physics

Lance J. Dixon

Lance J. Dixon 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 Lance J. Dixon rather than just read about it. In short: Lance Jenkins Dixon (born 22 June 1961, in Pasadena, California) is an American theoretical particle physicist. He is a professor in the SLAC Theory Group at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) at Stanford University.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Lance Jenkins Dixon (born 22 June 1961, in Pasadena, California) is an American theoretical particle physicist. He is a professor in the SLAC Theory Group at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) at Stanford University. Dixon received in 1982 his B.S. in physics and applied mathematics from Caltech and received in 1986 his doctorate from Princeton University. As a postdoc he was at SLAC. From 1987 he was assistant professor at Princeton University, from 1989 he was a Panofsky Fellow at the SLAC and in 1992 he became an associate professor and in 1998 a full professor at SLAC. He has been a visiting professor at the École normale supérieure and the University of Cambridge (Clare Hall). Starting in the 1990s Dixon developed, with Zvi Bern and others, new methods (generalized unitarity methods among others) for the calculation of Feynman diagrams in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and other Yang–Mills theories. These new methods became more relevant with the requirements of the Large Hadron Collider calculations in the 2000s and also provided new insights into the divergences in the supergravity perturbation series. In 2014, with Zvi Bern and David Kosower, Dixon received the Sakurai Prize for "pathbreaking contributions to the calculation of perturbative scattering amplitudes, which led to a deeper understanding of quantum field theory and to powerful new tools for computing QCD processes." His 1991 publication with Vadim S. Kaplunovsky and Jan Louis has over 800 citations. In 1995 Dixon was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.

Selected publications Dixon "Calculating scattering amplitudes efficiently", TASI Lectures 1996 Dixon "UV Behavior of N = 8 Supergravity", Erice School 2009 Bern, Dixon, Kosower "Quantum Gravity Particles may resemble ordinary particles of force2", Scientific American, May 2012 Bern, Dixon, Kosower "On-shell methods in perturbative QCD", Annals of Physics, 322, 2007, 1587–1634 Bern, Dixon, Kosower "Progress in 1 loop QCD calculations", Annual Review Nuclear Particle Physics, 46, 1996, 109–148

Awards, honors Fellow, American Physical Society, 1995 Fellow, National Academy of Sciences, 2022 Galileo Galilei Medal, 2023

References

External links Homepage at SLAC "Do we need String Theory for Quantum Gravity? - Lance Dixon (SETI Talks)". YouTube. 25 September 2011. "Lance Dixon - Amplitudeology - 1". YouTube. 21 August 2017. "Lance J. Dixon: Cosmic Galois Theory and Amplitudes in N=4 Super Yang Mills Theory". YouTube. 23 March 2018. "Theorists love giant formulas (even more than coffee), SLAC". YouTube. 6 June 2018.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lance J. Dixon

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Lance J. Dixon 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 Lance J. Dixon 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 Lance J. Dixon 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 Lance J. Dixon

In research: Lance J. Dixon 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 Lance J. Dixon 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: Lance J. Dixon is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1961 births, 21st-century American physicists, American particle physicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lance J. Dixon 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 Lance J. Dixon in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Lance J. Dixon 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 Lance J. Dixon out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Lance J. Dixon in simple terms?

Why does Lance J. Dixon 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 Lance J. Dixon?

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 Lance J. Dixon.