Kenneth G. Wilson
Kenneth G. Wilson | |
---|---|
UNSW Dirac Medal (1989) | |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Theoretical physics |
Institutions | Cornell University (1963–1988) Ohio State University (1988–2008) |
Thesis | An investigation of the Low equation and the Chew-Mandelstam equations (1961) |
Doctoral advisor | Murray Gell-Mann[1] |
Doctoral students | H. R. Krishnamurthy Roman Jackiw Michael Peskin Serge Rudaz Paul Ginsparg Steven R. White[1] |
Kenneth Geddes "Ken" Wilson (June 8, 1936 – June 15, 2013) was an American
Life
Wilson was born on June 8, 1936, in Waltham, Massachusetts, the oldest child of Emily Buckingham Wilson and
He went on to Harvard College at age 16, majoring in Mathematics and, on two occasions, in 1954 and 1956, ranked among the top five in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition.[2] He was also a star on the athletics track, representing Harvard in the Mile. During his summer holidays he worked at the
He joined Cornell University in 1963 in the Department of Physics as a junior faculty member, becoming a full professor in 1970. He also did research at SLAC during this period.[5] In 1974, he became the James A. Weeks Professor of Physics at Cornell.
In 1982 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on critical phenomena using the renormalization group.[6]
He was a co-winner of the
In 1985, he was appointed as Cornell's Director of the Center for Theory and Simulation in Science and Engineering (now known as the
Some of his PhD students include H. R. Krishnamurthy, Roman Jackiw, Michael Peskin, Serge Rudaz, Paul Ginsparg, and Steven R. White.[1]
Wilson's brother David was also a professor at Cornell in the department of Molecular Biology and Genetics until his death,[8] and his wife since 1982, Alison Brown, is a prominent computer scientist.
He died in Saco, Maine, on June 15, 2013, at the age of 77.[9][10] He was respectfully remembered by his colleagues.[1][9][11]
Work
Wilson's work in physics involved formulation of a comprehensive theory of scaling: how fundamental properties and forces of a system vary depending on the scale over which they are measured. He devised a universal "divide-and-conquer" strategy for calculating how phase transitions occur, by considering each scale separately and then abstracting the connection between contiguous ones, in a novel appreciation of
He extended these insights on scaling to answer fundamental questions on the nature of quantum field theory and the operator product expansion[17] and the physical meaning of the renormalization group.[18]
He also pioneered the understanding of the confinement of quarks inside hadrons,[19] utilizing lattice gauge theory, and initiating an approach permitting formerly foreboding strong-coupling calculations on computers. On such a lattice, he further shed light on
Awards and honors
- Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics, 1973
- Boltzmann Medal, 1975
- Wolf Prize, 1980
- Harvard University, D.Sc (Hon.), 1981
- Caltech, Distinguished Alumni Award, 1981
- Franklin Medal, 1982
- Nobel Prize for Physics, 1982
- Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement, 1983[21]
- A. C. Eringen Medal, 1984
- Aneesur Rahman Prize, 1993[22]
- American Physical Society Fellow, 1998
- Australian National University, Distinguished Anniversary Fellow, 1996
Notes
- ^ a b c d Kenneth G. Wilson at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- ^ "Putnam Competition Individual and Team Winners". Mathematical Association of America. Retrieved December 10, 2021.
- ^ Wilson, K. G. (1961). "An investigation of the Low equation and the Chew-Mandelstam equations", Dissertation (Ph.D.), California Institute of Technology. [1]
- ^ Overbye, Dennis (20 June 2013). "Kenneth Wilson, Nobel Physicist, Dies at 77". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
- ^ Wilson, K. G. "Broken Scale Invariance and Anomalous Dimensions", Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC,)Stanford University, Laboratory of Nuclear Studies, Cornell University, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (May 1970).
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- ^ "Member History". American Philosophical Society.
- ^ "Renowned biochemist David B. Wilson dies at 77 | Cornell Chronicle". news.cornell.edu. Retrieved 2017-09-15.
- ^ a b Overbye, Dennis (June 20, 2013). "Kenneth Wilson, Nobel Physicist, Dies at 77". NY Times.
- ^ "Physics Nobel laureate Kenneth Wilson dies". Cornell Chronicle. June 18, 2013.
- S2CID 205078161.
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- ^ Wilson, K. G.:Problems in physics with many scales of length, Scientific American, August 1979 "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-07-10. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
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: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - .
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- American Academy of Achievement.
- ^ "1993 Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics Recipient". American Physical Society. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
External links
- Kenneth G. Wilson on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1982 The Renormalization Group and Critical Phenomena
- Kenneth G. Wilson on www.nobel-winners.com
- Kenneth G. Wilson's Homepage (on Archive, the original at Ohio State University no longer exists) at the Wayback Machine (archived July 3, 2007)
- Kenneth G. Wilson's brief CV, from Ohio State University (PDF file)
- Publications on ArXiv
- Interview with Ken Wilson in 2002
- Kadanoff, Leo P. (29 Jun 2013). "Kenneth Geddes Wilson, 1936-2013, An Appreciation". Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment. 2013 (10): P10016. S2CID 119288959.
- S2CID 118447708.