Alan Sokal
| Alan Sokal | |
|---|---|
| Born |
January 24, 1955 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Residence | United States, Nicaragua, UK |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Fields | Physics, Mathematics, Philosophy of Science |
| Institutions |
New York University National Autonomous University of Nicaragua University College London |
| Alma mater |
Harvard University (B.A.) Princeton University (Ph.D.) |
| Thesis |
An Alternate Constructive Approach to the φ4 3 Quantum Field Theory, and a Possible Destructive Approach to φ4 4 (1981) |
| Doctoral advisor | Arthur Wightman |
| Doctoral students | Robert Edwards, Jose Soria |
| Known for | Sokal Affair |
Alan David Sokal (/ˈsoʊkəl/; born January 24, 1955) is a professor of mathematics at University College London and professor of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics. He is best known to the wider public for his criticism of postmodernism, after the Sokal affair in 1996 when his deliberately nonsensical paper was published by Duke University's Social Text. He also works to counter faulty scientific reasoning, as seen with his involvement in criticising the critical positivity ratio concept in positive psychology.
Sokal received his BA from Harvard College in 1976 and his PhD from Princeton University in 1981. He was advised by Arthur Wightman. In the summers of 1986, 1987, and 1988, Sokal taught mathematics at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, when the Sandinistas were heading the elected government.
Sokal’s research lies in mathematical physics and combinatorics. In particular, he studies the interplay between these fields based on questions arising in statistical mechanics and quantum field theory. This includes work on the chromatic polynomial and the Tutte polynomial, which appear both in algebraic graph theory and in the study of phase transitions in statistical mechanics. His interests include computational physics and algorithms, such as Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms for problems in statistical physics. He also co-authored a book on quantum triviality.
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