MIT World Speakers

Frank Wilczek

Frank Wilczek is known, among other things, for the discovery of asymptotic freedom, the development of quantum chromodynamics, the invention of axions, and the discovery and exploitation of new forms of quantum statistics (anyons). Wilczek was 21 years old and a graduate student at Princeton University when he and David Gross defined the properties of gluons, which hold atomic nuclei together. In October 2004 Wilczek shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Gross and H. David Politzer for this work.

Wilczek is a co-recipient of the 2005 King Faisal International Prize for Science. Among other awards, Wilczek has received the 2003 High Energy and Particle Physics Prize of the European Physical Society; the 2003 Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society; and the 2002 Lorentz Medal of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Wilczek has taught at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He contributes regularly to Physics Today and Nature.