Awarded the Nobel prize for Physics for his discovery of the Unified Theory of Weak and Electromagnetic Interactions, he was an out-spoken rationalist and critic of local weather change deniers
Undoubtedly probably the most influential particle physicist within the final 5 a long time, Prof. Steven Weinberg died on the age of 88 on July 23 at Austin, Texas.
Though Prof. Weinberg died final Friday and that data was shared on social media by shocked scientists, there was no point out in mainstream print and tv information media. The uncertainty continued for 48 hours, resulting in hypothesis that it was pretend information. However, a condolence be aware from the University of Texas the place he was Professor, put to relaxation all rumours although particulars of the trigger of demise are nonetheless not identified.
Steven Weinberg shared the Nobel prize for Physics in 1979 with Sheldon Glashow of Harvard, U.S.A. and Abdus Salam of Imperial College, London, UK, for his discovery of the Unified Theory of Weak and Electromagnetic Interactions. He was the Director of Theory Research Group and Regental Professor on the University of Texas. His spouse, Louise Weinberg, is a Professor in Legal Studies on the University. They have one baby.
He had his schooling at Cornell and Princeton University. He was a school at California University at Berkeley, MIT, Columbia University and have become a Professor at Harvard. He moved to Austin in 1982 from Harvard and was instrumental in growing the High Energy Physics Group there. His excellent analysis on elementary particle physics and cosmology obtained him the Nobel Prize in Physics, the National Medal of Science, and American Philosophical Society awarded Benjamin Franklin Medal, Oppenheimer Prize, and lots of different awards. He was elected to the National Academy of Science and Britain’s Royal Society and different academies, and holds sixteen honorary doctoral levels from internationally well-known Universities. The checklist of awards, honours, memberships of societies runs into a number of pages.
Prof. Weinberg has greater than 350 publications of nice reputation and 15 books to his credit score. These books embody his exposition of The Quantum principle of Fields I, II, III and Gravitation and Cosmology – Principles and Applications of the General Theory of Relativity. These books are just like the Bible for all graduate college students pursuing analysis in excessive power physics, gravitation or astrophysics. He has greater than 50,000 citations, many of that are categorized as extremely influential.
Seminal contributions
He is well-known for his Electro-weak unified principle, Weinberg angle, Weinberg-Witten theorem, Asymptotic security, Axion mannequin, Technicolour and a number of other different contributions. His work on electroweak unification wanted a brand new gauge particle often known as W boson which was found 10 years later. The identical work left a spot for a particle often known as Higgs particle, wanted to interrupt the symmetry which needed to look ahead to 40 years to be found.
His extraordinary skills to reveal advanced topics led him to jot down books resembling The first three minutes: A contemporary view of the origin of the Universe, which has been translated into 22 languages together with Tamil, and Dreams of a closing principle (translated into 16 languages). His newest ebook, To clarify the world, revealed in 2015, brings out his deep dedication to know nature and its legal guidelines.
Prof. Weinberg was a rationalist and spoke in opposition to irrational anti-science concepts with out hesitation. He wrote the ebook Facing Up: Science and its Cultural Adversaries, exposing the hurt achieved by irrational and non secular concepts. In now, oft-quoted remarks, he mentioned: “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion. Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things”.
He was a self-declared atheist and firmly dedicated to science and expressed his view on faith and God fearlessly: “Science does not make it impossible to believe in God, it just makes it possible not to believe in God.”
Before Big Bang principle began having proof he was interested in Steady State principle of Hoyle and Narlikar: This he attributed to: “The steady state theory is philosophically the most attractive theory because it least resembles the account given in Genesis.”
My private interactions occurred on two events. The first was once I visited Texas University on the invitation of one other nice physicist, Prof. E.C.G. Sudarshan. I attended Prof. Weinberg’s lectures on quantum mechanics — new proposals which have been good. On the second event, when he visited Dublin for a lecture at Trinity College, he explicitly put within the dustbin the claims that historical Indians had information of atoms, and pace of mild as talked about in Vedic literature. He mentioned there have been no equipments, applied sciences and equipment obtainable at the moment to make these claims.
In the late 80’s there have been severe efforts at constructing a superconducting tremendous collider (SSC) in Texas, proposed by Leon Lederman, Nobel laureate of the `God Particle’ fame. Prof. Weinberg was within the Science Policy committee for the SSC. He argued vehemently in favour of the mission. However, after spending $2 billion, this system was cancelled as a result of opposition from some senators. They have been additionally backed by different outstanding scientists just like the Nobel Laureate P.W. Anderson from the sector of Condensed matter physics, who in all probability thought that it will be a drain on assets obtainable for different fields of analysis.
Weinberg was upset with the cancellation. The consequence was that the rivals in Europe achieved the development of Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Geneva, which made improbable discoveries that ended up with the invention of the lacking hyperlink the Higgs particle. Prof. Roy Shwitters, the Director of SSC Laboratory speculated that, had the mission been accomplished, it will have led to the invention of the Higgs boson particle 10 years earlier than.
Pushed for peace
Weinberg was in opposition to the U.S. withdrawal from Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. He together with 50 intellectuals and scientists requested the U.S. Congress to not assist funding for missile parts which might end in violations of the treaty. Unfortunately the U.S. withdrew from the treaty in 2001.
He was additionally in opposition to the local weather change deniers. He remarked after receiving an honorary doctorate from Rockefeller University, “It is generally foolish to bet against the judgements of science, and in this case of climate change, where the planet is at stake, it is insane.”
His books, contributions in particle physics and his views on social points are extraordinary and his demise is a good loss for science and the world.
T.R. Govindarajan is professor (retired), The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai
