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.
Residence	United States
Nationality	American
Fields	Physics, String Theory
Institutions	University of California, Santa Barbara Harvard University Princeton University
Alma mater	Hebrew University University of California, Berkeley
Doctoral advisor	Geoffrey Chew
Doctoral students	Frank Wilczek Edward Witten William E. Caswell Rajesh Gopakumar Nikita Nekrasov Steven Gottlieb
Known for	Asymptotic freedom Heterotic string
Notable awards	Dirac Medal (1988) Harvey Prize (2000) Nobel Prize in Physics (2004)
Spouse	Shulamith Toaff Gross (divorced; 2 children) Jacquelyn Savani
Signature

David Jonathan Gross (born February 19, 1941) is an American particle 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.

Biography

David Gross and his wife in Santa Barbara

Construction works at Kavli Institute

He was born in Washington, D.C. in February 19th, 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, 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

Gross was one of 20 Nobel Laureates who signed the "Stockholm Memorandum" at the 3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability in Stockholm, Sweden on 18 May 2011.

Gross's hobby is fishing. He once caught a two and three quarters pound bluegill in Florida's Crystal Lake, narrowly missing that state's record.

Honors and awards

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

See also

• List of Jewish Nobel laureates

References

• 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)

External links

• Nobel citation
• ArXiv papers
• Webpage at the Kavli Institute
• Scientific articles of David Gross (INSPIRE-HEP database)
• BBC synopsis on the award
• Interviews