Yahoo: Physicist Edward Witten on the future of quantum theory
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Edward Witten
Edward Witten is an American theoretical physicist known for his contributions to string theory, topological quantum field theory, and various areas of mathematics. He is a professor emeritus in the school of natural sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Witten is a researcher in string theory, quantum gravity, supersymmetric quantum field theories, and other areas of mathemat…
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science · American theoretical physicist · mathematician · physicist · university teacher · theoretical physicist · string theorist · also Edward Witten, Ed Witten, Witten
Born 26 August 1951 · Q201513
52 published statements · 0 followers
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2026· 2 entries
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Edward Witten
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2025· 1 entry
Awarded Honorary Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales (2025).
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2019· 1 entry
Awarded Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2019).
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2016· 4 entries
Awarded honorary doctor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2016).
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Won APS Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research (2016).
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Awarded Albert Einstein World Award of Science (2016).
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Has also brought tensor models to the relevance of holographic and quantum gravity theories, by using them as a generalization of the Sachdev–Ye–Kitaev model
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2014· 1 entry
Awarded Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences (2014).
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2013· 1 entry
Awarded Fellow of the American Mathematical Society (2013).
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2012· 2 entries
Awarded Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2012).
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Became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society
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2010· 2 entries
Won Lorentz Medal (2010).
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Won Isaac Newton Medal (2010).
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2009· 1 entry
Published “The WEKA data mining software” in ACM SIGKDD Explorations Newsletter — cited 13,093 times.
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2008· 1 entry
Awarded Crafoord Prize in Mathematics (2008).
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2006· 1 entry
Awarded Henri Poincaré Prize (2006).
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2005· 2 entries
Awarded honorary doctor of Harvard University (2005).
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Awarded Harvey Prize (2005).
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2002· 2 entries
Awarded Clarivate Citation Laureates (2002).
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Won National Medal of Science (2002).
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2001· 1 entry
Awarded Clay Research Award (2001).
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2000· 1 entry
Awarded Nemmers Prize in Mathematics (2000).
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1999· 1 entry
Awarded Foreign Member of the Royal Society (1999).
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1998· 3 entries
Awarded Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics (1998).
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Awarded Josiah Willard Gibbs Lectureship (1998).
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Won Oskar Klein Medal (1998).
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1997· 2 entries
Won Golden Plate Award (1997).
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Juan Maldacena formulated a result known as the AdS/CFT correspondence, which establishes a relationship between certain quantum field theories and theories of quantum gravity
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1993· 1 entry
Won James Madison Medal (1993).
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1991· 8 entries
“It was clear that if I didn't spend the rest of my life concentrating on string theory, I would simply be missing my life's calling.”
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“It is very possible that a proper understanding of string theory will make the space-time continuum melt away.... String theory is a miracle through and through.”
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“Vibrating strings in 10 dimensions is just a weird fact... An explanation of that weird fact would tell you why there are 10 dimensions in the first place.”
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“I don't think that any physicist would have been clever enough to have invented string theory on purpose... Luckily, it was invented by accident.”
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“String theory is extremely attractive because gravity is forced upon us. All known consistent string theories include gravity, so while gravity is impossible in quantum field theory as we have known it, it is obligatory in string theory.”
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“Even though it is, properly speaking, a postprediction, in the sense that the experiment was made before the theory, the fact that gravity is a consequence of string theory, to me, is one of the greatest theoretical insights ever.”
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“Good wrong ideas are extremely scarce... and good wrong ideas that even remotely rival the majesty of string theory have never been seen.”
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“We know a lot of things, but what we don't know is a lot more.”
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1990· 2 entries
Won Fields medal (1990).
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Became the first physicist to be awarded a Fields Medal by the International Mathematical Union, for his mathematical insights in physics, such as his 1981 proof of the positive energy theorem in general relativity, a
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1987· 1 entry
“I just learnt a new way to find exact S-matrices in two dimensions invented by Zamolodchikov and I want to extend the ideas to supersymmetric models. You are the S-matrix expert, aren”
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1986· 1 entry
Awarded Alan T. Waterman Award (1986).
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1985· 2 entries
Won ICTP Dirac Medal (1985).
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Won Albert Einstein Medal (1985).
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1984· 1 entry
A member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1988, and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1993
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1982· 1 entry
Awarded MacArthur Fellows Program (1982).
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1981· 1 entry
Of the positive energy theorem in general relativity
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1976· 1 entry
Studied at Princeton University (1976).
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1973· 1 entry
Then shifting departments and receiving a PhD in physics in 1976 and completing a dissertation, "Some problems in the short distance analysis of gauge theories", under the supervision of David Gross
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1972· 1 entry
Worked for six months on George McGovern's presidential campaign
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1951· 2 entries
Born 1951-08-26.
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In Baltimore, Maryland, to a Jewish family, as the eldest of four children
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