David M. Lee Historical Lecture in Physics:
FRANK WILCZEK
Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics, MIT;
Chief Scientist, T. D. Lee Institute and Wilczek Quantum Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University;
Distinguished Professor, Arizona State University;
Professor of Physics, Stockholm University;
2004 Nobel Prize in Physics
"My Life With QCD: A Fifty Year Love Affair That’s Still Going Strong"
April 9, 2024
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It’s been a trip. Highlights from the earliest days include the discovery of asymptotic freedom, the formulation of modern QCD, and working out decisive tests. Then came a cornucopia of applications, notably including getting to very early universe cosmology, quantitative treatment of unified field theories, exploring new cosmic horizons, and showing how to communicate with Higgs particles. Growing engagement with condensed matter physics led to prediction of new phases and organizing the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter at high temperature and density. And there is the saga of axions: wayward children of QCD that not improbably make the “dark matter’’ of the universe. I’ll describe my personal experiences in advancing all of that, along with relevant context. At the end I’ll very briefly describe two things that I’m working on now: axion searches that bring in new technologies to achieve the needed sensitivity, and flux channeling.
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Frank Wilczek is a theoretical physicist, author, and intellectual adventurer. He has received many prizes for his work, including a Nobel Prize in Physics and Templeton Prize, and has made seminal contributions to fundamental particle physics, cosmology and the physics of materials. His current theoretical research includes work on Axions, Anyons, and Time Crystals. These are concepts in physics which he named and pioneered. Each has become a major focus of research world-wide.
Frank has authored several well-known books and a monthly “Wilczek’s Universe” feature for the Wall Street Journal. His latest book, Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality, distills the most profound and mind-expanding insights of modern science, and explores their implications for questions that are usually considered philosophical or even theological.
Wilczek received a B.S. at the University of Chicago in 1970, and a PhD in physics at Princeton University in 1974. He has been married to Betsy Devine since 1973. They have two daughters.
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David M. Lee Historical Lectures in Physics are sponsored by the Marvin and Annette Lee Fund.