Word: weinberg
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...unification of two of the forces is, ultimately, where Glashow, Weinberg, and their fellow recipient, Pakistani Dr. Abdus Salam, fit in. But not right away. Before their breakthrough came a legion of wayward plaths, of errors and frustrations. "Nobel Laureate Julian Schwinger," Glashow will say of his great mentor, "attacked the problem, but even he came away discouraged. There were too many mysteries." This was as recently as 1955, and at this time only a lonely few really believed that someone would prove this abstract theory...
...distances over which the two forces act, but this mathematical parallel nonetheless represented a gummer of hope. Glashow broke through in 1961 with a radical conception a neutral vector boson. This immediately resolved many of the most nagging paradoxes, and ultimately proved to be the cornerstone on which the Weinberg-Salam theory was based...
...Steven Weinberg's contribution came six years later, in 1967, when he and Salam simultaneously but separately published a system of equations known today as "guage theory." Guage theory serves as a sort of mathematical telescope, changing one frame of reference completely so as to allow it to be compared to another. In this particular instance, the two frames of reference were the electromagnetic forces, which act on large, easily-observed objects, and the weak forces, which act on sub-atomic particles. Guage theory reveled striking symmetries" that otherwise would not have been observable...
Harvard is acknowledged to have the strongest particle physics department in the country, and Glashow and Weinberg are its two greatest luminaries. But even so, their selection is something of an anomaly. In the first place, the Swedish Academy generally doesn't award the prize to a theoretical physicist until after his theory is completely proven. Embarassing situations might otherwise arise. While all evidence points clearly toward its being correct, thorough proof remains elusive. So, as Glashow terms it, the award is "a leap of faith." Also, the prize traditionally is not awarded to a scientist right away. As colleague...
Both Glashow and Weinberg have a manifest interest in popularizing their fields. A few years ago, Weinberg published "The First Three Minutes" a work which reconstructs in layman's terms the events that followed the Big Bang. It was an enormous success, both here and abroad, and has been translated into many languages. In fact, the book has sold much better in Germany than in the U.S. Glashow, who plans one day to write a book along the lines of his undergraduate course, finds this disturbing: "a better scientifically informed public would be far more capable of dealing with...