Steven Weinstein is a philosopher at the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a Public university, public research university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also op ...

, noted particularly for his work on

quantum gravity Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics. It deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the v ...

, time, and the interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Biography

Weinstein studied as an undergraduate student at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, from where he graduated with honors with an A.B. in philosophy in 1982 after completing a 54-page-long senior thesis titled "

Quark A quark () is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nucleus, atomic nuclei ...

s and

Qualia In philosophy of mind, qualia (; singular: quale ) are defined as instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term ''qualia'' derives from the Latin neuter plural form (''qualia'') of the Latin adjective '' quālis'' () meaning "of what ...

." After several years of writing, recording, and performing music, he returned to academic work, obtaining his Ph.D. in Philosophy from

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

in 1998, supervised by Arthur Fine. He is presently a professor in the Philosophy Department at the

, with a cross-appointment in Physics. He is also an Affiliate member of the

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI, Perimeter, PITP) is an independent research centre in foundational theoretical physics located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 1999. The institute's founding and major benefactor i ...

Research

His research is in the interpretation of quantum theory and the nature of space, time, and space-time. He has explored the possibility of multiple time dimensions. In a joint paper with Walter Craig, they gave the first well-posed initial value problem for the wave equation in more than one time dimension (the

ultrahyperbolic equation In the mathematical field of differential equations, the ultrahyperbolic equation is a partial differential equation (PDE) for an unknown scalar function of variables of the form \frac + \cdots + \frac - \frac - \cdots - \frac = 0. More g ...

). He has written critically on anthropic reasoning in cosmology, and most recently was the co-recipient (along with

George Francis Rayner Ellis George Francis Rayner Ellis, FRS, Hon. FRSSAf (born 11 August 1939), is the emeritus distinguished professor of complex systems in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He co-aut ...

) of the 2nd Prize in the

Foundational Questions Institute The Foundational Questions Institute, styled FQxI (formerly FQXi), is an organization that provides grants to "catalyze, support, and disseminate research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology." It was founded in 2005 by cosmolog ...

(FQXi) essay contest on "Questioning the Foundations" for his paper 'Patterns in the fabric of nature', which proposes that non-local constraints may play a role in fundamental physics and may help explain both large-scale (cosmological) and small-scale (quantum) correlations. His work on multiple time dimensions was featured on ''

Through the Wormhole ''Through the Wormhole'' is an American science Documentary film, documentary television series narrated and hosted by American actor Morgan Freeman. It began airing on Science Channel in the United States on June 9, 2010. The series concluded i ...

'' with

Morgan Freeman Morgan Freeman (born June 1, 1937) is an American actor, producer, and narrator. In a career spanning six decades, he has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, as well as a nomination for a Tony ...

.Steven Weinstein: "String Theory"
on ''Through the Wormhole (with Morgan Freeman)'', ''

Science (TV network) Science Channel (often simply branded as Science; abbreviated to SCI) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel features programming focusing on science related to wilderness survival, engineering, man ...

Season 2'' Recent work involves using energy-based

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

models to "learn" EPR correlations, the success of which suggests a route toward an acausal hidden-variable theory underlying quantum mechanics.

Selected publications

* FQXI 2nd Prize essay, 2012. * * * FQXI 3rd Prize essay, 2008. * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weinstein, Steven Living people Academic staff of the University of Waterloo Princeton University alumni Northwestern University alumni University of Waterloo alumni Canadian philosophers of science Year of birth missing (living people)