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2017/03/08

This Millennial Might Be the New Einstein | Rising Stars | OZY

This Millennial Might Be the New Einstein | Rising Stars | OZY

THIS MILLENNIAL MIGHT BE THE NEW EINSTEIN

Now 22, Pasterski is getting her Ph.D. at Harvard.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE

Her research could change our understanding of the fundamentals as we know them.

Why you should care

One of the things the brilliant minds at MIT do — besides ponder the nature of the universe and build sci-fi gizmos, of course — is notarize aircraft airworthiness for the federal government. So when Sabrina Pasterski walked into the campus offices one cold January morning seeking the OK for a single-engine plane she had built, it might have been business as usual. Except that the shaggy-haired, wide-eyed plane builder before them was just 14 and had already flown solo. "I couldn't believe it," recalls Peggy Udden, an executive secretary at MIT, "not only because she was so young, but a girl."

OK, it's 2016, and gifted females are not exactly rare at MIT; nearly half the undergrads are women. But something about Pasterski led Udden not just to help get her plane approved, but to get the attention of the university's top professors. Now, eight years later, the lanky, 22-year-old Pasterski is already an MIT graduate and Harvard Ph.D. candidate who has the world of physics abuzz. She's exploring some of the most challenging and complex issues in physics, much as Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein (whose theory of relativity just turned 100 years old) did early in their careers. Her research delves into black holes, the nature of gravity and spacetime. A particular focus is trying to better understand "quantum gravity," which seeks to explain the phenomenon of gravity within the context of quantum mechanics. Discoveries in that area could dramatically change our understanding of the workings of the universe.



Arun Gupta