Everything about Edward Witten totally explained
Edward Witten (born
August 26,
1951) is an
American theoretical physicist and
professor at the
Institute for Advanced Study. He is one of the world's leading researchers in
superstring theory. He has made extensive contributions to
theoretical physics, and in 1990 he was awarded the
Fields Medal for his influence on the development of mathematics. In 1995, he suggested the existence of
M-theory at a conference at the
University of Southern California, and used M-theory to explain a number of previously observed dualities, sparking a flurry of new research in string theory called the
second superstring revolution.
Birth and education
Edward Witten was born in
Baltimore, Maryland to a
Jewish family, 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 worked briefly for
George McGovern's presidential campaign. Then, he attended the
University of Wisconsin-Madison for one semester as an
economics graduate student before dropping out. He then returned to academia, enrolling in
applied mathematics at
Princeton University before shifting departments and receiving a
Ph.D. in physics in 1976 under
David Gross, the
Nobel laureate in
Physics in 2004.
Academic career
After completing his PhD, he worked at
Harvard University as a Junior Fellow and at Princeton as a professor. He was a Professor of Physics at
Princeton University from 1980 to 1987. 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 in
Princeton, New Jersey.
Research and achievements
Witten has made extensive contributions to
theoretical physics, in work that has spawned 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 awarded the
Fields Medal by the
International Mathematical Union in 1990, becoming the first physicist to win the prize. Sir
Michael Atiyah said of Witten, "Although he's definitely a physicist, his command of mathematics is rivaled by few mathematicians... Time and again he's surprised the mathematical community by a brilliant application of physical insight leading to new and deep mathematical theorems... he's 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.
He is currently working on the possible relations between
Gauge theories and
Geometric Langlands.
Personal life
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.
Awards and honors
Witten has been honored with numerous awards, including a
MacArthur Grant (1982), a
Fields Medal (1990), the
National Medal of Science (2002), and the
Crafoord Prize (2008).
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. In 2000, he was awarded the
Nemmers Prize in Mathematics.
Trivia
- Witten has the highest h-index of any living physicist;
- Witten was mentioned in a 1999 episode of the cartoon Futurama;
- Witten was mentioned in the 2002 Angel episode "Supersymmetry";
- Witten was mentioned in the comic Ex Machina.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Edward Witten'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://edward_witten.totallyexplained.com">Edward Witten Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
