Daniel Harry Friedan (born October 3, 1948) is an American theoretical physicist and a professor at

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

. He is one of three children of the feminist author and activist

Betty Friedan Betty Friedan (; February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American feminist writer and activist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book '' The Feminine Mystique'' is often credited with sparking the s ...

Biography

Education and career

Friedan earned his Ph.D. from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

in 1980 and was named a

MacArthur Fellow The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and 30 individuals workin ...

in 1987. In 1979, he showed that the equations of motions of string theory, which are generalizations of the

Einstein equations In the general theory of relativity, the Einstein field equations (EFE; also known as Einstein's equations) relate the geometry of spacetime to the distribution of matter within it. The equations were published by Albert Einstein in 1915 in the ...

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity, and as Einstein's theory of gravity, is the differential geometry, geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of grav ...

, emerge from the

renormalization group In theoretical physics, the renormalization group (RG) is a formal apparatus that allows systematic investigation of the changes of a physical system as viewed at different scales. In particle physics, it reflects the changes in the underlying p ...

equations for the two-dimensional field theory. Friedan has worked in

string theory In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and intera ...

and

condensed matter Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid phases, that arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms and electrons. More gen ...

theory, specializing in (1 + 1)-dimensional systems. His current research focuses on applications to

quantum computers A quantum computer is a computer that exploits quantum mechanical phenomena. On small scales, physical matter exhibits properties of both particles and waves, and quantum computing takes advantage of this behavior using specialized hardware. C ...

. Friedan received the 2010

Lars Onsager Prize The Lars Onsager Prize is a prize in theoretical statistical physics awarded annually by the American Physical Society. Prize recipients receive a medal, certificate, and $10,000. It was established in 1993 by Drs. Russell and Marian Donnelly in m ...

from the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

"for seminal work on the classification and characterization of two-dimensional unitary conformal field theories of critical states."2010 Lars Onsager Prize Recipient

. Accessed August 1, 2011 He currently teaches at

Personal life

Daniel is married to an Icelandic physics teacher, Ragnheiður Guðmundsdóttir. They have two daughters and one son together.

References

External links

Daniel Friedan's homepage

1948 births Living people 21st-century American physicists Jewish American scientists MacArthur Fellows American string theorists Fellows of the American Physical Society University of California, Berkeley alumni 21st-century American Jews {{US-physicist-stub