Leonard Mlodinow#Works

{{Short description|American physicist, author and screenwriter (born 1954)}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Leonard Mlodinow

| image = Leonard Mlodinow.jpg

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| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1954|11|26|df=y}}

| birth_place = Chicago, Illinois

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| citizenship = American

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| fields = Mathematical physics

| workplaces = Max Planck Institute for Physics
California Institute of Technology

| alma_mater = Brandeis University
University of California, Berkeley

| doctoral_advisor = Eyvind Wichmann

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Leonard Mlodinow (born November 26, 1954) is an American theoretical physicist and mathematician, screenwriter and author. In physics, he is known for his work on the large N expansion, a method of approximating the spectrum of atoms based on the consideration of an infinite-dimensional version of the problem, and for his work on the quantum theory of light inside dielectrics.

Mlodinow has also written books for the general public, five of which have been New York Times best-sellers, including The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, which was chosen as a New York Times notable book, and short-listed for the Royal Society Science Book Prize; The Grand Design, co-authored with Stephen Hawking, which said that invoking God is not necessary to explain the origins of the universe; War of the Worldviews, co-authored with Deepak Chopra; and Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior, which won the 2013 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. He also makes public lectures and media appearances on programs including Morning Joe and Through the Wormhole, and debated Deepak Chopra on ABC's Nightline.

Biography

Mlodinow was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Jewish parents who were both Holocaust survivors. His father, who spent more than a year in the Buchenwald concentration camp, had been a leader in the Jewish resistance in his hometown of Częstochowa, in Nazi German-occupied Poland.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fU5vCwAAQBAJ&q=szymon|title=Underground, The Story of a People|last=Tenenbaum|first=Joseph|year=1952|isbn=978-1786257963|page=195|publisher=Pickle Partners }}

As a child, Mlodinow was interested in both mathematics and chemistry; while in high school, he was tutored in organic chemistry by a professor from the University of Illinois. He said in his book Feynman's Rainbow that his interest turned to physics during a semester he took off from college to spend on a kibbutz in Israel, during which he had little to do at night besides reading The Feynman Lectures on Physics, which was one of the few English books he found in the kibbutz library.{{Cite book|title=Feynman's Rainbow: a Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life|last=Mlodinow|first=Leonard|publisher=Grand Central Publishing|year=2003}}

Mlodinow completed his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley. In his PhD dissertation he developed a new type of perturbation theory for nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, based upon solving the problem in infinite dimensions, and then correcting for the fact that we live in three. The method has become the basis of the 1/d expansion used by theoretical chemists.{{Cite journal|last=Mlodinow, L. D.|first=and N. Papanicolaou|date=1980|title=SO (2, 1) algebra and the large N expansion in quantum mechanics|journal=Annals of Physics|volume=128|issue=2|pages=314–334|bibcode=1980AnPhy.128..314M|doi=10.1016/0003-4916(80)90323-1}}{{Cite journal|last=Mlodinow, L. D.|first=and N. Papanicolaou|date=1981|title=Pseudo-spin structure and large N expansion for a class of generalized helium Hamiltonians|journal=Annals of Physics|volume=131|issue=1|pages=1–35|bibcode=1981AnPhy.131....1M|doi=10.1016/0003-4916(81)90181-0}}{{Cite journal|last=Bender, Carl M., L. D. Mlodinow, and N. Papanicolaou|date=1982|title=Semiclassical perturbation theory for the hydrogen atom in a uniform magnetic field|journal=Physical Review A|volume=25|issue=3|pages=1305–1314|bibcode=1982PhRvA..25.1305B|doi=10.1103/PhysRevA.25.1305}}{{Cite journal|last=Mlodinow, Leonard D.|first=and Michael P. Shatz|date=1984|title=Solving the Schrödinger equation with use of 1/N perturbation theory|url=https://authors.library.caltech.edu/32206/1/MLOjmp84.pdf|journal=Journal of Mathematical Physics|volume=25|issue=4|pages=943–950|bibcode=1984JMP....25..943M|doi=10.1063/1.526211}}{{Cite journal|last=Doren, D. J., and D. R. Herschbach|date=1985|title=Accurate semiclassical electronic structure from dimensional singularities|journal=Chemical Physics Letters|volume=118|issue=2|pages=115–119|bibcode=1985CPL...118..115D|doi=10.1016/0009-2614(85)85280-5}}{{Cite journal|last=Loeser, J. G., and D. R. Herschbach.|date=1985|title=Dimensional interpolation of correlation energy for two-electron atoms|journal=The Journal of Physical Chemistry|volume=89|issue=16|pages=3444–3447|doi=10.1021/j100262a004}} He has also done pioneering{{Cite book|author1=Luks, A. |author2=V. Perinova |editor= Emil Wolf |date=2002|title=Canonical quantum description of light propagation in dielectric media|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SsqORszRULQC&q=pioneering&pg=PA295|series=Progress in Optics|volume=43|pages=304–206|isbn=978-0444510228}}{{Cite journal|last=Lukš, Antonín, and Vlasta Perinová|date=2009|title=Origin of Macroscopic Approach|journal=Quantum Aspects of Light Propagation|pages=7–9|doi=10.1007/b101766_2|isbn=978-0387855899}} and innovative{{Cite journal|last=Drummond, Peter D|date=1990|title=Electromagnetic quantization in dispersive inhomogeneous nonlinear dielectrics|url=https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/data/UQ_391283/UQ391283_OA.pdf?Expires=1513476517&Signature=LoEAlvVh04hoxVJvZRmPojzAp5X41Us0Gaku8q4p9Pr23RTbeAGip8mldm8kgMk0F283MU1kSfqXX3N32KlrQGF-MIBaLIzMBNvSTxzbd16FkG4kgX98jQ2iwJLK~7YuBS6dGnqN3SJyHznAWNa~YaHhDi74drsHmuK4tGsVXEzVq1IV-ylCQRZxhrLwhmyGwYfqrPMTGAQK4Sw7imsa7OV0nZKIuQQsN43sfPS10RX1OTo9iTC454B00EmeR2Amcnp60FspunV8e2F~c-jvnjNDUMC0HlF83ozSjS3rcfFVqovSFl-gBIVdVWThDlH~OqXhfiL7aI2zyfsAQXZZwg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJKNBJ4MJBJNC6NLQ|journal=Physical Review A|volume=42|issue=11|pages=6845–6857|bibcode=1990PhRvA..42.6845D|doi=10.1103/PhysRevA.42.6845|pmid=9903985}}{{Cite journal|last=Duan, Lu-Ming, and Guang-Can Guo|date=1997|title=Alternative approach to electromagnetic field quantization in nonlinear and inhomogeneous media|journal=Physical Review A|volume=56|issue=1|pages=925–930|arxiv=quant-ph/9612009|bibcode=1997PhRvA..56..925D|doi=10.1103/PhysRevA.56.925|s2cid=17095200}}{{Cite journal|last=Bezgabadi, Abolfazl Safaei, and Mohammad Agha Bolorizadeh|editor2-first=Ruyan|editor2-last=Guo|editor1-first=Shizhuo|editor1-last=Yin|date=2016|title=Quantum mechanical treatment of the third order nonlinear term in NLS equation and the supercontinuum generation|journal=Photonic Fiber and Crystal Devices: Advances in Materials and Innovations in Device Applications X|volume= 9958|pages=995803|doi=10.1117/12.2236882|bibcode=2016SPIE.9958E..03S|s2cid=125661387}} work in the quantum theory of nonlinear optics.{{Cite journal|last=Hillery, Mark, and Leonard D. Mlodinow|date=1984|title=Quantization of electrodynamics in nonlinear dielectric media|journal=Physical Review A|volume=30|issue=4|pages=1860–1865|bibcode=1984PhRvA..30.1860H|doi=10.1103/PhysRevA.30.1860}}{{Cite journal|last=Hillery, Mark, and Leonard D. Mlodinow|date=1985|title=Semiclassical expansion for nonlinear dielectric media|journal=Physical Review A|volume=31|issue=2|pages=797–806|bibcode=1985PhRvA..31..797H|doi=10.1103/PhysRevA.31.797|pmid=9895552}}{{Cite journal|last=Hillery, Mark, and Leonard Mlodinow|date=1997|title=Quantized fields in a nonlinear dielectric medium: a microscopic approach.|journal=Physical Review A|volume=55|issue=1|pages=678–689|bibcode=1997PhRvA..55..678H|doi=10.1103/PhysRevA.55.678|arxiv=atom-ph/9608002|s2cid=17600293}} The central problem of quantum nonlinear optics is how to quantize a dielectric that, as well as the usual homogeneities and anisotropy, can also have nonlinearities and dispersion, and earlier attempts in this direction, while incorporating the known linear theory, had not fully reproduced the nonlinear equations.

In 1981, Mlodinow joined the faculty at Caltech. Later, he was named an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow and worked at the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in Munich, Germany. In 1986, Mlodinow left full-time academia to begin a writing career. In addition to his books, he wrote many episodes for television series including Star Trek: The Next Generation and MacGyver, created computer games with director Steven Spielberg and actor Robin Williams,{{Citation|title=Disney's Math Quest with Aladdin|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0219485/|others=Robin Williams, Gilbert Gottfried, Scott Weinger|accessdate=January 2, 2018}} and wrote the screenplay for the 2009 film Beyond the Horizon.{{Citation|title=Beyond the Horizon (2009)|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0429664/fullcredits|accessdate=January 2, 2018}} He continued to conduct research in theoretical physics, and again joined the faculty of Caltech in 2005, leaving in 2013. His latest work in physics concerns the arrow of time, quantum decoherence, and the relation between discrete quantum random walks and the relativistic equations of quantum theory.{{Cite journal|last=Mlodinow, Leonard, and Todd A. Brun|date=2014|title=Relation between the psychological and thermodynamic arrows of time|journal=Physical Review E|volume=89.5|issue=1|pages=052102|arxiv=1310.2121|bibcode=2014PhRvE..89a2102C|doi=10.1103/PhysRevE.89.012102|pmid=24580167|s2cid=12589630}}{{Cite journal|last=Hillery, Mark, Leonard Mlodinow, and Vladimír Bužek|date=2005|title=Quantum interference with molecules: The role of internal states|journal=Physical Review A|volume=71.6|issue=1|pages=062103|bibcode=2005PhRvA..71a2103S|doi=10.1103/PhysRevA.71.012103|arxiv=quant-ph/0502156}}{{Cite journal|last=Brun, Todd A., and Leonard Mlodinow|date=2016|title=Decoherence by coupling to internal vibrational modes|url=https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.94.052123|journal=Physical Review A|volume=94.5|issue=1|pages=052123|arxiv=1510.04857|bibcode=2016PhRvA..94a2123K|doi=10.1103/PhysRevA.94.012123|s2cid=54646448}} File:Point of Inquiry recording.jpg host Josh Zepps interviews Mlodinow – CFI Summit – 2013]]

Bibliography

=Books=

Euclid's Window: The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace (2001) ({{ISBN|0-684-86523-8}}) is a work on popular science that chronicles the idea of curved space and the history of geometry.
Feynman's Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life (2003) (as published in US) ({{ISBN|0-446-53045-X}}), is about his relationship with Richard Feynman and Richard Feynman's brilliance, during his post-doctoral years in Caltech, in the early eighties. The book offers an insight into Feynman's attitude towards physics and life, his relationship with Murray Gell-Mann and the rise of String Theory.
A Briefer History of Time (2005) ({{ISBN|0-553-80436-7}}), with Stephen Hawking.
The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (2008) ({{ISBN|0-375-42404-0}}), deals with randomness and people's inability to take it into account in their daily lives. The book was a "NY Times notable book of the year".
The Grand Design (2010) ({{ISBN|0-553-80537-1}}) with Stephen Hawking. This book argues that invoking God is not necessary to explain the origins of the universe. It became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller.
The War of the Worldviews (2011) ({{ISBN|978-0-307-88688-0}}) with Deepak Chopra. From their contrasting scientific and spiritual perspectives, the two authors answer the big questions about the universe, consciousness, life, and God.
Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior (2012) ({{ISBN|0-307-37821-7}}) Describes how things that we think are conscious, freely made choices, are in fact governed by our subconscious.
The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos (2015) ({{ISBN|978-0-30790-823-0}}) A history of human progress, from our time on the African savannah through the invention of modern quantum physics..
Elastic: Flexible Thinking in a Time of Change (2018) ({{ISBN|1-101-87092-3}}) A new look at the neuroscience of change—and how elastic thinking can help us thrive in a world changing faster than ever before.
Stephen Hawking: A Memoir of Friendship and Physics (2020) ({{ISBN|978-1524748685}})
Emotional: How Feelings Shape Our Thinking (2022) ({{ISBN|978-1-5247-4759-6}})

= Children's books =

The Kids of Einstein Elementary: Titanic Cat, co-authored with Matt Costello and Josh Nash (2004) ({{ISBN|0-439-53774-6}})
The Kids of Einstein Elementary: The Last Dinosaur, co-authored with Matt Costello and Josh Nash (2004) ({{ISBN|0-439-53773-8}})

=Articles=

Mlodinow, Leonard. "Meet Hollywood's Latest Genius." Los Angeles Times (July 2, 2006).
Mlodinow, Leonard. "The Triumph of the Random," Was Joe Di Maggio's hitting streak a fluke?" Wall Street Journal (July 16, 2009).
Mlodinow, Leonard. "A hint of hype, a taste of illusion." Wall Street Journal (November 20, 2009).
Hawking, Stephen, and Leonard Mlodinow. "Why God did not create the universe." Wall Street Journal (September 4—5, 2010) W 3 (2010).
Hawking, Stephen, and Leonard Mlodinow. "The (elusive) theory of everything." Scientific American 303.4 (2010): 68–71.
Mlodinow, Leonard. "Physics: Fundamental Feynman." Nature 471 (2011), 296–297.
Mlodinow, Leonard. "A Facial Theory of Politics." New York Times (April 22, 2012): 58.
Mlodinow, Leonard. "In Hollywood, Theories of Infinite Dimensions." New York Times (June 3, 2012): 58.
Mlodinow, Leonard. "Most of Us are Biased After All." New York Times (April 4, 2013): 58.
Mlodinow, Leonard. "Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality." New York Times (October 25, 2013): 15.
Mlodinow, Leonard. "It is, in Fact, Rocket Science," New York Times (May 15, 2015): 23.
Mlodinow, Leonard. "Mindware and Superforecasting." New York Times (October 15, 2015): 23.

Awards and honors

2008 Robert P. Balles Prize for Critical Thinking for his book The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives awarded by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSICOP)
2010 Liber Press Award for the Popularization of Science{{citation needed|date=May 2022}}
2013 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, Subliminal

References

External links

[http://leonardmlodinow.com/ Homepage of Leonard Mlodinow]
{{IMDb name|id=0594861}}
[http://physicsweb.org/articles/review/16/11/2 PhysicsWeb Review of "Feynman's Rainbow"]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080612222656/http://librarycog.uwindsor.ca:8082/artblog/librarycog/1084807392 Library Cog Review of "Feynman's Rainbow"]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080612020056/http://onthesamepage.berkeley.edu/archive/2007-hawking/author.html About the Authors of A Briefer History of Time – UC Berkeley]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20061217130958/http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews About "The Grand Design"]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20090509201931/http://www.its.caltech.edu/~len/images/Fortune%20review.pdf Fortune Magazine Review of The Drunkard's Walk]
[https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/books/review/Johnson-G-t.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=mlodinow&st=cse&oref=slogin NY Times Review of The Drunkard's Walk]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20090710125757/http://www.its.caltech.edu/~len/images/Review-Barron's.pdf Barron's Book Review of The Drunkard's Walk]