David J. Gross
Submitted by comrax on Wed, 30/01/2013 - 13:06
Professor David Gross
Nobel Laureate in Physics, 2004
Prof. David Gross was awarded received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction, the force operating between quarks. He received the prize along with H. David Politzer and Frank Wilczek.
David Gross is one of the world’s foremost theoretical physicists. He has won international recognition for his research into the long and short-distance properties of the color force, the force that binds quarks and gluons into protons and neutrons, the latter of which are the constituents of atoms. This interaction is one of the four pillars constituting the standard model describing all forces between the fundamental particles. In addition, his research and discoveries in string theory, a field that attempts to define even smaller, more fundamental building blocks of matter, have greatly influenced the search for a unified theory of the basic forces in nature.
Prof. Gross was born in 1941 in Washington, D.C. When he was 12 years old, his family came to Israel along with the first Advisory Team from the US. When the team’s work was finished, his family decided to stay, and his father was among those who established the School of Business Administration at the Hebrew University. David Gross studied physics and mathematics at the Hebrew University and earned a doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley.
Prof. Gross visits the Hebrew University frequently, and has headed its annual Jerusalem Winter School for Theoretical Physics at the Institute for Advanced Studies. He continues to maintain close ties with colleagues at the Racah Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University, and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University (2001). He is currently a Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.