David Gross

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David J. Gross
David Jonathan Gross
David Jonathan Gross
Born February 19, 1941 (1941-02-19) (age 67)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Residence United States
Nationality United States
Fields Physicist
Institutions University of California, Santa Barbara
Harvard University
Princeton University
Alma mater Hebrew University
University of California, Berkeley
Doctoral advisor Geoffrey Chew
Doctoral students Frank Wilczek
Edward Witten
Known for Asymptotic freedom
Heterotic string
Notable awards Nobel Prize in Physics (2004)
This article is about the physicist. For the diplomat, see David A. Gross.

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 Jeffrey A. Harvey, Emil Martinec, and Ryan Rohm also formulated the theory of the heterotic string.

Construction works at Gross's Kavli Institute
Construction works at Gross's Kavli Institute

Contents

[edit] Academic life

He was born and raised in America. His father was Bertram Myron Gross (1912-1998). In his early adolescence his family moved to Israel. He was immersed in Hebrew, a language he had not known, and he became fascinated by physics. He says he was 13 when he decided to become a theoretical physicist.[1]

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

David Gross and his wife in Santa Barbara
David Gross and his wife in Santa Barbara

[edit] Prizes

[edit] References

  • Gross, David & Wilczek, Frank, “Ultraviolet Behavior of Non-Abelian Gauge Theories”, Physical Review Letters 30 (26): 1343--1346, DOI 10.1103/PhysRevLett.30.1343 
  • D. J. Gross and F. Wilczek, “Asymptotically Free Gauge Theories. I”, Phys. Rev. D8 3633 (1973).
  1. ^ David J. Gross

[edit] External links

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Nobel Laureates in Physics


Persondata
NAME Gross, David J.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION American Physicist
DATE OF BIRTH February 19, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Washington, D.C., U.S.
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH