Sidney Coleman: Difference between revisions
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==Contributions to physics== |
==Contributions to physics== |
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Some of his best known works are |
Some of his best known works are |
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* [[Tadpole (physics)|Tadpoles]] |
* [[Tadpole (physics)|Tadpoles]] |
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* [[Coleman theorem]]<ref>Sidney Coleman |
* [[Coleman theorem]]<ref> |
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{{cite journal |
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|author=Sidney Coleman |
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|title=There are no Goldstone bosons in two dimensions |
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|url=http://projecteuclid.org/Dienst/UI/1.0/Summarize/euclid.cmp/1103859034 |
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|journal=[[Communications in Mathematical Physics]] |
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* [[Equivalence]] of the [[Thirring model]] and the quantum [[Sine-Gordon equation]]<ref>[http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v11/i8/p2088_1 Phys. Rev. D 11 (1975): Sidney Coleman - Quantum sine-Gordon equation as<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> |
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|volume=31 |pages=259 |year=1973 |
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}}</ref> |
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* [[Equivalence]] of the [[Thirring model]] and the quantum [[Sine-Gordon equation]]<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1103/PhysRevD.11.2088}}</ref> |
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* [[Semiclassical]] analysis of the fate of a [[false vacuum]] |
* [[Semiclassical]] analysis of the fate of a [[false vacuum]] |
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* [[Coleman-Weinberg potential]] |
* [[Coleman-Weinberg potential]] |
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| PLACE OF BIRTH = [[Chicago]] |
| PLACE OF BIRTH = [[Chicago]] |
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| DATE OF DEATH = 2007-11-18 |
| DATE OF DEATH = 2007-11-18 |
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| PLACE OF DEATH = |
| PLACE OF DEATH = [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]] |
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Coleman, Sidney}} |
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Revision as of 05:42, 11 April 2011
Sidney Coleman | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | March 7, 1937 |
| Died | November 18, 2007 |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Illinois Institute of Technology Caltech |
| Known for | Quantum field theory |
| Awards | NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing (1989) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physicist |
| Institutions | Harvard University |
| Doctoral advisor | Murray Gell-Mann |
| Doctoral students | Jacques Distler David Griffiths Stephen Parke Leonard Parker David Politzer Lee Smolin Paul Steinhardt Anthony Zee |
Sidney Richard Coleman (7 March 1937 – 18 November 2007) was an American theoretical physicist who studied under Murray Gell-Mann.
Life and work
Sidney Coleman grew up on the Far North Side of Chicago. In 1957, he received his undergraduate degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology.
He received his PhD from Caltech in 1962, and moved to Harvard University that year, where he spent his entire career, meeting his wife Diana there in the late 1970s. They were married in 1982.
"He was a giant in a peculiar sense, because he's not known to the general populace," Nobel laureate Sheldon Glashow told the Boston Globe. "He's not a Stephen Hawking; he has virtually no visibility outside. But within the community of theoretical physicists, he's kind of a major god. He is the physicist's physicist."[1]
In 1966, Antonino Zichichi recruited Coleman as a lecturer at the then-new summer school at International School for Subnuclear Physics in Erice, Sicily. A legendary figure at the school throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Coleman was awarded the title "Best Lecturer" on the occasion of the school's fifteenth anniversary (1979). His explanation of spontaneous symmetry breaking in terms of a little man living inside a ferromagnet has often been cited by later popularizers.[2][3] The classic particle physics text Aspects of Symmetry (1985) is a collection of Coleman's lectures at Erice. A quote from his introduction to the book is worth sharing here:[4]
I first came to Erice in 1966, to lecture at the fourth of the annual schools on subnuclear physics organized by Nino Zichichi. I was charmed by the beauty of Erice, fascinated by the thick layers of Sicilian culture and history, and terrified by the iron rule with which Nino kept the students and faculty in line. In a word, I was won over, and I returned to Erice every year or two thereafter, to talk of what was past, or passing, or to come, at least insofar as it touched on subnuclear theory…These lectures span fourteen years, from 1966 to 1979. This was a great time to be a high-energy theorist, the period of the famous triumph of quantum field theory. And what a triumph it was, in the old sense of the word: a glorious victory parade, full of wonderful things brought back from far places to make the spectator gasp with awe and laugh with joy. I hope some of that awe and joy has been captured here.
His lectures at Harvard were also legendary. Students in one quantum field theory course created Tshirts bearing his image and a collection of his more noted quotations, among them: "Not only God knows, I know, and by the end of the semester, you will know."
In 1989, Coleman was awarded the NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing from the National Academy of Sciences. That award praised his "lucid, insightful, and influential reviews on partially conserved currents, gauge theories, instantons, and magnetic monopoles--subjects fundamental to theoretical physics."[5] In 2005, Harvard University's physics department held the "SidneyFest", a conference on quantum field theory and quantum chromodynamics, organized in his honor.
Contributions to physics
Some of his best known works are
- Coleman–Mandula theorem[6]
- Tadpoles
- Coleman theorem[7]
- Equivalence of the Thirring model and the quantum Sine-Gordon equation[8]
- Semiclassical analysis of the fate of a false vacuum
- Coleman-Weinberg potential
- Q-balls in the thin-wall limit
- Lectures at Erice, some of which are preserved in his book Aspects of Symmetry[4] (review and teaching)
References
- ^ Sidney Coleman; Harvard icon taught physics classes with wit
- ^ L. Ryder, "Symmetry breaking", J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 38, 9729 (2005)
- ^ Brading, Katherine and Castellani, Elena, "Symmetry and Symmetry Breaking", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), [1]
- ^ a b Sidney Coleman (1988). Aspects of Symmetry. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521318270.
- ^ "NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 27 February 2011.
- ^ Sidney Coleman and Jeffrey Mandula (1967). "All Possible Symmetries of the S Matrix". Physical Review. 159 (5): 1251–1256. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.159.1251.
- ^ Sidney Coleman (1973). "There are no Goldstone bosons in two dimensions". Communications in Mathematical Physics. 31: 259.
- ^ . doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.11.2088.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help); Missing or empty|title=(help)
External links
- Sidneyfest 2005 - physicists' celebration of Sidney Coleman's life
- Chicago Tribune obituary, November 20, 2007.
- Harvard Gazette obituary, November 29, 2007.
- Boston Globe obituary, January 20, 2008.
- Physics Today obituary, May 2008, written by Sheldon Glashow.
- "Quantum Mechanics In Your Face", A lecture by Prof. Coleman at the New England sectional meeting of the American Physical Society April 9, 1994.
- Physics 253: Quantum Field Theory. Video of lectures by Sidney Coleman at Harvard in 1975-1976.
- 1937 births
- 2007 deaths
- Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
- American physicists
- Jewish American scientists
- Theoretical physicists
- Harvard University faculty
- California Institute of Technology alumni
- Science fiction fans
- Illinois Institute of Technology alumni
- National Academy of Sciences laureates