Laura Mersini-Houghton
Portrait of Laura Mersini-Houghton
Mersini-Houghton in 2016
Born
Tirana, Albania
NationalityAlbanian, American
Alma materTirana University
University of Maryland
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
Known forMultiverse, Origin of the Universe theory, Hawking radiation theory
SpouseJeff Houghton
ChildrenGrace Houghton
Scientific career
Fieldscosmology and theoretical physics
InstitutionsUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Doctoral advisorLeonard Parker

Laura Mersini-Houghton (née Mersini) is an Albanian-American cosmologist and theoretical physicist, and professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a proponent of the multiverse hypothesis and the author of a theory for the origin of the universe that holds that our universe is one of many selected by quantum gravitational dynamics of matter and energy.[1][2][3][4] She argues that anomalies in the current structure of the universe are best explained as the gravitational tug exerted by other universes.[5][6]

Biography

Laura Mersini was born in Tirana, Albania, as a daughter of the mathematician and eminent economist Nexhat Mersini.[7][8]

Mersini-Houghton received her B.S. degree from the University of Tirana, Albania.

In 1994, Mersini-Houghton was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Maryland, College Park for 8 months.[9][10]

In 1997, Mersini-Houghton was awarded her M.Sc. by the University of Maryland.[9]

In 2000, Mersini-Houghton completed her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.[9]

From 2000 to 2002, after earning her doctorate, Mersini-Houghton was a postdoctoral fellow at the Italian Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa.[9]

From 2002 to 2003, Mersini-Houghton had a postdoctoral fellowship at Syracuse University.[9]

In January 2004, Mersini-Houghton accepted a position as assistant professor of theoretical physics and cosmology at the University of North Carolina. In a series of papers published between 2004 and 2006, she presented a theory that the universe arose from a multiverse, and made a series of testable predictions which included the existence of the Giant Void. She was granted tenure in 2008 and promotion to associate professor in 2009 and full professor later.[9]

On 11 October 2010, Mersini-Houghton appeared in a BBC programme entitled What Happened Before the Big Bang (along with Michio Kaku, Neil Turok, Andrei Linde, Roger Penrose, Lee Smolin, and other physicists), where she propounded her theory of the universe as a wave function on the landscape multiverse.[11] Mersini-Houghton's work on multiverse theory is discussed in the epilogue of a recently published biography of Hugh Everett III.[12] Her predictions were successfully tested recently by the Planck satellite experiment. See also a discussion of her ideas in the context of the history and philosophical implications of the idea of a multiverse here.[13]

In September 2014, Mersini-Houghton claimed to demonstrate mathematically that, given certain assumptions about black hole firewalls, current theories of black hole formation are flawed.[14] She claimed that Hawking radiation causes the star to shed mass at a rate such that it no longer has the density sufficient to create a black hole. With Stephen Hawking, she organized a historic conference in 2015 in Stockholm to discuss these fundamental topics.[15][16]

Teaching

Mersini-Houghton teaches graduate and undergraduate classes in Quantum Mechanics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Bibliography

  • Mersini-Houghton, Laura; Vaas, Rudy, eds. (2012). The Arrows of Time: A Debate in Cosmology. Fundamental Theories of Physics. Berlin: Springer. ISBN 9783642232589.
  • Mersini-Houghton, Laura (2022). Before the Big Bang: The Origin of Our Universe from the Multiverse. London: Bodley Head. ISBN 9781847925510.

References

  1. ↑ Fox, Killian (27 August 2022). "Cosmologist Laura Mersini-Houghton: 'Our universe is one tiny grain of dust in a beautiful cosmos' - Interview". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 August 2022.
  2. ↑ Catchpole, Heather (24 November 2009). "Weird data suggests something big beyond the edge of the universe". Cosmos. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  3. ↑ Moon, Timur (19 May 2013). "Planck Space Data Yields Evidence of Universes Beyond Our Own". International Business Times. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  4. ↑ Cauchi, Stephen (9 December 2007). "Into the void: a glimpse of our tiny place in the scheme of things". The Age. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  5. ↑ Leake, Jonathan (19 May 2013). "Cosmic map reveals first evidence of other universes". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 23 November 2013. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  6. ↑ The News (19 March 2014). "Could Big Bang ripples prove the existence of a PARALLEL universe? Gravitational wave discovery paves the way for the 'multiverse'". National Headlines. Archived from the original on 16 August 2014. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  7. ↑ "Big Bang-u dhe sfidat e shkencetares shqiptare". Shqiperia (in Albanian). Retrieved 10 January 2024.
  8. ↑ Peshku pa ujë (19 July 2012). Laura Nexhat Mersini, vlonjatja shkencetare. Retrieved from http://arkivi.peshkupauje.com/2012/07/laura-nexhat-mersini-vlonjatja-shkencetare Archived 11 February 2018 at the Wayback Machine.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 University of North Carolina, Department of Physics and Astronomy
  10. ↑ Balkanweb, Shkencëtarja shqiptare pas aprovimit të teorisë për universin, pretendente për"Nobel"
  11. ↑ "Two Programmes - Horizon, 2010-2011, What Happened Before the Big Bang?". BBC. Retrieved 2 January 2011.
  12. ↑ Byrne, Peter (2010). The many worlds of Hugh Everett III : multiple universes, mutual assured destruction, and the meltdown of a nuclear family (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-955227-6.
  13. ↑ Rubenstein, Mary-Jane (2014). Worlds Without End: The Many Lives of the Multiverse (1st ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-15662-2.
  14. ↑ Brian Koberlein (25 September 2014). "Yes, Virginia, There Are Black Holes". One Universe at a Time. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
  15. ↑ "Carolina's Laura Mersini-Houghton shows that black holes do not exist". University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 23 September 2014. Retrieved 22 August 2022.
  16. ↑ "UNC professor says black holes can't exist". WNCN. 23 September 2014. Archived from the original on 21 October 2014. Retrieved 24 September 2014.

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