Sabrina González Pasterski, a Chicago‑born theoretical physicist now at the Perimeter Institute in Canada, leads the Celestial Holography Initiative, a team probing whether a two‑dimensional description can capture the entire universe.
Early life and the making of a scientist
Pasterski’s mother, María, emigrated from Cuba to the United States as a child. Between ages 12 and 14 the teenager designed and built her own airplane, flying it solo at 16, an achievement that attracted U.S. Media attention.
After an initial rejection from Harvard and a wait‑list spot at MIT, she excelled at both institutions, later graduating from MIT with a perfect 5.00 GPA in physics and earning a PhD at Harvard under Andrew Strominger.
Tres deseos – three wishes for women in tech
Speaking at the 2019 Perspektywy Women in Tech Summit, Pasterski urged women not to doubt themselves, to resist pressure that tries to dictate their futures, and to embrace taking time when needed.
When asked later, she confirmed she still holds to those wishes, emphasizing self‑discovery and resilience.
Celestial holography explained
In a Perimeter Institute video, Pasterski described “celestial” as literally looking at the night sky and asking how the physical universe might be encoded as a hologram.
Stephen Hawking, together with Jacob Bekenstein, calculated black‑hole entropy and temperature in the 1970s, showing that entropy scales with surface area, not volume – a result that seeded modern holographic ideas.
The holographic principle and its implications
Leonard Susskind’s book “The World as a Hologram” combined earlier work to suggest that all information in a physical system could be represented on a two‑dimensional boundary.
If true on cosmic scales, our three‑dimensional reality might be a projection from the universe’s edge, a notion the Celestial Holography Initiative seeks to generalize for a non‑accelerating universe.
Recognition and the “next Einstein” label
Pasterski’s contributions have been cited by Hawking and highlighted in outlets such as Time, Forbes and Scientific American. Some media dubbed her “the new Einstein,” a comparison she finds uncomfortable.
She argues that fame should not eclipse the many talented researchers in her field and hopes attention can foster collaborations between academia, technology and AI.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Celestial Holography?
It is a research program at the Perimeter Institute that investigates whether the universe can be described by a two‑dimensional theory, effectively encoding three‑dimensional physics on a lower‑dimensional boundary.
What are Pasterski’s three wishes for women in technology?
She urges women not to let others make them doubt themselves, to resist external pressure that tries to plan their futures, and to not fear taking time to find what works for them.
Why has Pasterski been compared to Einstein?
Media outlets have called her “the new Einstein” after her work was cited by Stephen Hawking and after early academic accolades, but she feels the label oversimplifies the contributions of many scientists in her field.
What do you think about the possibility that our universe could be a hologram?
