David Gross

This article is about the physicist. For the diplomat, see David A. Gross.

David Gross
Born	David Jonathan Gross (1941-02-19) February 19, 1941 Washington, D.C., U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Hebrew University of Jerusalem University of California, Berkeley
Known for	Asymptotic freedom Heterotic string
Spouse(s)	Shulamith Toaff Gross (divorced; 2 children) Jacquelyn Savani
Awards	Dirac Medal (1988) Harvey Prize (2000) Nobel Prize in Physics (2004)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics, String Theory
Institutions	University of California, Santa Barbara Harvard University Princeton University
Doctoral advisor	Geoffrey Chew
Doctoral students	Frank Wilczek Edward Witten William E. Caswell Rajesh Gopakumar Nikita Nekrasov
Signature

David Jonathan Gross (/ɡroʊs/; born February 19, 1941) is an American theoretical physicist and string theorist. Along with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of asymptotic freedom. He is the former director and current holder of the Frederick W. Gluck Chair in Theoretical Physics at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics of the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is also a faculty member in the UC Santa Barbara Physics Department and is currently affiliated with the Institute for Quantum Studies at Chapman University in California. He is the Foreign Member of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Biography

Gross was born to a Jewish family in Washington, D.C. in February 19, 1941. His parents were Nora (Faine) and Bertram Myron Gross (1912–1997). 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.

He was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University and a Professor at Princeton University until 1997. He was the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1987, the Dirac Medal in 1988 and the Harvey Prize in 2000.

In 1973, Professor 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) is 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 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. The four were to be whimsically nicknamed the "Princeton String Quartet".

In 2003, Gross was one of 22 Nobel Laureates who signed the Humanist Manifesto. Gross is an atheist.

Family

David's first wife was Shulamith (Toaff). They have two children:

• Ariela Gross, who is an historian and professor of law at the University of Southern California and the mother of his grandchildren, Raphaela and Sophia.
• Elisheva Gross, who received a Doctor in psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles.

His second wife is Jacquelyn Savani. He has a stepdaughter, Miranda Savani, in Santa Barbara, California. She was born in North Huntingdon, and is an assistant to the chancellor and executive chancellor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and media consultant for Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics.

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  David Gross and his wife in Santa Barbara
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  Construction works at Kavli Institute

Honors and awards

• Dirac Medal (1988)
• Harvey Prize (2000)
• Nobel Prize in Physics (2004)

Publication list

Journal Articles:

• Gross, David; Wilczek, Frank (1973). "Ultraviolet Behavior of Non-Abelian Gauge Theories". Physical Review Letters. 30 (26): 1343–1346. Bibcode:1973PhRvL..30.1343G. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.30.1343.
• D. J. Gross and F. Wilczek, “Asymptotically Free Gauge Theories. I”, Phys. Rev. D8 3633 (1973)

Technical Reports:

• Wilczek, F. and D. J. Gross. "Asymptotically Free Gauge Theories. I," National Accelerator Laboratory, Princeton University, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (July 1973).
• Gross, D. J. and S. B. Treiman. "Hadronic Form Factors in Asymptotically Free Field Theories," Princeton University, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (1974).
• Callan, C. G. Jr., Dashen, R. and D. J. Gross. "Instantons and Massless Fermions in Two Dimensions," Princeton University, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Energy Research and Development Administration), (May 1977).
• Gross, D. J. "Some New/Old Approaches to QCD," Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, United States Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, (November 1992).

External links

• Biography portal
• Media related to David Gross at Wikimedia Commons
• Nobel citation
• ArXiv papers
• Webpage at the Kavli Institute
• Scientific articles of David Gross (INSPIRE-HEP database)
• BBC synopsis on the award
• Interviews
• Biography and Bibliographic Resources, from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, United States Department of Energy