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58-555: The project was founded in 2001 by Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann when he decided to partner with Sergei Starostin and Merritt Ruhlen to map out the evolutionary tree of human languages. Initial funding was provided by the Santa Fe Institute and the MacArthur Foundation . It is currently led by Russian linguist Georgiy Starostin , the son of Sergei Starostin . Many of the project's members belong to

116-549: A luminiferous aether . Conversely, Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for explaining the photoelectric effect , previously an experimental result lacking a theoretical formulation. A physical theory is a model of physical events. It is judged by the extent to which its predictions agree with empirical observations. The quality of a physical theory is also judged on its ability to make new predictions which can be verified by new observations. A physical theory differs from

174-504: A mathematical theorem in that while both are based on some form of axioms , judgment of mathematical applicability is not based on agreement with any experimental results. A physical theory similarly differs from a mathematical theory , in the sense that the word "theory" has a different meaning in mathematical terms. R i c = k g {\displaystyle \mathrm {Ric} =kg} The equations for an Einstein manifold , used in general relativity to describe

232-543: A Yang-Mills theory of "quark color," and coined the term quantum chromodynamics (QCD) as the gauge theory of the strong interaction. The quark model is a part of QCD, and it has been robust enough to accommodate in a natural fashion the discovery of new " flavors " of quarks, which has superseded the eightfold way scheme. Gell-Mann was responsible, with Pierre Ramond and Richard Slansky , and independently of Peter Minkowski , Rabindra Mohapatra , Goran Senjanović , Sheldon Glashow , and Tsutomu Yanagida, for proposing

290-579: A bachelor's degree in physics in 1948 and intended to pursue graduate studies in physics. He sought to remain in the Ivy League for his graduate education and applied to Princeton University as well as Harvard University . He was rejected by Princeton and accepted by Harvard, but the latter institution was unable to offer him needed financial assistance. He was accepted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and received

348-404: A certain economy and elegance (compare to mathematical beauty ), a notion sometimes called " Occam's razor " after the 13th-century English philosopher William of Occam (or Ockham), in which the simpler of two theories that describe the same matter just as adequately is preferred (but conceptual simplicity may mean mathematical complexity). They are also more likely to be accepted if they connect

406-648: A common source inevitably lose almost all superficially common features after some 6,000-7,000 years". The Tower of Babel  [ ru ] is an international etymological database project that is part of the Evolution of Human Languages project. It is coordinated by the Center of Comparative Linguistics  [ ru ] of the Russian State University for the Humanities . In 2011,

464-500: A form of protoscience and others are a form of pseudoscience . The falsification of the original theory sometimes leads to reformulation of the theory. "Thought" experiments are situations created in one's mind, asking a question akin to "suppose you are in this situation, assuming such is true, what would follow?". They are usually created to investigate phenomena that are not readily experienced in every-day situations. Famous examples of such thought experiments are Schrödinger's cat ,

522-583: A letter from Victor Weisskopf urging him to attend MIT and become Weisskopf's research assistant. This would provide Gell-Mann with the financial assistance he required. Unaware of MIT's eminent status in physics research, Gell-Mann was "miserable" with the fact that he would not be able to attend Princeton or Harvard and in characteristic dark irony, said he considered suicide. Gell-Mann stated that he realized he could try to first enter MIT and commit suicide afterwards if he found it to be truly terrible. However, he couldn't first choose suicide and then attend MIT;

580-561: A method of systematically exploiting symmetries to extract predictions from quark models, in the absence of reliable dynamical theory. This method led to model-independent sum rules confirmed by experiment, and provided starting points underpinning the development of the Standard Model (SM), the widely accepted theory of elementary particles. In 1972 Gell-Mann, while on sabbatical leave to CERN, together with Harald Fritzsch , Heinrich Leutwyler and William A. Bardeen , considered

638-498: A new branch of mathematics: infinite, orthogonal series . Modern theoretical physics attempts to unify theories and explain phenomena in further attempts to understand the Universe , from the cosmological to the elementary particle scale. Where experimentation cannot be done, theoretical physics still tries to advance through the use of mathematical models. Mainstream theories (sometimes referred to as central theories ) are

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696-471: A novel classification scheme, in 1961, for hadrons . A similar scheme had been independently proposed by Yuval Ne'eman , and has come to be explained by the quark model. Gell-Mann referred to the scheme as the eightfold way , because of the octets of particles in the classification (the term is a reference to the Eightfold Path of Buddhism ). Gell-Mann, along with Maurice Lévy, developed

754-545: A nuclear research facility in Switzerland, among others as a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellow in 1972. In 1984 Gell-Mann was one of several co-founders of the Santa Fe Institute —a non-profit theoretical research institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico intended to study various aspects of a complex system and disseminate the notion of a separate interdisciplinary study of complexity theory. He wrote

812-465: A physical system might be modeled; e.g., the notion, due to Riemann and others, that space itself might be curved. Theoretical problems that need computational investigation are often the concern of computational physics . Theoretical advances may consist in setting aside old, incorrect paradigms (e.g., aether theory of light propagation, caloric theory of heat, burning consisting of evolving phlogiston , or astronomical bodies revolving around

870-579: A popular science book about physics and complexity science, The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex (1994). The title of the book is taken from a line of a poem by Arthur Sze : "The world of the quark has everything to do with a jaguar circling in the night". The author George Johnson has written a biography of Gell-Mann, Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann, and

928-455: A son. Margaret died in 1981, and in 1992 he married Marcia Southwick , whose son became his stepson. In 2011, Gell-Mann attended an event on Jeffrey Epstein 's private island, Little Saint James , known as the "Mindshift Conference", hosted by Epstein and Al Seckel . Gell-Mann's extensive interests outside of physics included archaeology , numismatics , birdwatching and linguistics . Along with S. A. Starostin , he established

986-469: A wide range of phenomena. Testing the consequences of a theory is part of the scientific method . Physical theories can be grouped into three categories: mainstream theories , proposed theories and fringe theories . Theoretical physics began at least 2,300 years ago, under the Pre-socratic philosophy , and continued by Plato and Aristotle , whose views held sway for a millennium. During

1044-574: The Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School aged 14 and subsequently entered Yale College as a member of Jonathan Edwards College . At Yale, he participated in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition and was on the team representing Yale University (along with Murray Gerstenhaber and Henry O. Pollak ) that won the second prize in 1947. Gell-Mann graduated from Yale with

1102-539: The EPR thought experiment , simple illustrations of time dilation , and so on. These usually lead to real experiments designed to verify that the conclusion (and therefore the assumptions) of the thought experiments are correct. The EPR thought experiment led to the Bell inequalities , which were then tested to various degrees of rigor , leading to the acceptance of the current formulation of quantum mechanics and probabilism as

1160-718: The Evolution of Human Languages project at the Santa Fe Institute . As a humanist and an agnostic , Gell-Mann was a Humanist Laureate in the International Academy of Humanism . Novelist Cormac McCarthy saw Gell-Mann as a polymath who "knew more things about more things than anyone I've ever met...losing Murray is like losing the Encyclopædia Britannica ." Gell-Mann died on May 24, 2019, at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Gell-Mann

1218-623: The Global Lexicostatistical Database  [ ru ] (GLD) was launched as part of the EHL project. The database makes use of the Unified Transcription System (UTS), designed specifically for the database. The Global Lexicostatistical Database includes basic word lists of 110 items each for many of the world's languages. The 110-word list is a modified 100-item Swadesh list consisting of

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1276-554: The Moscow School of Comparative Linguistics , including Georgiy Starostin and Ilia Peiros . Other project members include Vaclav Blazek , John D. Bengtson , Edward Vajda , and other linguists. The Evolution of Human Languages (EHL) is an international project – of which Georgiy Starostin inherited his father's membership – on "the linguistic prehistory of humanity" coordinated by the Santa Fe Institute . The project distinguishes about 6,000 languages currently spoken around

1334-572: The Scientific Revolution gathered pace, the concepts of matter , energy, space, time and causality slowly began to acquire the form we know today, and other sciences spun off from the rubric of natural philosophy . Thus began the modern era of theory with the Copernican paradigm shift in astronomy, soon followed by Johannes Kepler 's expressions for planetary orbits, which summarized the meticulous observations of Tycho Brahe ;

1392-603: The quantum mechanical idea that ( action and) energy are not continuously variable. Theoretical physics consists of several different approaches. In this regard, theoretical particle physics forms a good example. For instance: " phenomenologists " might employ ( semi- ) empirical formulas and heuristics to agree with experimental results, often without deep physical understanding . "Modelers" (also called "model-builders") often appear much like phenomenologists, but try to model speculative theories that have certain desirable features (rather than on experimental data), or apply

1450-523: The seesaw theory of neutrino masses . This produces masses at the large scale in any theory with a right-handed neutrino. He is also known to have played a role in keeping string theory alive through the 1970s and early 1980s, supporting that line of research at a time when it was a topic of niche interest. Gell-Mann was a proponent of the consistent histories approach to understanding quantum mechanics, which he advocated in papers with James Hartle . Gell-Mann won numerous awards and honours including

1508-420: The sigma model of pions , which describes low-energy pion interactions. In 1964, Gell-Mann and, independently, George Zweig went on to postulate the existence of quarks , particles which make up the hadrons of this scheme. The name "quark" was coined by Gell-Mann, and is a reference to the novel Finnegans Wake , by James Joyce ("Three quarks for Muster Mark!" book 2, episode 4). Zweig had referred to

1566-461: The two-fluid theory of electricity are two cases in this point. However, an exception to all the above is the wave–particle duality , a theory combining aspects of different, opposing models via the Bohr complementarity principle . Physical theories become accepted if they are able to make correct predictions and no (or few) incorrect ones. The theory should have, at least as a secondary objective,

1624-427: The violation of parity by Chien-Shiung Wu , as suggested theoretically by Chen-Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee . Gell-Mann's work in the 1950s involved recently discovered cosmic ray particles that came to be called kaons and hyperons . Classifying these particles led him to propose that a quantum number , called strangeness , would be conserved by the strong and the electromagnetic interactions, but not by

1682-678: The 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. Gell-Mann was born in Lower Manhattan to a family of Jewish immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire , specifically from Czernowitz in present-day Ukraine . His parents were Pauline (née Reichstein) and Arthur Isidore Gelman, who taught English as a second language . Propelled by an intense boyhood curiosity and love for nature and mathematics, he graduated valedictorian from

1740-429: The 19th century. Another important event in the 19th century was the discovery of electromagnetic theory , unifying the previously separate phenomena of electricity, magnetism and light. The pillars of modern physics , and perhaps the most revolutionary theories in the history of physics, have been relativity theory and quantum mechanics . Newtonian mechanics was subsumed under special relativity and Newton's gravity

1798-476: The Dutchmen Snell and Huygens. In the 18th and 19th centuries Joseph-Louis Lagrange , Leonhard Euler and William Rowan Hamilton would extend the theory of classical mechanics considerably. They picked up the interactive intertwining of mathematics and physics begun two millennia earlier by Pythagoras. Among the great conceptual achievements of the 19th and 20th centuries were the consolidation of

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1856-587: The Earth ) or may be an alternative model that provides answers that are more accurate or that can be more widely applied. In the latter case, a correspondence principle will be required to recover the previously known result . Sometimes though, advances may proceed along different paths. For example, an essentially correct theory may need some conceptual or factual revisions; atomic theory , first postulated millennia ago (by several thinkers in Greece and India ) and

1914-703: The Revolution in 20th-Century Physics (1999), which was shortlisted for the Royal Society Book Prize . Although Gell-Mann himself criticized Strange Beauty for some inaccuracies, with one interviewer reporting him wincing at the mention of it, the book was acclaimed by a number of his colleagues. A revised second edition was published in 2023 by the Santa Fe Institute Press with a foreword by Douglas Hofstadter . In 2012 Gell-Mann and his companion Mary McFadden published

1972-419: The applications of relativity to problems in astronomy and cosmology respectively . All of these achievements depended on the theoretical physics as a moving force both to suggest experiments and to consolidate results — often by ingenious application of existing mathematics, or, as in the case of Descartes and Newton (with Leibniz ), by inventing new mathematics. Fourier's studies of heat conduction led to

2030-514: The body of knowledge of both factual and scientific views and possess a usual scientific quality of the tests of repeatability, consistency with existing well-established science and experimentation. There do exist mainstream theories that are generally accepted theories based solely upon their effects explaining a wide variety of data, although the detection, explanation, and possible composition are subjects of debate. The proposed theories of physics are usually relatively new theories which deal with

2088-461: The book Mary McFadden: A Lifetime of Design, Collecting, and Adventure . In 1958, Gell-Mann in collaboration with Richard Feynman , in parallel with the independent team of E. C. George Sudarshan and Robert Marshak , discovered the chiral structures of the weak interaction of physics and developed the V-A theory (vector minus axial vector theory). This work followed the experimental discovery of

2146-441: The curvature of spacetime A physical theory involves one or more relationships between various measurable quantities. Archimedes realized that a ship floats by displacing its mass of water, Pythagoras understood the relation between the length of a vibrating string and the musical tone it produces. Other examples include entropy as a measure of the uncertainty regarding the positions and motions of unseen particles and

2204-592: The following: Universities that gave Gell-Mann honorary doctorates include Cambridge , Columbia , the University of Chicago , Oxford and Yale . Theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict natural phenomena . This is in contrast to experimental physics , which uses experimental tools to probe these phenomena. The advancement of science generally depends on

2262-416: The highest order, writing Principia Mathematica . In it contained a grand synthesis of the work of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler; as well as Newton's theories of mechanics and gravitation, which held sway as worldviews until the early 20th century. Simultaneously, progress was also made in optics (in particular colour theory and the ancient science of geometrical optics ), courtesy of Newton, Descartes and

2320-455: The idea of energy (as well as its global conservation) by the inclusion of heat , electricity and magnetism , and then light . The laws of thermodynamics , and most importantly the introduction of the singular concept of entropy began to provide a macroscopic explanation for the properties of matter. Statistical mechanics (followed by statistical physics and Quantum statistical mechanics ) emerged as an offshoot of thermodynamics late in

2378-570: The interplay between experimental studies and theory . In some cases, theoretical physics adheres to standards of mathematical rigour while giving little weight to experiments and observations. For example, while developing special relativity , Albert Einstein was concerned with the Lorentz transformation which left Maxwell's equations invariant, but was apparently uninterested in the Michelson–Morley experiment on Earth 's drift through

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2436-675: The late 1920s. In the aftermath of World War 2, more progress brought much renewed interest in QFT, which had since the early efforts, stagnated. The same period also saw fresh attacks on the problems of superconductivity and phase transitions, as well as the first applications of QFT in the area of theoretical condensed matter. The 1960s and 70s saw the formulation of the Standard model of particle physics using QFT and progress in condensed matter physics (theoretical foundations of superconductivity and critical phenomena , among others ), in parallel to

2494-584: The original 100 Swadesh list items, in addition to the following 10 additional words from the Swadesh–Yakhontov list : The 110-word expanded Swadesh list by Kassian et al. (2010) is as follows. A 50-word list of "ultra-stable" items for lexicostatiscal use with the database was also proposed in 2010. The 50-word list is an abridged version of the 110-word list. Videos Murray Gell-Mann Murray Gell-Mann ( / ˈ m ʌr i ˈ ɡ ɛ l ˈ m æ n / ; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019)

2552-409: The particles as "aces", but Gell-Mann's name caught on. Quarks, antiquarks, and gluons were soon established as the underlying elementary objects in the study of the structure of hadrons. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1969 for his contributions and discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions. In the 1960s, he introduced current algebra as

2610-419: The process of becoming established and some proposed theories. It can include speculative sciences. This includes physics fields and physical theories presented in accordance with known evidence, and a body of associated predictions have been made according to that theory. Some fringe theories go on to become a widely accepted part of physics. Other fringe theories end up being disproven. Some fringe theories are

2668-607: The rise of medieval universities , the only acknowledged intellectual disciplines were the seven liberal arts of the Trivium like grammar , logic , and rhetoric and of the Quadrivium like arithmetic , geometry , music and astronomy . During the Middle Ages and Renaissance , the concept of experimental science, the counterpoint to theory, began with scholars such as Ibn al-Haytham and Francis Bacon . As

2726-484: The study of physics which include scientific approaches, means for determining the validity of models and new types of reasoning used to arrive at the theory. However, some proposed theories include theories that have been around for decades and have eluded methods of discovery and testing. Proposed theories can include fringe theories in the process of becoming established (and, sometimes, gaining wider acceptance). Proposed theories usually have not been tested. In addition to

2784-443: The techniques of mathematical modeling to physics problems. Some attempt to create approximate theories, called effective theories , because fully developed theories may be regarded as unsolvable or too complicated . Other theorists may try to unify , formalise, reinterpret or generalise extant theories, or create completely new ones altogether. Sometimes the vision provided by pure mathematical systems can provide clues to how

2842-472: The theories like those listed below, there are also different interpretations of quantum mechanics , which may or may not be considered different theories since it is debatable whether they yield different predictions for physical experiments, even in principle. For example, AdS/CFT correspondence , Chern–Simons theory , graviton , magnetic monopole , string theory , theory of everything . Fringe theories include any new area of scientific endeavor in

2900-468: The theory of the weak interactions and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in the strong interactions , which controls the physics of the light mesons . In the 1970s he was a co-inventor of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) which explains the confinement of quarks in mesons and baryons and forms a large part of the Standard Model of elementary particles and forces. Murray Gell-Mann received

2958-506: The two "didn't commute", as Gell-Mann said. He received his Ph.D. in physics from MIT in 1951 after completing a doctoral dissertation, titled "Coupling strength and nuclear reactions", under the supervision of Weisskopf. Subsequently, Gell-Mann was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 1951, and a visiting research professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign from 1952 to 1953. He

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3016-503: The weak interaction. Another of Gell-Mann's ideas is the Gell-Mann–Okubo formula, which was, initially, a formula based on empirical results, but was later explained by his quark model . Gell-Mann and Abraham Pais were involved in explaining this puzzling aspect of the neutral kaon mixing . Murray Gell-Mann's fortunate encounter with mathematician Richard Earl Block at Caltech, in the fall of 1960, "enlightened" him to introduce

3074-530: The works of these men (alongside Galileo's) can perhaps be considered to constitute the Scientific Revolution. The great push toward the modern concept of explanation started with Galileo , one of the few physicists who was both a consummate theoretician and a great experimentalist . The analytic geometry and mechanics of Descartes were incorporated into the calculus and mechanics of Isaac Newton , another theoretician/experimentalist of

3132-683: The world, and aims to provide a detailed classification similar to the accepted classification of biological species. Their idea is that "all representatives of the species Homo sapiens presumably share a common origin, [so] it would be natural to suppose – although this is a goal yet to be achieved – that all human languages also go back to some common source. Most existing classifications, however, do not go beyond some 300-400 language families that are relatively easy to discern. This restriction has natural reasons: languages must have been spoken and constantly evolving for at least 40,000 years (and quite probably more), while any two languages separated from

3190-525: Was a visiting associate professor at Columbia University and an associate professor at the University of Chicago in 1954–1955, before moving to the California Institute of Technology , where he taught from 1955 until he retired in 1993. He was on sabbatical at the Collège de France for the academic year 1958–1959. Gell-Mann married J. Margaret Dow in 1955; they had a daughter and

3248-426: Was an American theoretical physicist who played a preeminent role in the development of the theory of elementary particles . Gell-Mann introduced the concept of quarks as the fundamental building blocks of the strongly interacting particles, and the renormalization group as a foundational element of quantum field theory and statistical mechanics . He played key roles in developing the concept of chirality in

3306-422: Was given a kinematic explanation by general relativity . Quantum mechanics led to an understanding of blackbody radiation (which indeed, was an original motivation for the theory) and of anomalies in the specific heats of solids — and finally to an understanding of the internal structures of atoms and molecules . Quantum mechanics soon gave way to the formulation of quantum field theory (QFT), begun in

3364-694: Was the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Theoretical Physics Emeritus at California Institute of Technology as well as a university professor in the physics and astronomy department of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico , and the Presidential Professor of Physics and Medicine at the University of Southern California . He was a member of the editorial board of the Encyclopædia Britannica . Gell-Mann spent several periods at CERN ,

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