Wilczek, Frank

Frank Wilczek Biography

If you were to picture a crazy scientist, Frank Anthony Wilczek would certainly fit the part. On the 15th of May in 1951, the soon to be genius was born in Mineola, New York. It became apparent to his parents that he was going to excel in mathematics. Curiosity is what fueled him at a young age to take on mathematics. He asked himself questions such as, “How many ways can one exchange coins to get the necessary amount?” He found interest in huge numbers as well. Wilczek wanted to get large numbers in very few steps. He said big numbers made him feel “powerful” (Frank Wilczek - Biographical).

Prior to college, Frank attended high school in Queens at public school 186, Martin Van Buren High School. It was there that he received his diploma. With many desired questions left unanswered he decided to attend the University of Chicago where he would study mathematics. The cognitive processes of the brain always fascinated Wilczek, but he decided that brain science wasn’t for him because those questions couldn’t be answered with mathematics. Physics was never on the frontier of his goals until his last semester at the University of Chicago. Wilczek was inspired and became interested in physics by his passionate physics professor, Peter Freund. Freund’s class was about symmetry and group theory. He was inspired; he saw the connections of mathematics. It was as if he found his calling. He loved the freedom of mathematics, but his technical ability with numbers and analytics could finally be applied to something with a little less freedom, physics. He graduated from the University of Chicago with his Bachelor of Science in Mathematics in 1970 and decided to further his academic career by traveling to Princeton, New Jersey.

His mathematics career continued at Princeton with physics remaining in the back of his mind at all times. Symmetry and its deep connection to physics became very apparent to him; specifically, the gauge theory of electroweak interactions, and the scaling symmetry in Wilson's theory of phase transitions (Frank Wilczek - Biographical). It was then that he realized that his training as a mathematician would turn him into a physicist by trade. He started to work extensively with David Gross, a professor at Princeton University. By the time Frank was 21 years old he helped define the properties of color gluons (MIT Department of Physics). Perhaps the most important part of his career occurred while in collaboration with Gross and Hugh D. Politzer on the basic theory of quantum chromodynamics. Their work led them to the discovery of asymptotic freedom, which is a property of some gauge theories. It states that bonds between particles become asymptotically weaker as energy increases and distance decreases (Asymptotic Freedom). Together, their work in from 1971-1973 in quantum chromodynamics led them to the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004. He attained his Master of Arts in Mathematics from Princeton in 1972, and eventually his Ph.D. in physics in 1974. Princeton then offered him a teaching position until 1981.

Besides the Nobel Prize in Physics, he has received several other prestigious awards. Wilczek won the J. J. Sakurai Prize in 1986 for his work to better understand the strong interaction between quarks. In 1994 he won the Dirac Medal. Every four years the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences awards the Lorentz Medal for important contributions to theoretical physics. Frank won the Lorentz Medal in 2002.

Professor Wilczek now holds the title Herman Feshback Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently researching areas in physics including: applications of asymptotic freedom, or “pure” particle physics, how particle physics can apply to cosmology, and the quantum theory of black holes (MIT Department of Physics). Frank is an avid reader, and the research will end only when he ceases to be.  

Works Cited

“Asymptotic Freedom”. Wikipedia.com. 22 Sept 2013. Web. 11 Oct 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptotic_freedom

"Frank Wilczek - Biographical". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2013. Web. 14 Oct 2013. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2004/wilczek-bio.html

“Frank Wilczek”. Wikipedia.com. 10 Oct 2013. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Wilczek

Wilczek, Frank. MIT Department of Physics. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 31 July. 2013. Web. 12 Oct. 2013. http://web.mit.edu/physics/people/faculty/wilczek_frank.html