. March 25, 2012.
- ^ Boutin, Paul (November 23, 2005). "Theory of Anything? Physicist Lawrence Krauss Takes on His Own". Slate. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
- ^ a b Dreifus, Claudia (August 2004). "Questions That Plague Physics: Lawrence Krauss Speaks About Unfinished Business" (PDF). Scientific American. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
- ^ Horgan, John. "Is Lawrence Krauss a Physicist, or Just a Bad Philosopher?". Scientific American Blog Network. Retrieved March 7, 2018.
- ISBN 978-1-4767-7761-0.
- S2CID 37617416.
- ^ Nina Burleigh (August 12, 2015). "It's Time for Presidential Candidates to Talk About Science". Newsweek.
'Leading the national discussion requires some basic knowledge of what the important issues are, what is known and not known, and what new efforts need to be commenced,' says physicist Lawrence Krauss. 'Scientific data is not Democratic or Republican.'
- ^ Lawrence Krauss on Science Debate. YouTube. February 23, 2008. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021.
- ^ Lawrence M Krauss; Shawn Lawrence Otto (March 20, 2012). "Americans Deserve a Presidential Science Debate". The Huffington Post.
- ^ "Lawrence Krauss – The LHC, going to Mars, and the US Presidential campaign". The Science Show. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. September 27, 2008.
Too little of the US presidential campaign mentions science, says Krauss, considering its importance.
- ^ Lawrence Krauss (September 28, 2015). "Ben Carson's Scientific Ignorance". The New Yorker.
- ^ "Krauss: 'A High School Biology Student' Would Fail With Dr. Carson's Science Knowledge". Alan Colmes Show. Fox News Radio. October 5, 2015. Archived from the original on October 13, 2016. Retrieved October 11, 2015.
- ^ "I cannot hide my own intellectual bias here. As I state in the first sentence of the book, I have never been sympathetic to the notion that creation requires a creator. And like our late friend, Christopher Hitchens, I find the possibility of living in a universe that was not created for my existence, in which my actions and thoughts need not bend to the whims of a creator, far more enriching and meaningful than the other alternative. In that sense, I view myself as an anti-theist rather than an atheist." Krauss, Lawrence M., Everything and Nothing: An Interview with Lawrence M. Krauss. Samharris.org, January 3, 2012
- ^ "THE UNBELIEVERS Official Trailer (Richard Dawkins & Lawrence Krauss)". Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. February 8, 2013. Archived from the original on November 3, 2013. Retrieved November 2, 2013.
- ^ A universe from nothing? Putting the Krauss-Craig debate into perspective by Luke Barnes, August 13, 2013
- ISBN 978-0-281-07799-1.
- ^ Krauss, Lawrence. "Why is there something rather than nothing". IAI. Retrieved January 21, 2014.
- ^ Andersen, Ross (April 23, 2012). "Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete?". The Atlantic. Retrieved June 12, 2014.
- ^ University of Texas at Austin. The M.E.L. Oakes Undergraduate Lecture Series Archived July 26, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Patel, Neel (July 13, 2019). "Jeffrey Epstein liked palling around with scientists—what do they think now?". The Verge. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
Krauss has long been an organizer for Epstein's scientific conferences, helping to collect many big names to gather under a single event. The biggest is perhaps a 2006 conference dedicated to understanding gravity, held at St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, and bringing in scientists like the late Stephen Hawking
- ^ Wolfe, Alexandra (April 1, 2011). "Jeffrey Epstein's society friends close ranks". Archived from the original on April 5, 2011.
- ^ Darby, Luke (August 19, 2019). "Private jets, parties and eugenics: Jeffrey Epstein's bizarre world of scientists". The Guardian.
- ^ Stewart, James B. (July 31, 2019). "Jeffrey Epstein Hoped to Seed Human Race With His DNA". The New York Times.
- ^ a b c Scragg, Chris (February 25, 2018). "ASU professor Lawrence Krauss accused of sexual misconduct". The State Press. Archived from the original on February 26, 2018.
- ^ Aldhous, Peter; Ghorayshi, Azeen; Hughes, Virginia (February 22, 2018). "Celebrity Atheist Lawrence Krauss Accused Of Sexual Misconduct For Over A Decade". BuzzFeed. Archived from the original on February 22, 2018. Retrieved February 27, 2018.
- ^ Ryman, Anne (March 7, 2018). "ASU professor Lawrence Krauss: Sex-misconduct allegations are 'absurd,' 'libelous'". AZcentral. Retrieved August 28, 2021.
- ^ Chang, Kenneth (March 7, 2018). "Arizona State Suspends Lawrence Krauss During Inquiry Over Sexual Misconduct Accusations". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 8, 2018. Retrieved August 28, 2021.
- ^ Searle, Mark (July 31, 2018). "Determination of complaint of violation of ACD 401" (PDF). AAAS | Science Magazine. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 14, 2018. Retrieved August 13, 2018.
- ^ Kimberly Rapanut (August 7, 2018). "Lawrence Krauss violated ASU sexual harassment policies, investigation shows". The State Press. Arizona State University.
- ^ Shea, Parker (September 29, 2018). "ASU's Origins Project to move under Interplanetary Initiative". The State Press. Retrieved March 20, 2019.
ASU announced Thursday that the Origins Project, formerly headed by Lawrence Krauss, will move underneath the University's Interplanetary Initiative and lose its name.
- ^ Krauss, Lawrence (August 24, 2018). "Redacted Appeal Document". Archived from the original on October 25, 2018. Retrieved November 4, 2021.
- ^ Sinclaire, Janice (March 6, 2018). "Lawrence Krauss resigns from Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Board of Sponsors". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Rachel Bronson. Archived from the original on March 8, 2018.
- ^ "Lawrence Krauss Letter of Resignation" (PDF). Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. March 6, 2018. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 8, 2018.
- ^ Haag, Matthew (October 22, 2018). "Lawrence Krauss to Retire From Arizona State After Sexual Misconduct Accusations". The New York Times. Retrieved March 17, 2019.
- ^ "Lawrence Krauss". Arizona State University. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
- ^ "The Energy of Empty Space That Isn't Zero". July 5, 2006.
- ^ "Interview with Lawrence Krauss". June 7, 2014. Retrieved June 19, 2014.
- ^ "Salt and Fire (2016)". IMDB. Retrieved March 18, 2016.
- ^ "Intersect (2020)" – via www.imdb.com.
- ^ "Dark Matter and Inflation*". December 2014. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007.
- ^ "AAAS Public Engagement with Science Award Recipients". www.aaas.org. American Association for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved March 31, 2014.
- ^ "Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize". www.aps.org. American Physical Society. Retrieved March 31, 2014.
- ^ "Gemant Award Winners". www.aip.org. American Institute of Physics. Retrieved March 31, 2014.
- ^ "Elections". www.aps.org. American Physical Society. Retrieved March 31, 2014.
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- ^ "Joseph A. Burton Forum Award". www.aps.org. American Physical Society. Retrieved March 31, 2014.
- ^ "Randi, Krauss, Kurtz Honored with Major Awards". www.csicop.org. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Retrieved March 31, 2014.
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- S2CID 14943190. Archived from the originalon September 29, 2007.
- ^ "Krauss named Humanist of the Year". ASU News. December 4, 2014.
- ^ Henry, Sarah (October 25, 2018). "AHA Board of Directors Revokes Lawrence Krauss Humanist of the Year Award" (Press release). American Humanist Association. Retrieved August 6, 2023.
- ^ Seering, Lauryn. "Lawrence Krauss's 2016 National Convention Speech - Freedom From Religion Foundation". ffrf.org. Retrieved November 21, 2023.
- ^ Mark.Gura. "Dr. Lawrence Krauss Receives the 2016 Richard Dawkins Award". Atheist Alliance of America. Retrieved November 21, 2023.
External links
- Lawrence Krauss at Origins Project Foundation Archived March 20, 2019, at the Wayback Machine
- Articles on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
- Articles on The New Yorker
- Lawrence Krauss interviewed by Bill Ludlow, February 26, 2019
- Lawrence Krauss on Twitter
- Lawrence Krauss at IMDb
- Lawrence Krauss interviewed on the TV show Triangulation on the TWiT.tv network
- "The Origins Channel with Lawrence Krauss". YouTube; YouTube channel started in 2019
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