马克斯·铁马克

马克斯·埃里克·泰格马克（英语：Max Erik Tegmark，1967年5月5日—），宇宙学家，拥有美国与瑞典双重国籍。他现为麻省理工学院教授、基础问题研究所科学主任。此外，他还是生命未来研究所的创始人之一。

泰格马克出生于瑞典，是美国数学家哈罗德·S·夏皮罗之子。他曾先后毕业于瑞典皇家工学院与斯德哥尔摩经济学院，并在加州大学伯克利分校获博士学位。此后，历任宾夕法尼亚大学、麻省理工学院教授。

泰格马克发表过200余篇论文，其中引用超过500次的论文有九篇。他的主要贡献包括运用信息论开发数据分析工具，对宇宙微波背景辐射实验（如COBE、QMAP、WMAP）与星系红移巡天（如2dF、SDSS）的数据进行处理。此外，他还是数学宇宙假说这一万有理论的提出，并与安东尼·阿吉雷一同提出了量子力学的宇宙学诠释。2012年，泰格马克当选为美国物理学会会士。

Max Tegmark (born 5 May 1967) is a Swedish-American physicist, machine learning researcher and author. He is a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He co-founded and leads the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit focused on reducing global catastrophic risks from advanced technologies.

Originally a cosmologist, Tegmark's focus shifted toward artificial intelligence (AI). His 2017 book Life 3.0 presents scenarios for what the world might look like as AI continues to develop. Tegmark advocates for a halt on the development of artificial superintelligence.

Early life

Max Erik Tegmark was born Max Erik Shapiro in Stockholm, Sweden, on 5 May 1967, to Karin Tegmark and mathematician Harold S. Shapiro.

Tegmark grew up in Bromma, Stockholm. During his studies at Blackeberg's high school, he worked as a volunteer for the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society, campaigning for nuclear disarmament.

While studying at the University of California at Berkeley, he adopted his mother's surname Tegmark, as there were many astronomers named Shapiro, including one of his professors. While in high school, Tegmark and a friend, Magnus Bodin, created and sold a word processor, Teddy, written in machine code for the Swedish eight-bit computer ABC 80 as a summer project, which was marketed "in a very modest manner" by Liber Läromedel, and—per Tegman's autobiographical description—he also coded a 3D Tetris-like game called Frac.

Tegmark left Sweden after receiving his B.A. in economics in 1989 at the Stockholm School of Economics, and an M.S.E in engineering physics from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in 1990. He next studied physics at the University of California, Berkeley, earning his M.A. in 1992, and Ph.D. in 1994 under the supervision of Joseph Silk.

Career

Tegmark began as an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving tenure in 2003. In 2004, he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's department of physics.

Tegmark is a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the president of the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit he co-founded with Anthony Aguirre, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Research

Cosmology

Tegmark has worked on precision cosmology, which combines "theoretical work with new measurements to place sharp constraints on cosmological models and their free parameters". He has developed data analysis tools based on information theory and applied them to cosmic microwave background experiments such as COBE, QMAP, and WMAP, and to galaxy redshift surveys such as the Las Campanas Redshift Survey, the 2dF Survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

Alongside Daniel Eisenstein and Wayne Hu, he introduced in 1998 in The Astrophysical Journal the idea of using baryon acoustic oscillations as a standard ruler. His 2000 paper in Physical Review E, on quantum decoherence of neurons, concluded that decoherence is too rapid for Roger Penrose's orchestrated objective reduction ("quantum microtubule") model of consciousness to be viable. Working with Angelica de Oliveira-Costa and Andrew Hamilton, Tegmark reported in 2003 the discovery of the anomalous multipole alignment in the WMAP data, sometimes referred to as the "axis of evil". Tegmark also proposed in 2007 the mathematical universe hypothesis, which postulates that the physical universe is a mathematical structure. Mathematician Edward Frenkel characterized the mathematical universe hypothesis as "science fiction and mysticism" rather than science.