Review of “The Cosmic Lanscape”

Commentary:

The Cosmic Landscape: String theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design
(Lecture Given at the Hayden Planetarium, Museum of Natural History)
Leonard Susskind – Stanford University
Monday, December 11, 2006 7:30P.M.

Blurb (from the Museum of Natural History):

The father of string theory reinvents our concept of the known universe and man’s unique place within it stating that an “elegant-theory” no longer suits our understanding of the Universe, and that our narrow 20^th-century view of a unique universe will have to give way to the much broader concept of a gigantic cosmic landscape—a megaverse, pregnant with new possibilities.

Review:

Leonard Susskind gave a talk geared toward the scientific community and generally stuck within an approach and a language that respected disciplinary boundaries. His discussion of this new concept of an inelegant megaverse, however, bore fingerprints of both complex systems and classic topics of philosophy. Interestingly, where theoretical physics has in the recent past influenced philosophers such as Deleuze, here particle physicists are being influenced by the ideas that have been popularized by Stephen Wolfram and Ray Kurtzweill’s recapitulation of the big bang in his The Age of Spiritual Machines. Susskind seemed to run with Wolfram’s notion that enormous ranges of delicate and complex conditions observed in nature here on earth are attributable to basic combinatorial logics that when run repeatedly give rise to enormous complexity. Susskind, from what I observed, seemed to take this idea wholesale and apply it to particle physics and extrapolate an entirely new understanding of our universe. His presentation literally contained a slide comparing atomic components to DNA. Susskind name dropped Darwin in the service of dispelling lines of thinking that would assume that incredibly complex and balanced systems are the result of design rather than coincidence within a long string of chance combination.

While there was a lot of time spent on supporting details, this theory supposes that our Universe is but one “successful” condition in a field of vast conditions where, for instance, the universal constant may not hold electrons in orbit around atomic nuclei. Imagine regions in the fabric to which our own Universe belongs that do nothing but reduce atomic organizations into a diffuse and unorganized mist of sub-atomic particles. Perhaps there are still others that have different atomic organizations that give rise to more or different types of complexity than our own.

Now, it seems, mathematicians and computer scientists are posing the questions. Susskind indicated that experimental physicists were finding evidence to support the position and pointed to artificial black holes produced in super colliders at Brookhaven. It will be interesting to see what level of acceptance his theory receives in the field of Physics, especially now that the flow of ideation is no longer coming from inside .

Leonard Susskind is on a lecture circuit to support the release of a paperback edition of his book, The Cosmic Landscape

Introducting Matt Howard, Research Assistant in Academic Initiatives

It’s my honor as AIC chair to announce Matt Howard as the Research Assistant in Academic Initiatives. Matt is a fourth-year student in architecture at Pratt and has served previously as the teaching assistant for Pratt’s International Summer Seminar in Architecture and Urban Design.

Matt currently interns at Hanrahan Meyers Architects and was recently invited to attend the Wolfram Science organization’s New Kind of Science Summer School. He has had his work published in journals within the school of architecture and has had work submitted for publication in 30 60 90 Magazine. His work has also been exhibited in shows put on by Pratt in Brooklyn and in Beijing.