Heterosexism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosexism

 

Heterosexism is a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination in favor of opposite-sex sexuality and relationships. It can include the presumption that other people are heterosexual or that opposite-sex attractions and relationships are the only norm and therefore superior.

Although heterosexism is defined in the online editions of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language and the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary as anti-gay discrimination or prejudice "by heterosexual people" and "by heterosexuals", respectively, people of any sexual orientation can hold such attitudes and bias, and can form a part of internalised hatred of one's sexual orientation.

Heterosexism as discrimination ranks gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and other sexual minorities as second-class citizens with regard to various legal and civil rights, economic opportunities, and social equality in many of the world's jurisdictions and societies. It is often related to homophobia.

Background

While the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary notes first use of the term heterosexism as having occurred in 1972, the term was first published in 1971 by gay rights activist, Craig Rodwell.

Etymology and usage

Similar terms include "heterocentrism" and "heterosexualism". Although the well-established term heterosexism is often explained as a coinage modeled on sexism, the derivation of its meaning points more to (1.) heterosex(ual) + -ism than (2.) hetero- + sexism. In fact, the word heterosexualism has been used as an equivalent to sexism and racism.

Given this lack of semantic transparency, researchers, outreach workers, critical theorists and LGBT activists have proposed and use terms such as institutionalized homophobia, state(-sponsored) homophobia, sexual prejudice, anti-gay bigotry, straight privilege, The Straight Mind (a collection of essays by French writer Monique Wittig), heterosexual bias, compulsory heterosexuality or the much lesser known terms heterocentrism, homonegativity, and from gender theory and queer theory, heteronormativity. However, not all of these descriptors are synonymous to heterosexism.

Contrast to homophobia

Homophobia, a form of heterosexism, refers both to "unreasoning fear of or antipathy towards homosexuals and homosexuality" and to "behavior based on such a feeling". Heterosexism, however, more broadly denotes the "system of ideological thought that makes heterosexuality the sole norm to follow for sexual practices". As a bias favoring heterosexuals and heterosexuality, heterosexism has been described as being "encoded into and characteristic of the major social, cultural, and economic institutions of our society" and stems from the essentialist cultural notion that maleness-masculinity and femaleness-femininity are complementary. 

Researcher, author, and psychology professor Gregory M. Herek states that "[Heterosexism] operates through a dual process of invisibility and attack. Homosexuality usually remains culturally invisible; when people who engage in homosexual behavior or who are identified as homosexual become visible, they are subject to attack by society." Furthermore, in interviews with perpetrators of anti-gay violence, forensic psychologist Karen Franklin points out that "heterosexism is not just a personal value system, [rather] it is a tool in the maintenance of gender dichotomy." She continues by saying that "assaults on homosexuals and other individuals who deviate from sex role norms are viewed as a learned form of social control of deviance rather than a defensive response to personal threat."

Parallels and intersections

“	Using the term heterosexism highlights the parallels between antigay sentiment and other forms of prejudice, such as racism, antisemitism, and sexism.	”
— Gregory M. Herek, researcher, author, and professor of psychology at UC Davis.

It has been argued that the concept of heterosexism is similar to the concept of racism in that both ideas promote privilege for dominant groups within a given society. For example, borrowing from the racial concept of white privilege, the concept of heterosexual privilege has been applied to benefits of (presumed) heterosexuality within society that heterosexuals take for granted. The analogy is that just as racism against non-white people places white people as superior to people of color, heterosexism places heterosexual people or relationships as superior to non-heterosexual ones. In trying to rebut this premise, some commentators point to differences between the categories of race and sexual orientation, claiming they are too complex to support any generalizations. For example, "trainer on diversity" and consultant Jamie Washington has commented, although heterosexism and racism are "woven from the same fabric" they are "not the same thing". Some American Conservative leaders such as Rev. Irene Monroe comment that those who suggest or state "gay is the new black", as in a cover story of The Advocate magazine, exploit black people's suffering and experiences to legitimize their own. Nonetheless, a study presented at the British Psychological Society's Division of Occupational Psychology 2009 Conference shows that heterosexist prejudice is more pervasive than racism.

Heterosexism can also intersect with racism by further emphasizing differences among arbitrary groups of people. For example, heterosexism can compound the effects of racism by:

• promoting injustices towards a person already facing injustices because of their race
• establishing social hierarchies that allow one group more privilege than other groups.

Likewise, racism can allow LGBT people to be subjected to additional discrimination or violence if they belong to or are considered a part of a socially devalued racial category. Some of the privileges afforded to people falling into the categories of white people and (perceived) heterosexuals include, but are not limited to, social acceptance, prestige, freedom from negative stereotypes, and the comfort of being within the social norm and thereby not being marginalized or viewed as different.

As a set of beliefs and attitudes

Individual and group level

Heterosexism as a set of beliefs and attitudes relies on a core tenet according to which homosexuality and bisexuality do not normally exist and, as such, constitute mental illnesses or deviant behaviors. Within a heterosexist ideology or mindset, the concept of sexual orientation is rejected or deemed irrelevant. A set of more nuanced heterosexist views, which some may consider faith, dogma, universal truths, natural law, appeals to authority, or popular beliefs, but others consider to be conventional wisdom or sociobiological knowledge can include, among others, the following: 

Brochure used by Save Our Children in 1977

• Non-heterosexual persons should keep their sexual orientations private (i.e., they should remain "closeted").
• The attitude that gay men aren't "real" men or lesbians aren't "real" women because of the socially pervasive view that heterosexual attractions or activities are the "norm" and therefore superior.
• "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve (or Madame and Eve)" and similar essentialist cultural notions that maleness-masculinity and femaleness-femininity are complementary;
• Homosexuality being wrong, ungodly, and against nature, it is therefore a sin, evil or subhuman.
• Views identical or akin to Anita Bryant's statement during her Save Our Children campaign in the U.S. (See campaign brochure image at right):

"As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children."

• Because of their lifestyle, homosexuals do not have families with children, so they undermine the survival of the human race (natalism).
• Homosexuality is an affectional or mental disorder or simply a social ill, therefore, it can be cured or stamped out. If it is not eradicated, it will lead to social disintegration and societal collapse.
• Homosexuals can be converted to heterosexuality.

In an attempt to bring awareness to people who exhibit heterosexist views but are possibly not aware of it, Mark Rochlin constructed a set of questions in 1977 which are questions that non-heterosexual people are often exposed to, but not heterosexuals, such as "What do you think caused your sexuality?" This heterosexuality questionnaire is often distributed around college campuses to bring awareness of heterosexist sexual prejudice against LGBT persons.

Institutional level

As well as comprising attitudes held by an individual or a social group, heterosexism can also exist as the expression of attitudes within an institution. As a result, schools, hospitals, and correctional facilities can act as a showcase for heterosexist attitudes in various ways. First, schools may implement these attitudes and ideas through unequal and inconsistent disciplinary actions. One such example is meting out harsher punishment to a same-sex couple violating the school ground rules while allowing a heterosexual couple to pass with an easier and more subtle disciplinary action for an equal or identical violation. Also, hospitals may limit patient visiting only to immediate family, i.e., relatives, and exclude same sex partners.

Heterosexism affects the family in several ways. For example, in many countries around the world, same-sex marriage is not allowed, so non-heterosexual persons must remain unmarried or enter into heterosexual marriage. Many countries also deny rights and benefits to same-sex couples, including custodial and adoption rights for children, Social Security benefits, and automatic durable power of attorney and hospital spousal rights.

Research and measurements

Measurements

Psychologists have aimed to measure heterosexism using various methods. One particular method involves the use of a Likert scale. However, since heterosexism is perceived as something that is unseen it is difficult to determine if someone is heterosexist based on a self-report method. Researchers, thus, have constructed implicit measurements of heterosexism. An example of this would be an Implicit Association Test. A popular implicit association test measuring heterosexism that is open to the public is a virtual laboratory called Project Implicit. 

One limitation present in research on heterosexism is that there often isn’t a distinction between homophobia and heterosexism. Individuals are more likely to be aware of homophobic tendencies rather than heterosexist views, thus, researchers often measure homophobia instead of heterosexism.

Research

Research on heterosexism has focused on variables that may affect views of heterosexism. For instance, in a study by psychologist, Gregory M. Herek, it was found that there was a gender difference between heterosexual attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. Specifically, the study reveals that heterosexual individuals all seem to have some heterosexist tendency, however, heterosexual males have a greater tendency than heterosexual females to exhibit negative attitudes towards non-heterosexual individuals (this includes gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals). Another notable finding of Herek's study was that heterosexual males showed a greater tendency to demonstrate hostility towards gay men rather than lesbians. Other factors that Herek acknowledges to contribute to heterosexism include individual differences, religiosity, conforming to social norms, right-wing authoritarianism, customs and beliefs regarding cultural tradition, and personal experience with non-heterosexual individuals. Research has also recognized the effects of level of education on views of heterosexism. Wright et al. revealed that higher levels of education, or having more years of education, is related to less homophobic tendencies.

As discrimination

Explicit or open

This type of heterosexism includes anti-gay laws, policies, and institutional practices, harassment based on sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation; stereotyping, discriminatory language and discourse, and other forms of discrimination against LGBT persons such as:

• Hate speech, terms of disparagement, hate mail, death threats, "murder music"
• Scapegoating, mobbing, witch-hunts, moral panic; using gay men and homosexuality as a folk devil for the AIDS pandemic.
• Negative portrayals or stereotypes of gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals solely as villains, suicide or murder victims
• Using the gay panic defense in assault or murder cases.
• Sodomy laws when enforced almost exclusively against consenting, adult, same-sex partners.
• In some countries where homosexuality is criminalized, such as Sudan, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, offenders may receive the maximum sentence of capital punishment.
• Discrepancies in age of consent laws in which legal sexual activity between members of the same sex is set at a higher age than that for opposite-sex partners. Most such laws apply explicitly (or have historically applied) only to male homosexual sexual activity.
• Prohibiting youth from bringing a same-sex date to high school prom.
• Adoption bans against either same-sex couples or gay, lesbian, or bisexual individuals.
  
• Legislation that prevents legal and social equality, i.e., laws that prohibit protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation, particularly with regard to health care, housing, and employment.
• The institution of opposite-sex marriage and reserving the right to marry strictly for opposite-sex couples via explicit definitions or through bans on same-sex marriage such as "marriage protection acts" (such as DOMA in the United States);^{[1] pp. 145–151}
• Also, the above restriction even when same-sex couples have access to civil unions that are either analogous to or not on a par with marriage;
• Reserving civil unions strictly for opposite-sex couples;
• Barring gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals from serving in the armed forces or from working in the education field; this can include policies such as the American military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy or Lech Kaczyński and other conservative Polish politicians’ stance to exclude gay men and lesbians from entering the teaching profession. See also: LGBT rights in Poland
• Organized opposition to gay rights; labeling such rights and privileges as "special rights" or the "Gay Agenda";
• Referring to a suspected criminal's homosexuality or bisexuality when in analogous situations there is no mention of a suspect's heterosexuality.
  

Implicit or hidden

This form of heterosexism operates through invisibility, under-representation, and erasure. It includes:

• Lack or under-representation of homosexual or bisexual people in advertising to the general public;
• Censorship of homosexual or bisexual characters, themes, and issues in works of art, literature, entertainment;
• Exclusion of historical and political figures’ and celebrities’ homosexuality or bisexuality; their portrayal as heterosexuals;
• Complete avoidance of mentioning these people and their positive contributions particularly in news media;
• In the context of sex education or professional advice, referring only to opposite-sex partners when discussing female or male sexual attraction and activity;
• Silence on issues affecting homosexual and bisexual people at school or work or absence of their discussion in a positive light;
• Implementation and use of content-control software (censorware) to filter out information and websites that focus on homosexuality or bisexuality;
• Postal censorship and border control or customs seizure of publications deemed obscene solely on the basis of them containing material related to homosexuality even when they contain no erotic or pornographic material.
• Work environments that tacitly require gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals not to reveal their sexual orientation via discussion of their relationship status while heterosexuals can discuss their relationships and marital status freely;
• At public libraries or bookstores: rejection, removal or destruction of books (e.g. Jenny lives with Eric and Martin), films, and posters with homosexual themes;
• Refusal to include families headed by same-sex parents at school events or to represent such family diversity in school curricula.
• Coercive or forced sex reassignment surgery on gay men, lesbian women, and bisexuals – an issue addressed in Tanaz Eshaghian's 2008 documentary, Be Like Others.
• Forced disappearance, damnatio memoriae, ostracism, shunning, and other forms of social rejection geared towards making homosexual or bisexual people personae non gratae.
  

Effects

Heterosexism causes a range of effects on people of any sexual orientation. However, the main effects of heterosexism are marginalization, and anti-LGBT violence and abuse.

Marginalization

The main effect of heterosexism is the marginalization of gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals within society. Heterosexism has led to stigmatization and persecution of not only these people but also those of other sexual diversity such as transgender, and transsexual people. Along with homophobia, lesbophobia, and internalized homophobia, heterosexism continues to be a significant social reality that compels people to conceal their homosexual or bisexual orientation, or metaphorically, to remain in the closet in an effort to pass for heterosexual. 

Marginalization also occurs when marriage rights are heterosexist. More specifically, when marriage rights are exclusive to opposite-sex couples, all same-sex couples, be they gay, lesbian, straight or mixed, are prevented from enjoying marriage’s corresponding legal privileges, especially those regarding property rights, health benefits, and child custody. Moreover, such limitation prevents same-sex couples from receiving the inherent social respect of marriage and its cultural symbolism.

Anti-LGBT violence and abuse

Yolanda Dreyer, professor of practical theology at University of Pretoria, has stated that "Heterosexism leads to prejudice, discrimination, harassment, and violence. It is driven by fear and hatred (Dreyer 5)." Along the same lines, forensic psychologist Karen Franklin explains violence caused by heterosexism toward both men and women, regardless of their sexual orientations:

[T]hrough heterosexism, any male who refuses to accept the dominant culture's assignment of appropriate masculine behavior is labeled early on as a "sissy" or "fag" and then subjected to bullying. Similarly, any woman who opposes male dominance and control can be labeled a lesbian and attacked. The potential of being ostracized as homosexual, regardless of actual sexual attractions and behaviors, puts pressure on all people to conform to a narrow standard of appropriate gender behavior, thereby maintaining and reinforcing our society's hierarchical gender structure.

Another form of heterosexist violence as social control that most often targets lesbian women is corrective rape: a gang rape of a lesbian to "cure" her of her same-sex attractions. A notorious example from South Africa is the corrective rape and murder of Eudy Simelane, LGBT-rights activist and member of the women's national football team.

According to a Frontline article titled Inside the Mind of People Who Hate Gays, bias-related violence against homosexuals is believed to be widespread in the United States, with perpetrators typically described by victims as young men in groups who assault targets of convenience. Victims accounts suggest that assailants possess tremendous rage and hatred; indeed, documentation of horrific levels of brutality has led gay activists to characterize the violence as political terrorism aimed at all gay men and lesbians. Other motives for antigay violence suggested in the literature include male bonding, proving heterosexuality, and purging secret homosexual desires.

Responses

According to an article in the Howard Journal of Communications, some LGBT individuals have responded to heterosexism through direct confrontation and communication, or through the removal of self from the hostile environment.

Leonard Susskind

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Susskind

 

Leonard Susskind
Leonard Susskind
Born	1940 South Bronx, New York City, US
Residence	United States
Nationality	United States
Citizenship	United States
Alma mater	City College of New York Cornell University
Known for	Holographic principle String theory Matrix theory (physics) String theory landscape Color confinement Hamiltonian lattice gauge theory RST model Susskind–Glogower operator Kogut–Susskind fermions Fischler–Susskind mechanism ER=EPR
Awards	Pomeranchuk Prize (2008) American Institute of Physics' Science Writing Award Sakurai Prize (1998) Boris Pregel Award, New York Academy of Sciences (1975)[1]
Scientific career
Fields	Physics, mathematics
Institutions	Yeshiva University Tel Aviv University Stanford University Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics Korea Institute for Advanced Study Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
Thesis	Quantum mechanical approach to strong interactions (1965)
Doctoral advisor	Peter A. Carruthers
Doctoral students	Eduardo Fradkin

Leonard Susskind (/ˈsʌskɪnd/; born 1940) is an American physicist, who is a professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University, and founding director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics. His research interests include string theory, quantum field theory, quantum statistical mechanics and quantum cosmology. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an associate member of the faculty of Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics,^[6] and a distinguished professor of the Korea Institute for Advanced Study.

Susskind is widely regarded as one of the fathers of string theory. He was the first to give a precise string-theoretic interpretation of the holographic principle in 1995 and the first to introduce the idea of the string theory landscape in 2003.

Susskind was awarded the 1998 J. J. Sakurai Prize, and the 2018 Oskar Klein Medal.

Early life and education

Leonard Susskind was born to a Jewish family from the South Bronx in New York City. He began working as a plumber at the age of 16, taking over from his father who had become ill. Later, he enrolled in the City College of New York as an engineering student, graduating with a B.S. in physics in 1962. In an interview in the Los Angeles Times, Susskind recalls the moment he discussed with his father that changed his career path: "When I told my father I wanted to be a physicist, he said, 'Hell no, you ain’t going to work in a drug store.' I said, 'No, not a pharmacist.' I said, 'Like Einstein.' He poked me in the chest with a piece of plumbing pipe. 'You ain’t going to be no engineer,' he said. 'You're going to be Einstein.'" Susskind then studied at Cornell University under Peter A. Carruthers where he earned his Ph.D. in 1965. 

Career

Susskind giving 2014 Messenger Lecture at Cornell.

 

Susskind was an assistant professor of physics, then an associate professor at Yeshiva University (1966–1970), after which he went for a year to the Tel Aviv University (1971–72), returning to Yeshiva to become a professor of physics (1970–1979). Since 1979 he has been professor of physics at Stanford University, and since 2000 has held the Felix Bloch professorship of physics.

Susskind was awarded the 1998 J. J. Sakurai Prize for his "pioneering contributions to hadronic string models, lattice gauge theories, quantum chromodynamics, and dynamical symmetry breaking." Susskind's hallmark, according to colleagues, has been the application of "brilliant imagination and originality to the theoretical study of the nature of the elementary particles and forces that make up the physical world."

In 2007, Susskind joined the faculty of Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, as an associate member. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also a distinguished professor at Korea Institute for Advanced Study.

Scientific career

Susskind was one of at least three physicists, alongside Yoichiro Nambu and Holger Bech Nielsen, who independently discovered during or around 1970 that the Veneziano dual resonance model of strong interactions could be described by a quantum mechanical model of oscillating strings,^[16] and was the first to propose the idea of the string theory landscape. Susskind has also made important contributions in the following areas of physics:

• The independent discovery of the string theory model of particle physics
• The theory of quark confinement
• The development of Hamiltonian lattice gauge theory known as Kogut-Susskind fermions
• The theory of scaling violations in deep inelastic electroproduction
• The theory of symmetry breaking sometimes known as "technicolor theory"
• The second, yet independent, theory of cosmological baryogenesis (Andrei Sakharov's work was first, but was mostly unknown in the Western hemisphere)
• String theory of black hole entropy
• The principle of black hole complementarity
• The causal patch hypothesis
• The holographic principle
• M-theory, including development of the BFSS matrix model 
• Introduction of holographic entropy bounds in physical cosmology
• The idea of an anthropic string theory landscape
• The Census Taker's Hat (FRW/CFT duality)
• Most recently, application of ideas from information and computation theory, such as quantum complexity, to the physics and thermodynamics of black holes, and holographic theories in general.
  

Books

Susskind is the author of several popular science books. 

The Cosmic Landscape

The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design is Susskind's first popular science book, published by Little, Brown and Company on December 12, 2005. It is Susskind's attempt to bring his idea of the anthropic landscape of string theory to the general public. In the book, Susskind describes how the string theory landscape was an almost inevitable consequence of several factors, one of which was Steven Weinberg's prediction of the cosmological constant in 1987. The question addressed here is why our universe is fine-tuned for our existence. Susskind explains that Weinberg calculated that if the cosmological constant was just a little different, our universe would cease to exist. 

The Black Hole War

The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics is Susskind's second popular science book, published by Little, Brown, and Company on July 7, 2008. The book is his most famous work and explains what he thinks would happen to the information and matter stored in a black hole when it evaporates. The book sparked from a debate that started in 1981, when there was a meeting of physicists to try to decode some of the mysteries about how particles of particular elemental compounds function. During this discussion Stephen Hawking stated that the information inside a black hole is lost forever as the black hole evaporates. It took 28 years for Leonard Susskind to formulate his theory that would prove Hawking wrong. He then published his theory in his book, The Black Hole War. Like The Cosmic Landscape, The Black Hole War is aimed at the lay reader. He writes: "The real tools for understanding the quantum universe are abstract mathematics: infinite dimensional Hilbert spaces, projection operators, unitary matrices and a lot of other advanced principles that take a few years to learn. But let's see how we do in just a few pages". 

The Theoretical Minimum book series

Susskind co-authored a series of companion books to his lecture series The Theoretical Minimum. The first of these, The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics, was published in 2013 and presents the modern formulations of classical mechanics. The second of these, Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum, was published in February 2014. The third book, Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory: The Theoretical Minimum (September 26, 2017), introduces readers to Einstein's special relativity and Maxwell's classical field theory. 

The Theoretical Minimum lecture series

Susskind teaches a series of Stanford Continuing Studies courses about modern physics referred to as The Theoretical Minimum. The title of the series is a clear reference to the Landau's famous comprehensive exam called the "Theoretical Minimum" which students were expected to pass before admission to his school. The Theoretical Minimum lectures later formed the basis for the books of the same name. The goal of the courses is to teach the basic but rigorous theoretical foundations required to study certain areas of physics. The sequence covers classical mechanics, relativity, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, and cosmology, including the physics of black holes.

These courses are available on The Theoretical Minimum website, on iTunes, and on YouTube. The courses are intended for the mathematically literate public as well as physical science/mathematics students. Susskind aims the courses at people with prior exposure to algebra, and calculus. Homework and study outside of class is otherwise unnecessary. Susskind explains most of the mathematics used, which form the basis of the lectures. 

Cornell Messenger Lectures

Susskind gave 3 lectures "The Birth of the Universe and the Origin of Laws of Physics" April 28-May 1, 2014 in the Cornell Messenger Lecture series which are posted on a Cornell website.

Smolin–Susskind debate

The Smolin–Susskind debate refers to the series of intense postings in 2004 between Lee Smolin and Susskind, concerning Smolin’s argument that the "anthropic principle cannot yield any falsifiable predictions, and therefore cannot be a part of science." It began on July 26, 2004, with Smolin's publication of "Scientific alternatives to the anthropic principle." Smolin e-mailed Susskind asking for a comment. Having not had the chance to read the paper, Susskind requested a summarization of his arguments. Smolin obliged, and on July 28, 2004, Susskind responded, saying that the logic Smolin followed "can lead to ridiculous conclusions." The next day, Smolin responded, saying that "If a large body of our colleagues feels comfortable believing a theory that cannot be proved wrong, then the progress of science could get stuck, leading to a situation in which false, but unfalsifiable theories dominate the attention of our field." This was followed by another paper by Susskind which made a few comments about Smolin's theory of "cosmic natural selection." The Smolin-Susskind debate finally ended with each of them agreeing to write a final letter which would be posted on the edge.org website, with three conditions attached: (1) No more than one letter each; (2) Neither sees the other's letter in advance; (3) No changes after the fact. 

Personal life

He has been married twice, first in 1960, and has four children. Susskind is a great-grandfather.

Scientific wager

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_wager

 

A scientific wager is a wager whose outcome is settled by scientific method. They typically consist of an offer to pay a certain sum of money on the scientific proof or disproof of some currently-uncertain statement. Some wagers have specific date restrictions for collection, but many are open. Wagers occasionally exert a powerful galvanizing effect on society and the scientific community.

Notable scientists who have made scientific wagers include Stephen Hawking and Richard Feynman. Stanford Linear Accelerator has an open book containing about 35 bets in particle physics dating back to 1980; many are still unresolved.

Notable scientific wagers

• In 1870, Alfred Russel Wallace bet a flat-Earth theorist named John Hampden that he could prove the flat Earth hypothesis incorrect. The sum staked was £500 (equivalent to about £47000 in present-day terms^[1]). A test (now known as the Bedford Level experiment) involving a stretch of the Old Bedford River, in Norfolk, was agreed on: Wallace measured the curvature of the canal's surface using two markers separated by about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) and suspended at equal heights above the water's surface. Using a telescope mounted 5 km from one of the markers, Wallace established that the nearer one appeared to be the higher of the two. An independent referee agreed that this showed the Earth's surface to curve away from the telescope, and so Wallace won his money. However, Hampden never accepted the result and made increasingly unpleasant threats to Wallace.
• In 1975, cosmologist Stephen Hawking bet fellow cosmologist Kip Thorne a subscription to Penthouse magazine for Thorne against four years of Private Eye for him that Cygnus X-1 would turn out to not be a black hole. In 1990, Hawking acknowledged that he had lost the bet. Hawking's explanation for his position was that if black holes didn't actually exist much of his research would be incorrect, but at least he'd have the consolation of winning the bet.
• In 1978, chess International Master David Levy won £1250 from four artificial intelligence experts by never losing a match to a chess program in a ten-year span from 1968 to 1978.
• In 1980, biologist Paul R. Ehrlich bet economist Julian Lincoln Simon that the price of a portfolio of $200 of each of five mineral commodities (copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten) would rise over the next 10 years. He lost, and paid the amount the total price had declined: $576.07.
• In 1997, Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne made a bet with John Preskill on the ultimate resolution of the apparent contradiction between Hawking radiation resulting in loss of information, and a requirement of quantum mechanics that information cannot be destroyed. Hawking and Thorne bet that information must be lost in a black hole; Preskill bet that it must not. The formal wager was: "When an initial pure quantum state undergoes gravitational collapse to form a black hole, the final state at the end of black hole evaporation will always be a pure quantum state". The stake was an encyclopaedia of the winner's choice, from which "information can be recovered at will". Hawking conceded the bet in 2004, giving a baseball encyclopaedia to John Preskill. Thorne has not formally conceded. See: Thorne-Hawking-Preskill bet
• In 2005, British climate scientist James Annan proposed bets with global warming denialists concerning whether future temperatures will increase. Two Russian solar physicists, Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev, accepted the wager of US$10,000 that the average global temperature during 2012–2017 would be lower than during 1998–2003. Previously, Annan first directly challenged Richard Lindzen. Lindzen had been willing to bet that global temperatures would drop over the next 20 years. Annan says that Lindzen wanted odds of 50–1 against falling temperatures. Lindzen, however, says that he asked for 2–1 odds against a temperature rise of over 0.4 °C. Annan and other proponents of global warming state they have challenged other denialists to bets over global warming that were not accepted, including Annan's attempt in 2005 to accept a bet that had been offered by Patrick Michaels in 1998 that temperatures would be cooler after ten years. Annan made a bet in 2011 with Doctor David Whitehouse that the Met Office temperature would set a new annual record by the end of the year. Annan was declared to have lost on January 13, 2012.
• In 2005, The Guardian columnist George Monbiot challenged Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute to a GB£5,000 bet of global warming versus global cooling.
• In 2012, Stephen Hawking lost $100 to Gordon Kane of the University of Michigan because of the Higgs boson discovery.
• Zvi Bern has won many bets connected to quantum gravity.
• On July 8, 2009, at a FQXi conference in the Azores, Antony Garrett Lisi made a public bet with Frank Wilczek that superparticles would not be detected by July 8, 2015. On Aug 16, 2016, after agreeing to a one-year delay to allow for more data collection from the Large Hadron Collider, Frank Wilczek conceded the superparticle bet to Lisi.
• In 2000 roughly 40 physicists made a bet about the existence of supersymmetry to be settled in 2011, but because LHC was delayed the bet was extended to 2016. As of Summer 2016 there had been no signs of superparticles, and the losers delivered "good cognac at a price not less than $100" each to the winners.
• Also in 2016 David Gross lost a separate wager about supersymmetry, but he continues to believe in the theory.

Black hole thermodynamics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_thermodynamics

 

In physics, black hole thermodynamics is the area of study that seeks to reconcile the laws of thermodynamics with the existence of black-hole event horizons. As the study of the statistical mechanics of black-body radiation led to the advent of the theory of quantum mechanics, the effort to understand the statistical mechanics of black holes has had a deep impact upon the understanding of quantum gravity, leading to the formulation of the holographic principle.

An artist's depiction of two black holes merging, a process in which the laws of thermodynamics are upheld

 

Overview

The second law of thermodynamics requires that black holes have entropy. If black holes carried no entropy, it would be possible to violate the second law by throwing mass into the black hole. The increase of the entropy of the black hole more than compensates for the decrease of the entropy carried by the object that was swallowed. 

Starting from theorems proved by Stephen Hawking, Jacob Bekenstein conjectured that the black hole entropy was proportional to the area of its event horizon divided by the Planck area. In 1973 Bekenstein suggested ${\displaystyle (\pi \ln {2})/8}$ as the constant of proportionality, asserting that if the constant was not exactly this, it must be very close to it. The next year, in 1974, Hawking showed that black holes emit thermal Hawking radiation corresponding to a certain temperature (Hawking temperature). Using the thermodynamic relationship between energy, temperature and entropy, Hawking was able to confirm Bekenstein's conjecture and fix the constant of proportionality at ${\displaystyle 1/4}$:

${\displaystyle S_{\text{BH}}={\frac {k_{B}A}{4\ell _{\text{P}}^{2}}},}$

where ${\displaystyle A}$ is the area of the event horizon, ${\displaystyle k_{B}}$ is Boltzmann's constant, and ${\displaystyle \ell _{\text{P}}={\sqrt {G\hbar /c^{3}}}}$ is the Planck length. This is often referred to as the Bekenstein–Hawking formula. The subscript BH either stands for "black hole" or "Bekenstein–Hawking". The black-hole entropy is proportional to the area of its event horizon ${\displaystyle A}$. The fact that the black-hole entropy is also the maximal entropy that can be obtained by the Bekenstein bound (wherein the Bekenstein bound becomes an equality) was the main observation that led to the holographic principle. This area relationship was generalized to arbitrary regions via the Ryu-Takayanagi formula, which relates the entanglement entropy of a boundary conformal field theory to a specific surface in its dual gravitational theory.

Although Hawking's calculations gave further thermodynamic evidence for black-hole entropy, until 1995 no one was able to make a controlled calculation of black-hole entropy based on statistical mechanics, which associates entropy with a large number of microstates. In fact, so called "no-hair" theorems appeared to suggest that black holes could have only a single microstate. The situation changed in 1995 when Andrew Strominger and Cumrun Vafa calculated the right Bekenstein–Hawking entropy of a supersymmetric black hole in string theory, using methods based on D-branes and string duality. Their calculation was followed by many similar computations of entropy of large classes of other extremal and near-extremal black holes, and the result always agreed with the Bekenstein–Hawking formula. However, for the Schwarzschild black hole, viewed as the most far-from-extremal black hole, the relationship between micro- and macrostates has not been characterized. Efforts to develop an adequate answer within the framework of string theory continue.

In loop quantum gravity (LQG) it is possible to associate a geometrical interpretation to the microstates: these are the quantum geometries of the horizon. LQG offers a geometric explanation of the finiteness of the entropy and of the proportionality of the area of the horizon. It is possible to derive, from the covariant formulation of full quantum theory (spinfoam) the correct relation between energy and area (1st law), the Unruh temperature and the distribution that yields Hawking entropy. The calculation makes use of the notion of dynamical horizon and is done for non-extremal black holes. There seems to be also discussed the calculation of Bekenstein–Hawking entropy from the point of view of LQG. 

The laws of black hole mechanics

The four laws of black hole mechanics are physical properties that black holes are believed to satisfy. The laws, analogous to the laws of thermodynamics, were discovered by Brandon Carter, Stephen Hawking, and James Bardeen. 

Statement of the laws

The laws of black-hole mechanics are expressed in geometrized units. 

The zeroth law

The horizon has constant surface gravity for a stationary black hole. 

The first law

For perturbations of stationary black holes, the change of energy is related to change of area, angular momentum, and electric charge by

${\displaystyle dE={\frac {\kappa }{8\pi }}\,dA+\Omega \,dJ+\Phi \,dQ,}$

where ${\displaystyle E}$ is the energy, ${\displaystyle \kappa }$ is the surface gravity, ${\displaystyle A}$ is the horizon area, ${\displaystyle \Omega }$ is the angular velocity, ${\displaystyle J}$ is the angular momentum, ${\displaystyle \Phi }$ is the electrostatic potential and ${\displaystyle Q}$ is the electric charge. 

The second law

The horizon area is, assuming the weak energy condition, a non-decreasing function of time:

${\displaystyle {\frac {dA}{dt}}\geq 0.}$

This "law" was superseded by Hawking's discovery that black holes radiate, which causes both the black hole's mass and the area of its horizon to decrease over time. 

The third law

It is not possible to form a black hole with vanishing surface gravity. That is, ${\displaystyle \kappa =0}$ cannot be achieved. 

Discussion of the laws

The zeroth law

The zeroth law is analogous to the zeroth law of thermodynamics, which states that the temperature is constant throughout a body in thermal equilibrium. It suggests that the surface gravity is analogous to temperature. T constant for thermal equilibrium for a normal system is analogous to ${\displaystyle \kappa }$ constant over the horizon of a stationary black hole. 

The first law

The left side, ${\displaystyle dE}$, is the change in energy (proportional to mass). Although the first term does not have an immediately obvious physical interpretation, the second and third terms on the right side represent changes in energy due to rotation and electromagnetism. Analogously, the first law of thermodynamics is a statement of energy conservation, which contains on its right side the term ${\displaystyle TdS}$. 

The second law

The second law is the statement of Hawking's area theorem. Analogously, the second law of thermodynamics states that the change in entropy in an isolated system will be greater than or equal to 0 for a spontaneous process, suggesting a link between entropy and the area of a black-hole horizon. However, this version violates the second law of thermodynamics by matter losing (its) entropy as it falls in, giving a decrease in entropy. However, generalizing the second law as the sum of black-hole entropy and outside entropy, shows that the second law of thermodynamics is not violated in a system including the universe beyond the horizon. 

The generalized second law of thermodynamics (GSL) was needed to present the second law of thermodynamics as valid. This is because the second law of thermodynamics, as a result of the disappearance of entropy near the exterior of black holes, is not useful. The GSL allows for the application of the law because now the measurement of interior, common entropy is possible. The validity of the GSL can be established by studying an example, such as looking at a system having entropy that falls into a bigger, non-moving black hole, and establishing upper and lower entropy bounds for the increase in the black hole entropy and entropy of the system, respectively. One should also note that the GSL will hold for theories of gravity such as Einstein gravity, Lovelock gravity, or Braneworld gravity, because the conditions to use GSL for these can be met.

However, on the topic of black hole formation, the question becomes whether or not the generalized second law of thermodynamics will be valid, and if it is, it will have been proved valid for all situations. Because a black hole formation is not stationary, but instead moving, proving that the GSL holds is difficult. Proving the GSL is generally valid would require using quantum-statistical mechanics, because the GSL is both a quantum and statistical law. This discipline does not exist so the GSL can be assumed to be useful in general, as well as for prediction. For example, one can use the GSL to predict that, for a cold, non-rotating assembly of ${\displaystyle N}$ nucleons, ${\displaystyle S_{BH}-S>0}$, where ${\displaystyle S_{BH}}$ is the entropy of a black hole and ${\displaystyle S}$ is the sum of the ordinary entropy.

The third law

Extremal black holes have vanishing surface gravity. Stating that ${\displaystyle \kappa }$ cannot go to zero is analogous to the third law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of a system at absolute zero is a well defined constant. This is because a system at zero temperature exists in its ground state. Furthermore, ${\displaystyle \Delta S}$ will reach zero at zero temperature, but ${\displaystyle S}$ itself will also reach zero, at least for perfect crystalline substances. No experimentally verified violations of the laws of thermodynamics are known yet.

Interpretation of the laws

The four laws of black-hole mechanics suggest that one should identify the surface gravity of a black hole with temperature and the area of the event horizon with entropy, at least up to some multiplicative constants. If one only considers black holes classically, then they have zero temperature and, by the no-hair theorem, zero entropy, and the laws of black-hole mechanics remain an analogy. However, when quantum-mechanical effects are taken into account, one finds that black holes emit thermal radiation (Hawking radiation) at a temperature

${\displaystyle T_{\text{H}}={\frac {\kappa }{2\pi }}.}$

From the first law of black-hole mechanics, this determines the multiplicative constant of the Bekenstein–Hawking entropy, which is

${\displaystyle S_{\text{BH}}={\frac {A}{4}}.}$

Beyond black holes

Gary Gibbons and Hawking have shown that black-hole thermodynamics is more general than black holes—that cosmological event horizons also have an entropy and temperature. 

More fundamentally, 't Hooft and Susskind used the laws of black-hole thermodynamics to argue for a general holographic principle of nature, which asserts that consistent theories of gravity and quantum mechanics must be lower-dimensional. Though not yet fully understood in general, the holographic principle is central to theories like the AdS/CFT correspondence.

There are also connections between black-hole entropy and fluid surface tension.