physics

Hugh David Politzer

Hugh David Politzer is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hugh David Politzer rather than just read about it. In short: Hugh David Politzer (; born August 31, 1949) is an American theoretical physicist. He shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics with David Gross and Frank Wilczek "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction".

Key takeaways

Hugh David Politzer belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hugh David Politzer to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hugh David Politzer from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hugh David Politzer (; born August 31, 1949) is an American theoretical physicist. He shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics with David Gross and Frank Wilczek "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction". He is the Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology.

Life and career Politzer was born in New York City. His parents escaped to England from Czechoslovakia in 1939 and immigrated to the U.S. after World War II. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1966, received his bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Michigan in 1969, and his PhD in 1974 from Harvard University, where his graduate advisor was Sidney Coleman. In his first published article, which appeared in 1973, Politzer described the phenomenon of asymptotic freedom: the closer quarks are to each other, the weaker the strong interaction will be between them. When quarks are in extreme proximity, the nuclear force between them is so weak that they behave almost like free particles. This result—independently discovered at around the same time by Gross and Wilczek at Princeton University—was extremely important in the development of quantum chromodynamics. With Thomas Appelquist, Politzer also played a central role in predicting the existence of "charmonium", a subatomic particle formed of a charm quark and a charm antiquark. Politzer was a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows from 1974 to 1977 before moving to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he is currently professor of theoretical physics. In 1986, he was awarded the J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics by the American Physical Society. In 1989, he appeared in a minor role in the movie Fat Man and Little Boy, as Manhattan Project physicist Robert Serber. In 2003 he was awarded the High Energy Particle Physics Prize of the European Physical Society, jointly with David J. Gross and Frank Wilczek. The Nobel Prize in Physics 2004 was awarded jointly to David J. Gross, H. David Politzer and Frank Wilczek "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction." Politzer is one of the 20 American recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics to sign a letter addressed to President George W. Bush in May 2008, urging him to "reverse the damage done to basic science research in the Fiscal Year 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill" by requesting additional emergency funding for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Politzer was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011. Politzer plays the banjo and has done research on the physics of the instrument.

Trivia Politzer was the lead vocalist in the 1980s for Professor Politzer and the Rho Mesons, which put out their single, "The Simple Harmonic Oscillator". Politzer's Erdős-Bacon number is 5 – via appearing in Fat Man and Little Boy with Laura Dern (in Novocaine with Kevin Bacon) and publishing once with Sidney Coleman (Erdős number 2).

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hugh David Politzer

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hugh David Politzer claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hugh David Politzer before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hugh David Politzer ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hugh David Politzer

In research: Hugh David Politzer appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hugh David Politzer in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hugh David Politzer is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1949 births, 21st-century American physicists, American Nobel laureates, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hugh David Politzer outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hugh David Politzer in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hugh David Politzer means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hugh David Politzer out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hugh David Politzer in simple terms?

Why does Hugh David Politzer matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hugh David Politzer?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hugh David Politzer.