David Gross
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 David Jonathan Gross |
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| Born | February 19, 1941 Washington, D.C., USA |
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| Residence |  USA |
| Nationality | American |
| Field | Physicist |
| Institution | University of California, Santa Barbara Harvard University Princeton University |
| Alma mater | Hebrew University University of California, Berkeley |
| Academic advisor | Geoffrey Chew |
| Notable students | Frank Wilczek  Edward Witten |
| Known for | Asymptotic freedom Heterotic string |
| Notable prizes | Nobel Prize in Physics (2004) |
David Jonathan Gross (born February 19, 1941 in Washington, D.C.) is an American particle physicist and string theorist (although he's stated to the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo, on 09/27/2006, that the second area is included in the first one). Along with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of asymptotic freedom.
In 1973, Gross, working with his first graduate student, Frank Wilczek, at Princeton University, discovered asymptotic freedom, which holds that the closer quarks are to each other, the less the strong interaction (or color charge) between them; when quarks are in extreme proximity, the nuclear force between them is so weak that they behave almost as free particles. Asymptotic freedom, independently discovered by David Politzer, was important for the development of quantum chromodynamics.
Gross, with Jeff Harvey, Emil Martinec, and Ryan Rohm also discovered the heterotic string.
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[edit] Academic life
Gross received his bachelor's degree and master's degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, in 1962. He received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1966 under the supervision of Geoffrey Chew and was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University and a Professor at Princeton University until 1997. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1987, the Dirac Medal in 1988, and currently is the director and holder of the Frederick W. Gluck Chair in Theoretical Physics at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
[edit] Personal Life
Gross was married to Shulamith Toaff, but now is married to Jacquelyn Savani. He has three children: Ariela Gross, Elisheva Gross, Miranda Savani (stepdaughter).
[edit] Prizes
- Dirac Medal (1988)
- Nobel Prize in Physics (2004)
[edit] External links
- Nobel citation
- ArXiv papers
- Webpage at the Kavli Institute
- Scientific articles of David Gross (SLAC database)
- BBC synopsis on the award
- Interviews
- Podcasts in three parts of a series of public lectures by David Gross at Princeton University on the Search for a Theory of Fundamental Reality.
Part 1, 4.25.2007
Part 2, 4.26.2007
Part 3, 4.27.2006
