John Baez

John Carlos Baez (born June 12, 1961) is an American mathematical physicist and a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Riverside (UCR)^[1] inRiverside, California. He is known for his work on spin foams in loop quantum gravity.^[2][3] More recently, his research has focused on applications of higher categories to physics. On January 14, 2010 Baez announced that he is leaving categorical mathematical physics. He said "I want to shift the focus of my research away from fancy abstract n-categorical math to slightly more practical things. My job at the CQT (Centre for Quantum Technologies) will give me a chance to explore computer science, microtraps, and quantum optics. What I really want to do is help save our beleaguered planet."^[4]

Baez is also known to science fans as the author of This Week's Finds in Mathematical Physics,^[5] an irregular column on the internet featuring mathematical exposition and criticism. He started This Week's Finds in 1993 for the Usenet community, and it now has a worldwide following in its new form, the blog "Azimuth". This Week's Finds anticipated the concept of a personal weblog.^{[citation needed]} Additionally, Baez is known on the World Wide Web as the author of the crackpot index.

Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Career 3 Blog 4 Family 5 References 6 Notes 7 External links

[edit]Early life and education

Baez was born in San Francisco, California.

He graduated from Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics in 1982. In 1986, he graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a Doctor of Philosophy under the direction of Irving Segal.

[edit]Career

After a post-doctoral period at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, he has been teaching — since 1989 — at UCR.

[edit]Blog

Baez runs the blog "Azimuth," where he writes about a variety of topics ranging from This Week's Finds in Mathematical Physics to the current focus, combating climate change and various other environmental issues.

[edit]Family

Singer and progressive activist Joan Baez is his cousin and her father, physicist Albert Baez, was his uncle.^[6]

John Baez is married to Lisa Raphals who is a professor of Chinese and comparative literature at UCR.^[7][8]

[edit]References

• Baez, John C. (ed.) (1994). Knots and quantum gravity. Oxford: Clarendon Press, an imprint of the Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-853490-6.
• Baez, John C.; Segal, & Muniain, Javier (1994). Gauge fields, knots and gravity. Singapore: World Scientific. ISBN 981-02-2034-0.
• Baez, John C.; Segal, Irving E.; and Zhou, Zhenfang (1992). Introduction to algebraic and constructive quantum field theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-08546-3.
• Baez, John C. (1996) Spin networks in gauge theory, Advances in Mathematics 117, 253-272
• Baez, John C. (1998) Quantum geometry & black hole entropy, w. A. Ashtekar, A. Corichi & K. Krosnov, Phys Rev. Lett. 80, 904-907.

[edit]Notes

1. ^ UC Riverside, Department of Mathematics
2. ^ Baez, John C. (1998) Spin foam models, Class. & Quantum Gravity 15, 1827-1858
3. ^ Top Cited Articles of All Time (2004 edition) in gr-qc
4. ^ John Baez Diary - January 2010, 2010-01-01
5. ^ This Week's Finds
6. ^ "Interview by David Morrison". Retrieved May 24, 2009.
7. ^ February 17, 2007 - Lisa Raphals and I got married today! (Diary - February 2007)
8. ^ Lisa Raphals (UCR faculty page)

[edit]External links

• Baez's home page at UCR's official website (ucr.edu)
• Azimuth blog by Baez
• The n-Category Café, a physics/mathematics/philosophy blog by Baez, philosopher David Corfield, and physicist Urs Schreiber, hosted at The University of Texas at Austin's official website
• nLab, a wiki-lab for collaborative original research in mathematics, physics, and philosophy; see also nLab
• "Should I be thinking about quantum gravity?", essay by Baez at The World Question Center
• Baez, John (2002), "The Octonions", Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 39: 145–205. Online HTML versions at Baez's site or see lanl.arXiv.org copy
• John C. Baez at the Mathematics Genealogy Project.