Musings

My little story about how I found out about this year’s Nobelists.

Just before 9:30, Tuesday morning, most of the students had made their way to the field theory class, on the outskirts of the UCSB campus, and David Berenstein was sitting patiently at the front of the classroom. At the appropriate time, he stood up and informed the class of the day’s agenda: “I will spend the first 10 minutes talking about what I had prepared, and the rest of the time talking about today’s Nobelist.” Having not read the news, checked my email, or even been to the physics building before class, I thought me was referring to ‘t Hooft, who was giving a colloquium that day on Hawking’s recent “proof”. He started talking vaguely about gauge theories–fine, fine, perfectly in line with ‘t Hooft–but instead of talking about their renormalizability, he starts going into coupling strengths and asymptotic freedom. Definitely not ‘t Hooft he’s talking about. Thoroughly confused, I turn to the person behind me and ask, what’s going on. “Gross won the Nobel.” Awe-struck, I turn to the front and hear about the day’s festivities planned for our fourth current Laureate (as I heard him referred to numerous times during the day).

For the rest of the day, there was the expected excitement and news coverage, plus an impressive number of posters, given the short time. I do not think it could have come at a more appropriate time, because the ITP is in the middle of a program on QCD and string theory.