Laura Mersini-Houghton facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Laura Mersini-Houghton
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Mersini-Houghton in 2016
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| Born | |
| Nationality | Albanian, American |
| Alma mater | Tirana University University of Maryland University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee |
| Known for | Multiverse, Origin of the Universe theory, Hawking radiation theory |
| Spouse(s) | Jeff Houghton |
| Children | 1 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | cosmology and theoretical physics |
| Institutions | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| Doctoral advisor | Leonard Parker |
Laura Mersini-Houghton is an Albanian-American cosmologist and theoretical physicist. She is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
She is known for her ideas about the multiverse. This is a theory that suggests our universe is just one of many universes. She also has a theory about how our universe began. She believes it was chosen from many possible universes by the way matter and energy work at a tiny, quantum level.
Scientists have tested her ideas using information from space, and her predictions have been correct. She thinks that strange patterns in our universe can be explained by the pull of gravity from other universes.
About Her Life
Laura Mersini was born in Tirana, Albania. Her father, Nexhat Mersini, was a well-known mathematician and economist.
She earned her first degree from the University of Tirana in Albania.
In 1994, she studied at the University of Maryland, College Park, as a Fulbright scholar. She then received her master's degree from the University of Maryland in 1997.
In 2000, she completed her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
After finishing her doctorate, she worked as a researcher in Italy and at Syracuse University in the United States.
Her Work on the Multiverse
In 2004, Laura Mersini-Houghton became a professor at the University of North Carolina. Between 2004 and 2006, she shared her theory that our universe came from a multiverse. She also made predictions that could be tested. One of these predictions was about the existence of a huge empty area in space called the Giant Void.
Her work on the multiverse was featured in a BBC show in 2010 called What Happened Before the Big Bang. In this show, she explained her idea that the universe is like a wave in a vast multiverse. Later, a satellite experiment called Planck successfully tested her predictions.
Her Ideas on Black Holes
In 2014, Mersini-Houghton also shared a new idea about black holes. She suggested that if certain ideas about "black hole firewalls" are true, then the way we currently think black holes form might be wrong. She believes that a type of energy called Hawking radiation might cause a star to lose so much mass that it can't become a black hole.
In 2015, she helped organize an important meeting in Stockholm with famous physicist Stephen Hawking. They discussed these big questions about black holes and the universe.
Teaching
Laura Mersini-Houghton teaches classes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She teaches both college students and graduate students about Quantum Mechanics. This is a part of physics that studies how tiny particles behave.
See also
In Spanish: Laura Mersini-Houghton para niños
