Witten was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the son of Lorraine (Wollach) Witten and Louis Witten, a theoretical physicist specializing in gravitation and general relativity.[3]
Witten attended the Park School of Baltimore (class of '68), and received his Bachelor of Arts with a major in history and minor in linguistics from Brandeis University in 1971. He published articles in The New Republic and The Nation. In 1968, Witten published an article in The Nation arguing that the New Left had no strategy.[4] He worked briefly for George McGovern's presidential campaign. McGovern lost the 1972 election in a landslide to Richard Nixon.
Witten attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison for one semester as an economics graduate student before dropping out.[4] He returned to academia, enrolling in applied mathematics at Princeton University in 1973, then shifting departments and receiving a Ph.D. in physics in 1976 under David Gross,[4] the 2004 Nobel laureate in Physics. He held a fellowship at Harvard University (1976–77), was a junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows (1977–80), and held a MacArthur Foundation fellowship (1982).
Research[edit]
Fields medal work[edit]
Witten was awarded the Fields Medal by the International Mathematical Union in 1990, becoming the first physicist to win the prize.
In a written address to the ICM, Michael Atiyah said of Witten,[1]
Although he is definitely a physicist (as his list of publications clearly shows) his command of mathematics is rivaled by few mathematicians, and his ability to interpret physical ideas in mathematical form is quite unique. Time and again he has surprised the mathematical community by a brilliant application of physical insight leading to new and deep mathematical ...
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...s. These versions are known as type I, type IIA, type IIB, and the two flavors of heterotic string theory (SO(32) and E8×E8). The thinking was that out of these five candidate theories, only one was the actual correct theory of everything, and that theory was the one whose low energy limit matched the physics observed in our world today.
Speaking at the string theory conference at University of Southern California in 1995, Witten made the surprising suggestion that these five string theories were in fact not distinct theories, but different limits of a single theory which he called M-theory.[12][13] Witten's proposal was based on the observation that the five string theories can be mapped to one another by certain rules called dualities and are identified by these dualities.
Witten's announcement led to a flurry of work now known as the second superstring revolution.
compromise of the two theories. There was also some debate over the power of the
After two years at Fisk University, DuBois transferred to Harvard his junior year. In 1890, he graduated cum laude from Harvard and was one of the six graduation speakers. He continued his education by pursuing graduate studies at the University of Berlin in history and economics. DuBois received his master of arts in 1891 and in 1895 received his doctorate in history from Harvard.... ...
theory. Each theory was difficult to prove but great theories. But both theories had it's ups and
Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity has had a colossal impact on the world and is the accepted physical theory reg...
1921 moved to Berlin, married, edited a journal called Scripta Universitatis atque Bibliothecae Hierosolymitarum, the mathematical-physical section was prepared by Albert Einstein. This journal played a big role in developing the Hebrew University in Jerusalem,
Essentially this theory states that a theory, once the hypothesis has been made, should go through rounds where the scientist must try to prove the hypothesis false, or null. If the scientist is unable to do so, then the theory must be true.
When one theory is found to be false, another theory is quickly postulated to cover the first error.
Senator Cory Booker was born to two civil rights activists Cary and Carolyn Booker on April 27, 1969 in Washington D.C. Senator Booker was raised in an affluent white neighborhood in New Jersey. Both of Sen. Booker’s parents were among the first African American executives at International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). Sen. Booker has stated in multiple interviews that his family was able to buy their family home because of housing right activist. (Booker Senate)
...ysics.” Although he did possess some personal qualities and knowledge that enabled him to look at things differently and allowed him to answer many difficult questions in the 20th century, without any help from other scientists modern physics would look very different from what it looks like right now. His views and ideas had to conform with previously established principles, had to be logically valid and had to go through a review process before being accepted as a part of the discipline of physics. This shows how strong personal knowledge led to advances in an area of knowledge and in shared knowledge.
Theory is an attempt to explain the unexplained, to give title to the untitled and to give reason to the unreasonable. It is a combination of existing knowledge and newly acquired knowledge that allows us to make assumptions in order to realize reasonably foreseeable outcomes. It is only in the realms of science, physics and mathematics that the repeated application
...ually throughout the processes of the theory, certain words and definitions need to be decided on and kept. Confusion prevails when the terms and ways to understand the theory are continually changing.
Sir Karl Popper's lecture was very thought provoking concerning "where to draw the line." Unlike most people, the validity of the theory was not his concern as much as how that validity is determined. This is an issue that really does not get the attention that it deserves. Popper's claims concerning, "When should a theory be ranked as scientific?" and "Is there a criterion for the scientific character or status of a theory?" seems to be put together in the following summary.
Later in his life, Feynman attended college as a physics major. He finished his first four years in 1939 at MIT, and then moved on to Princeton for graduate school. While at Princeton, Feynman proposed to Arline. The two planned to be married after hecom...
of the Theory of Superstrings and the Theory of Everything in 1974 saw a new
"The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921". nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2013. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.