Frank Wilczek (born May 15, 1951) is a Nobel prize winning American physicist. Along with H. David Politzer and David Gross, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction," to quote the citation by the Nobel Committee.

Life

---

Born in Mineola, New York, of Polish and Italian origin, Wilczek was educated in the public schools of Queens, attending Van Buren High School. He received his Bachelor of Science in Mathematics at the University of Chicago in 1970, a Master of Arts in Mathematics at Princeton University, 1972, and a Ph.D. in Physics at Princeton University in 1974. Frank Wilczek holds the Herman Feshbach Professorship of Physics at MIT Center for Theoretical Physics. He worked at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara. He was awarded the Lorentz Medal in 2002.

He married Betsy Devine on July 3, 1973; they have two children, Amity and Mira.

Research

---

In 1973, Wilczek, a graduate student working with David Gross at Princeton University, discovered asymptotic freedom, which holds that the closer quarks are to each other, the less the strong interaction (or color charge) between them; when quarks are in extreme proximity, the nuclear force between them is so weak that they behave almost as free particles. The theory--independently discovered by H. David Politzer--was important for the development of quantum chromodynamics.

Wilczek has helped to reveal and develop axions, anyons, asymptotic freedom, the color superconducting phases of quark matter, and other aspects of quantum field theory. He has worked on an unusually wide range of topics, ranging across condensed matter physics, astrophysics, and particle physics.

His current research includes:

• "pure" particle physics: connections between theoretical ideas and observable phenomena
• behavior of matter: ultra-high temperature, density, and phase structure
• application of particle physics to cosmology
• application of field theory techniques to condensed matter physics
• quantum theory of black holes

Trivia

---

In early 2005, he appeared on an episode of Penn & Teller's Showtime skepticism program, Bullsh*t. The episode was about ghost hunters, and Dr. Wilczek was an expert used to refute paranormal pseudoscience.

Selected publications

---

• Quark Description of Hadronic Phases ^*
• Continuity of Quark and Hadron Matter ^*
• High Density Quark Matter and the Renormalization Group in QCD with Two and Three Flavors ^*
• Color-Flavor Locking and Chiral Symmetry Breaking in High Density QCD ^*
• Fermion Masses, Neutrino Oscillations, and Proton Decay in the Light of SuperKamiokande ^*
• Quantum Field Theory ^*
• Riemann-Einstein Structure from Volume and Gauge Symmetry ^*
• A Chern-Simons Effective Field Theory for the Pfaffian Quantum Hall State ^*

Books

---

• Fractional Statistics and Anyon Superconductivity, December 1990
• Geometric Phases in Physics, December 1988
• Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations in Modern Physics, April 1989 (with Betsy Devine)
• Fantastic Realities: 49 Mind Journeys And a Trip to Stockholm, March 2006

See also

---

• asymptotic freedom
• coupling unification
• Quantum chromodynamics
• neutron star
• stellar explosion
• black holes
• axion
• dark matter
• WIMP
• quantum number
• soliton
• statistical transmutation
• fractional statistics
• Hall effect

External links

---

• 2004 Nobel Physics Winners
• Nobel autobiography
• Longer biography at Lifeboat Foundation website
• Frank Wilczek MIT homepage
• Papers in ArXiv
• The World's Numerical Recipe
• Scientific articles by Wilczek in the SLAC database
• Wilczek on anyons and superconductivity
• Blog of the Wilczek family's Nobel adventures

1951 births | Living people | MacArthur Fellows | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Nobel Prize in Physics winners | American physicists | Princeton University alumni | Polish-Americans | University of Chicago alumni

Frank Wilczek | Frank Wilczek | Frank Wilczek | Frank Wilczek | Frank Wilczek | フランク・ウィルチェック | Frank Wilczek | Frank Wilczek | Frank Wilczek | Вильчек, Фрэнк | Frank Wilczek | Frank Wilczek | 弗朗克·韦尔切克