Leonard Mlodinow
Born	(1954-11-26)26 November 1954 (age 70) Chicago, Illinois
Citizenship	American
Alma mater	Brandeis University University of California, Berkeley
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematical physics
Institutions	Max Planck Institute for Physics California Institute of Technology
Doctoral advisor	Eyvind Wichmann

Leonard Mlodinow (born November 26, 1954) is an Americantheoretical physicist andmathematician,screenwriter and author. In physics, he is known for his work on thelarge N expansion, a method of approximating the spectrum of atoms based on the consideration of an infinite-dimensional version of the problem, and for his work on thequantum theory of light insidedielectrics.

Mlodinow has also written books for the general public, five of which have beenNew York Times best-sellers, includingThe Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, which was chosen as aNew York Times notable book, and short-listed for theRoyal Society Science Book Prize;The Grand Design, co-authored withStephen Hawking, which said that invoking God is not necessary to explain the origins of the universe;War of the Worldviews, co-authored withDeepak Chopra; andSubliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior, which won the 2013PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. He also makes public lectures and media appearances on programs includingMorning Joe andThrough the Wormhole, and debated Deepak Chopra on ABC'sNightline.

Mlodinow was born inChicago, Illinois, to Jewish parents who were bothHolocaust survivors. His father, who spent more than a year in theBuchenwaldconcentration camp, had been a leader in theJewish resistance in his hometown ofCzęstochowa, inNazi German-occupied Poland.^[1]

As a child, Mlodinow was interested in bothmathematics andchemistry; while in high school, he was tutored inorganic chemistry by a professor from theUniversity of Illinois. He said in his bookFeynman's Rainbow that his interest turned tophysics during a semester he took off from college to spend on akibbutz in Israel, during which he had little to do at night besides readingThe Feynman Lectures on Physics, which was one of the few English books he found in the kibbutz library.^[2]

Mlodinow completed his doctorate at theUniversity of California, Berkeley. In his PhD dissertation he developed a new type ofperturbation theory fornonrelativistic quantum mechanics, based upon solving the problem in infinite dimensions, and then correcting for the fact that we live in three. The method has become the basis of the 1/d expansion used by theoretical chemists.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8]} He has also done pioneering^[9][10] and innovative^[11][12][13] work in the quantum theory ofnonlinear optics.^[14][15][16] The central problem of quantum nonlinear optics is how to quantize adielectric that, as well as the usual homogeneities andanisotropy, can also have nonlinearities anddispersion, and earlier attempts in this direction, while incorporating the known linear theory, had not fully reproduced the nonlinear equations.^[11]

In 1981, Mlodinow joined the faculty atCaltech. Later, he was named anAlexander von Humboldt Fellow and worked at theMax Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in Munich, Germany. In 1986, Mlodinow left full-time academia to begin a writing career. In addition to his books, he wrote many episodes for television series includingStar Trek: The Next Generation andMacGyver, created computer games with directorSteven Spielberg and actorRobin Williams,^[17] and wrote the screenplay for the 2009 filmBeyond the Horizon.^[18] He continued to conduct research in theoretical physics, and again joined the faculty of Caltech in 2005, leaving in 2013. His latest work in physics concerns thearrow of time,quantum decoherence, and the relation between discretequantum random walks and therelativistic equations of quantum theory.^[19][20][21]

• Euclid's Window: The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace (2001) (ISBN 0-684-86523-8) is a work on popular science that chronicles the idea ofcurved space and thehistory of geometry.
• Feynman's Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life (2003) (as published in US) (ISBN 0-446-53045-X), is about his relationship with Richard Feynman and Richard Feynman's brilliance, during his post-doctoral years in Caltech, in the early eighties. The book offers an insight into Feynman's attitude towards physics and life, his relationship withMurray Gell-Mann and the rise ofString Theory.
• A Briefer History of Time (2005) (ISBN 0-553-80436-7), withStephen Hawking.
• The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (2008) (ISBN 0-375-42404-0), deals withrandomness and people's inability to take it into account in their daily lives. The book was a "NY Times notable book of the year".
• The Grand Design (2010) (ISBN 0-553-80537-1) withStephen Hawking. This book argues that invoking God is not necessary to explain theorigins of the universe. It became a No. 1New York Times bestseller.
• The War of the Worldviews (2011) (ISBN 978-0-307-88688-0) withDeepak Chopra. From their contrasting scientific and spiritual perspectives, the two authors answer the big questions about the universe, consciousness, life, and God.
• Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior (2012) (ISBN 0-307-37821-7) Describes how things that we think are conscious, freely made choices, are in fact governed by oursubconscious.
• The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos (2015) (ISBN 978-0-30790-823-0) A history of human progress, from our time on the African savannah through the invention of modern quantum physics..
• Elastic: Flexible Thinking in a Time of Change (2018) (ISBN 1-101-87092-3) A new look at the neuroscience of change—and how elastic thinking can help us thrive in a world changing faster than ever before.
• Stephen Hawking: A Memoir of Friendship and Physics (2020) (ISBN 978-1524748685)
• Emotional: How Feelings Shape Our Thinking (2022) (ISBN 978-1-5247-4759-6)

• The Kids of Einstein Elementary: Titanic Cat, co-authored with Matt Costello and Josh Nash (2004) (ISBN 0-439-53774-6)
• The Kids of Einstein Elementary: The Last Dinosaur, co-authored with Matt Costello and Josh Nash (2004) (ISBN 0-439-53773-8)

• Mlodinow, Leonard. "Meet Hollywood's Latest Genius."Los Angeles Times (July 2, 2006).
• Mlodinow, Leonard. "The Triumph of the Random," Was Joe Di Maggio's hitting streak a fluke?"Wall Street Journal (July 16, 2009).
• Mlodinow, Leonard. "A hint of hype, a taste of illusion."Wall Street Journal (November 20, 2009).
• Hawking, Stephen, and Leonard Mlodinow. "Why God did not create the universe."Wall Street Journal (September 4—5, 2010) W 3 (2010).
• Hawking, Stephen, and Leonard Mlodinow. "The (elusive) theory of everything."Scientific American 303.4 (2010): 68–71.
• Mlodinow, Leonard. "Physics: Fundamental Feynman."Nature 471 (2011), 296–297.
• Mlodinow, Leonard. "A Facial Theory of Politics."New York Times (April 22, 2012): 58.
• Mlodinow, Leonard. "In Hollywood, Theories of Infinite Dimensions."New York Times (June 3, 2012): 58.
• Mlodinow, Leonard. "Most of Us are Biased After All."New York Times (April 4, 2013): 58.
• Mlodinow, Leonard. "Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality."New York Times (October 25, 2013): 15.
• Mlodinow, Leonard. "It is, in Fact, Rocket Science,"New York Times (May 15, 2015): 23.
• Mlodinow, Leonard. "Mindware and Superforecasting."New York Times (October 15, 2015): 23.

• 2008 Robert P. Balles Prize for Critical Thinking for his bookThe Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives awarded by theCommittee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSICOP)
• 2010 Liber Press Award for the Popularization of Science^{[citation needed]}
• 2013PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award,Subliminal

Wikiquote has quotations related toLeonard Mlodinow.

• Homepage of Leonard Mlodinow
• Leonard Mlodinow atIMDb
• PhysicsWeb Review of "Feynman's Rainbow"Archived February 16, 2005, at theWayback Machine
• Library Cog Review of "Feynman's Rainbow"
• About the Authors of A Briefer History of Time – UC Berkeley
• About "The Grand Design"
• Fortune Magazine Review of The Drunkard's Walk
• NY Times Review of The Drunkard's Walk
• Barron's Book Review of The Drunkard's Walk

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