Edward Witten

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Edward Witten (born August 26, 1951) is an American mathematical physicist, Fields Medalist, and professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. He is one of the world's leading researchers in string theory (as the founder of M-theory) and quantum field theory.

1 Biography
2 Awards and honors
3 Trivia
4 External links

[edit] Biography

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Edward Witten was born to a Jewish family in Baltimore, Maryland ^[1], the son of Lorraine W. Witten and Louis Witten, a physicist specializing in gravitation and general relativity. He received his bachelor's degree in history (with a minor in linguistics) from Brandeis University. Witten planned to become a political journalist, and published articles in The New Republic and The Nation. He also worked briefly for George McGovern's presidential campaign, and then returned to academia, receiving a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University in 1976 under David Gross. Afterwards, he worked at Harvard University as a Junior Fellow and at Princeton as a professor. He also was briefly at Caltech for two years from 1999 to 2001. He is currently the Charles Simonyi Professor of Mathematical Physics at the Institute for Advanced Study. He is married to Chiara Nappi, who is a professor of physics at Princeton University. His brother, Matt Witten, is a screenwriter and producer for several popular TV series including L.A. Law and House.

Witten's extensive work in the area of theoretical physics has also involved a large number of highly mathematical results. He has been active primarily in quantum field theory and string theory, and in related areas of topology and geometry. His many contributions include a simplified proof of the positive energy theorem involving spinors in general relativity, his work relating supersymmetry and Morse theory, his introduction of topological quantum field theory and his related work on mirror symmetry and supersymmetric gauge theories, and his conjecture of the existence of M-theory.

Witten was the first physicist to win the Fields Medal. Sir Michael Atiyah said of Witten, "Although he is definitely a physicist, his command of mathematics is rivaled by few mathematicians... Time and time again he has surprised the mathematical community by his brilliant application of physical insight leading to new and deep mathematical theorems... he has made a profound impact on contemporary mathematics. In his hands physics is once again providing a rich source of inspiration and insight in mathematics." One such example of his impact on pure mathematics is his framework for understanding the Jones polynomial using Chern-Simons theory. This had far reaching implications on low-dimensional topology and led to quantum invariants such as the Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev invariants.

[edit] Awards and honors

Witten has been honored with numerous awards, including a MacArthur Grant (1982), a Fields Medal (1990), and the National Medal of Science (2002). Pope Benedict XVI also appointed Witten as a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (2006). He also appeared in the list of TIME magazine's 100 most influential people of 2004.