Wilczek, Frank Anthony, 1951–, American physicist, b. New York City, Ph.D. Princeton, 1974. Wilczek was a professor at Princeton (1974–80, 1989–2000) and at the Univ. of California, Santa Barbara (1980–88). He joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2000. Wilczek, David Gross, and David Politzer shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for their development in 1973 of a mathematical framework that led to quantum chromodynamics (QCD), a theory that explains how the nucleus of atoms works. Concerned with strong interactions, QCD was an important contribution to the standard model of particle physics, which describes all physics in terms of four forces or interactions. Among his books are Longing for teh Harmonies (with B. Devine, 1989), which explores the themes of modern physics, and A Beautiful Question (2015), which examines the role aesthetics plays in physicists' attempts to understand the world.
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