Theoretical physics: Complexity on the horizon

When physicist Leonard Susskind gives talks these days, he often wears a black T-shirt proclaiming “I ♥ Complexity”. In place of the heart is a Mandelbrot set, a fractal pattern widely recognized as a symbol for complexity at its most beautiful.

That pretty much sums up his message. The 74-year-old Susskind, a theorist at Stanford University in California, has long been a leader in efforts to unify quantum mechanics with the general theory of relativity — Albert Einstein's framework for gravity. The quest for the elusive unified theory has led him to advocate counter-intuitive ideas, such as superstring theory or the concept that our three-dimensional Universe is actually a two-dimensional hologram. But now he is part of a small group of researchers arguing for a new and equally odd idea: that the key to this mysterious theory of everything is to be found in the branch of computer science known as computational complexity.