String theory has had a long and wonderful history. It originated as a technique to try to understand the strong force. It was a calculational mechanism, a way of approaching a mathematical problem that was too difficult, and it was a promising way, but it was only a technique. It was a mathematical technique rather than a theory in itself.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

Categorized in : Way History Long Strong

Tapestries are made by many artisans working together. The contributions of separate workers cannot be discerned in the completed work, and the loose and false threads have been covered over. So it is in our picture of particle physics.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

working-together research science

We called the new [fourth] quark the "charmed quark" because we were pleased, and fascinated by the symmetry it brought to the subnuclear world. "Charm" also means a "a magical device to avert evil," and in 1970 it was realized that the old three quark theory ran into very serious problems. ... As if by magic the existence of the charmed quark would [solve those problems].

Sheldon Lee Glashow

evil science mean

I think that we scientists are seeking an understanding of the natural world. We come in various types - chemists and physicists and biologists and such - and we all have the same goal. We are making progress.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

think progress understanding world

I think that I got committed to physics at the age of - oh, it must have been 1942 - ten, when most countries were at war and children were interested in airplanes and bombs and such things.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

think age war children

There's something called From 'Alchemy to Quarks,' which will teach you everything you have to know, you want to know, about physics.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

will know you physics

What the string theorists do is arguably physics. It deals with the physical world. They're attempting to make a consistent theory that explains the interactions we see among particles and gravity as well. That's certainly physics, but it's a kind of physics that is not yet testable.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

see gravity physics world

There are physicists, and there are string theorists. Of course the string theorists are physicists, but the string theorists in general will not attend lectures on experimental physics. They will not be terribly concerned about the results of experiments. They will talk to one another.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

will talk results physics

In 1969, John Iliopoulos and Luciano Maiani came to Harvard as research fellows. Together, we found the arguments that predicted the existence of charmed hadrons.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

existence research found together

I came to graduate school at Harvard University in 1954. My thesis supervisor, Julian Schwinger, had about a dozen doctoral students at a time. Getting his ear was as difficult as it was rewarding. I called my thesis 'The Vector Meson in Elementary Particle Decays', and it showed an early commitment to an electroweak synthesis.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

university time commitment school

From an early age, I knew I would become a scientist. It may have been my brother Sam's doing. He interested me in the laws of falling bodies when I was ten and helped my father equip a basement chemistry lab for me when I was fifteen. I became skilled in the synthesis of selenium halides.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

me brother age father

While my parents never had the time or money to secure university education themselves, they were adamant that their children should. In comfort and in love, we were taught the joys of knowledge and of work well done. I only regret that neither my mother nor my father could live to see the day I would accept the Nobel Prize.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

day education work love

In 1956, when I began doing theoretical physics, the study of elementary particles was like a patchwork quilt. Electrodynamics, weak interactions, and strong interactions were clearly separate disciplines, separately taught and separately studied. There was no coherent theory that described them all.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

doing physics study strong

The standard theory may survive as a part of the ultimate theory, or it may turn out to be fundamentally wrong. In either case, it will have been an important way-station, and the next theory will have to be better.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

survive will better important

I had more or less abandoned the idea of an electroweak gauge theory during the period 1961-1970. Of the several reasons for this, one was the failure of my naive foray into renormalizability.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

more naive failure theory

I wish to thank the Nobel Foundation for granting me the greatest honor to which a scientist may aspire.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

me foundation honor wish

My father said I should become a doctor and do science in my spare time, which in retrospect might not have been a bad idea, but I wasn't interested in taking care of people's ills.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

time science father people

My parents, once I made it clear to them that I wanted to do science, they were totally sympathetic.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

parents clear made science

Would physics at Geneva be as good as physics at Harvard? I think not. Rome? I think not. In Britain, I don't think there is one place, neither Cambridge nor Oxford, which can compare with Harvard.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

place good think physics

It's a wonderful honor to win an Ignobel Prize.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

win prize honor wonderful

Plane geometry is sort of the key course where you learn about proving things and abstraction.

Sheldon Lee Glashow

key things you geometry