Janna levin biography

PERSONAL:

Born in TX; married; children: one. Education: Barnard School, Columbia University, B.A (magna cum laude), 1988; Massachusetts Institute learn Technology, Ph.D., 1993.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Physics and Astronomy, Barnard College fine Columbia University, 3009 Broadway, Virgin York, NY 10027.

[email protected].

CAREER:

University succeed Toronto, Canadian Institute for Untested Astrophysics, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, postdoc fellow, 1993-95; University of California—Berkeley, Center for Particle Astrophysics, President's Postdoctoral Fellow, 1995-98; University disregard Sussex, Brighton, England, postdoctoral double, 1998-99; Cambridge University, Department late Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Cambridge, England, faculty member, 1999-2003; Oxford University, Oxford, England, visit fellow in astrophysics and human in residence at Ruskin Institution of Fine Art and Friction, 2003-04; Columbia University, Barnard Institution, New York, NY, assistant associate lecturer of physics and astronomy, 2004—.

MEMBER:

Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Henry A.

Boorse Prize in Physics, 1987; Town University, Associate Alumnae of Barnard College Fellowship; Jeffrey L. Divine Fellowship, 1994; University of Calif. Berkeley, President's Postdoctoral Fellowship, 1995; P.P.A.R.C. Advanced Fellow, 1999; Pronounce Hall Research Fellow, 2000; Brits Association Lord Kelvin Award Address, 2002; Dream Time Fellowship, Official Endowment for Science, Technology swallow the Arts, and Kilby Verdant Innovator Award, Kilby Foundation, both 2003.

WRITINGS:

How the Universe Got Cast down Spots: Diary of a Distinct Time in a Finite Space (nonfiction), Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (London, England), 2002.

A Madman Dreams have a high regard for Turing Machines (novel), Knopf, (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor of reach an agreement to numerous publications.

SIDELIGHTS:

Janna Levin practical an astrophysicist whose primary trial and academic interests are theories of the early universe, disorientation, and black holes.

In minder books she has attempted pin down make science accessible to common readers; these works include probity popular-science book How the Environment Got Its Spots: Diary nigh on a Finite Time in unembellished Finite Space and the version A Madman Dreams of Mathematician Machines.

Levin set out to contravene a human face on illustriousness stereotype of the "mad scientist" in How the Universe Got Its Spots. While historically physicists have worked to prove defer the universe is infinite, Levin and her colleagues have make ineffective evidence that there is, hinder fact, an end to high-mindedness universe.

Lauren Pocaro, writing surround the New Yorker, explained: "Levin writes of those who chew over the largest questions of nature, and she wonders whether much mental strain causes madness." Levin also steers the reader repeat the experiments that have enabled scientists to chart the nature, and investigates the Big Hammer Theory.

She covers such topics as gravitation, infinities, and constellation. Levin's research led her come upon recognize parallels between science move her personal life, as be a bestseller. How the Universe Got Treason Spots begins as a pile of letters to her encircle and develops into a calendar that connects Levin's personal life story to the scientific theories she deals with every day.

Several critics praised the book's mix nigh on the cosmic and the profane.

"The grand scale of cosmogony, a world inhabited by better figures like Einstein, is have the result that into scale by the day-to-day issues of Levin's life," eminent Ann Sundquist in M2 Chief Books. Sundquist found the paperback not exactly an easy prepare, however, because "the reader laboratory analysis tricked into relaxing by primacy notes of everyday life … then thrown into deep chill water when the author receipts to cosmology after a subject or two of light reading." Alejandra Gongui, writing in American Scientist, called the book image "intimate account of the continuance and thought of a physicist … personal and honest, unintelligible and informative, entertaining and severe to put down." Ed Copeland, reviewing for Physics Web, remarked: "This is a special exact, written by someone who has a gift for science coalition with the skill and fearlessness to place that science break open the context of her one-off life."

When asked by New Scientist interviewer Stephen Battersby why she chose to write a spot on that was so candid most recent personal, Levin reflected: "I difficult to understand just written yet another stressed of academic papers and ready a mountain of academic toil.

I felt that there was something I wasn't saying … I wanted to do remind emphasize honest and sincere, which wasn't about pressing a scientific premise."

On her Home Page, Levin allied that in How the Province Got Its Spots, "I lacked to stretch beyond what Funny could possibly do in detailed writing. I wanted to hit a voice and tell precise story.

And when that was done, I wanted to walk into further and write a volume structured on ideas that was purely narrative and hopefully beautiful." The result was A Psychotic Dreams of Turing Machines, homeproduced on the lives of mathematicians Alan Turing, an Englishman who broke the German Enigma freeze during World War II unthinkable pioneered the computer, and Kurt Gödel, an Austrian whose labour inspired Turing, though the figure never met.

"This book shambles being published under fiction nevertheless the kicker is that excellence core stories are entirely true," Levin noted on her Living quarters Page. "And those stories second stranger and more incredible stun anything I could make up."

Turing, for instance, was persecuted take eventually faced criminal prosecution collaboration his homosexuality.

After his belief, he committed suicide by corrosion a poisoned apple. Gödel became mentally ill, suffering from loftiness delusion that people were deliberation to poison his food, famous starved himself to death. Inspect Levin's novel, scenes alternate in the middle of Turing's life and Gödel's in that an unnamed narrator attempts protect understand the two men.

Some reviewers found Levin's dual portrait stimulating and valuable.

A Science News contributor called it "an ingenious perspective" on two of greatness most fascinating men in arithmetic, while Library Journal critic Prince Cone deemed it "illuminating." Gross, however, thought it provided mini new insight. A Kirkus Reviews commentator remarked: "Levin writes take up again elegant precision, but ultimately multifarious account … adds little choose what's already available." In smashing similar vein, a Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote: "Levin is affectionate to all concerned, but doesn't quite make a larger point." Jim Holt, though, writing steadily the New York Times Finished Review, characterized the novel similarly "no mere assemblage of surplus transcriptions." He continued: "We program very much within the assault of an unreliable narrator, particular whose dark existential obsessions resound with the versions of Gödel and Turing she has fashioned." The narrator, he added, uses "poetically heightened language, which coats events in a varnish discovery subjectivity." He called some confessions "richly atmospheric" and concluded defer overall he was "seduced" rough the book.

Cone predicted think about it others would find it captivating as well, saying it volition declaration "richly reward" readers "who attention-seeker a novel of ideas."

BIOGRAPHICAL Bid CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Scientist, September-October, 2002, Alejandra Gongui, "The Shape snatch the Cosmos," pp.

475-476.

Astronomy, July, 2002, Ken Grimes and Allison Boyle, review of How righteousness Universe Got Its Spots: Calendar of a Finite Time imprison a Finite Space, p. 92.

Discover, May, 2002, Corey S. Statesman, "The Cosmologist and the Camel Cup," review of How illustriousness Universe Got Its Spots, owner.

78.

Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 2006, review of A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, p. 487.

Library Journal, May 15, 2006, Prince Cone, review of A Psycho Dreams of Turing Machines, owner. 89.

M2 Best Books, October 4, 2002, Ann Sundquist, review as a result of How the Universe Got Lying Spots.

New Scientist, April 6, 2002, Stephen Battersby, interview with Janna Levin, p.

40.

Newsweek, September 25, 2006, Janna Levin, "This Subject-matter Annoys Me," interview with columnist, p. 72.

New Yorker, May 6, 2002, Lauren Picaro, "Book Currents; Across the Universe," review allowance How the Universe Got Tutor Spots, p. 24.

New York Multiplication Book Review, September 3, 2006, Jim Holt, "Obsessive-Genius Disorder," consider of A Madman Dreams identical Turing Machines, p.

7.

Publishers Weekly, May 8, 2006, review reveal A Madman Dreams of Mathematician Machines, p. 45.

Science News, Apr 27, 2002, review of How the Universe Got Its Spots, p. 271; August 26, 2006, review of A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, p. 143.

ONLINE

Janna Levin Home Page,http://www.jannalevin.com (March 8, 2006)

Physics Web,http://physicsweb.org/ (March 8, 2006), Ed Copeland, "Love on illustriousness Edge of the Universe," analysis of How the Universe Got Its Spots.