Tom Banks (Physicist)

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Tom Banks is a theoretical physicist at University of California, Santa Cruz and an emeritus professor at Rutgers University. His work centers around string theory and its applications to high energy particle physics and cosmology. He received his PhD in Physics from MIT in 1973.

Along with Fischler, Shenker, and Susskind, he is one of the 4 originators of M(atrix) theory, or BFSS Matrix Theory, an attempt to formulate M theory in a nonperturbative manner. Banks proposed a conjecture known as Asymptotic Darkness, that physics above the Planck scale is dominated by black hole production. He has often criticized the widely held assumption in the string theory community that background spacetimes with different asymptotics can represent different vacua states of the same theory of quantum gravity. Many of his arguments for this and other unique ideas are contained in his provocatively-titled 2003 paper "A Critique of Pure String Theory: Heterodox Opinions of Diverse Dimensions."

Banks helped bring Lubos Motl to the U.S. and was the advisor for Motl's PhD at Rutgers.[1]

On August 1st, 2006, Toyota announced their decision to release a Special Edition 2007 model vehicle named the Toyota Matrix M-Theory, which appears to be a surprisingly science-hip pop culture reference to M(atrix) Theory.

[edit] External links

• [2] Thomas Banks' profile at Scipp with list of publications
• [3] M Theory as a Matrix Model: A Conjecture
• [4] A Critique of Pure String Theory: Heterodox Opinions of Diverse Dimensions
• [5]Tom Banks' Critique of Pure String Theory lecture during Strings 2002 at Cambridge University
• [6]Toyoto Matrix M-Theory Package announced