Jeffrey Goldstone facts for kids

Jeffrey Goldstone was born on September 3, 1933. He is a British theoretical physicist. This means he studies the ideas and rules that explain how the universe works. He used to teach physics at the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics. Before that, he worked at the University of Cambridge. He is famous for discovering something called the Nambu–Goldstone boson. Today, he is working on quantum computation, which is a super cool area of science!

Jeffrey Goldstone's Early Life and Studies

Jeffrey Goldstone was born in Manchester, England. He went to Manchester Grammar School for his early education. Later, he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge. He earned his first degree in 1954 and his Ph.D. in 1958.

Studying Nuclear Matter

For his Ph.D., Goldstone studied something called nuclear matter. This is the stuff that makes up the inside of atoms. His teacher was a famous scientist named Hans Bethe. Goldstone created special diagrams, now called Goldstone diagrams. These diagrams help scientists understand how tiny particles behave. In 1957, he proved an important idea called the linked-cluster theorem. This theorem helps simplify complex calculations in physics.

Moving to Particle Physics

After his studies, Goldstone worked as a research fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. He also visited other famous science centers. These included places in Copenhagen, CERN, and Harvard. During this time, he started focusing on particle physics. This field studies the smallest parts of matter and energy.

Discovering the Goldstone Boson

Goldstone researched how some physics theories behave when their symmetry is "broken." He worked with other scientists, Abdus Salam and Steven Weinberg. Together, they proved that when symmetry is broken in a certain way, special particles must exist. These particles are called Nambu–Goldstone bosons. They have no mass.

Career at Cambridge and MIT

From 1962 to 1976, Goldstone was a professor at Cambridge University. In the early 1970s, he worked with other physicists. They developed a theory about relativistic strings. These strings are tiny, vibrating lines of energy.

Moving to the United States

In 1977, Goldstone moved to the United States. He became a Physics Professor at MIT. Since 1983, he has been the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics. He also led the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics from 1983 to 1989.

Later Research

Goldstone continued his important research at MIT. He studied things called solitons in quantum field theory. He also worked on the quantum strong law of large numbers. Since 1997, he has been focused on quantum computation. This exciting field explores how to build super-fast computers using quantum mechanics.

Awards and Honors

Jeffrey Goldstone has received many important awards for his work:

• He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1977.
• He was made a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1977.
• He became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1987.
• In 2000, he was named an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
• He won the Dannie Heineman Prize in 1981. This was for his important work in nuclear physics and quantum field theory.
• He received the Guthrie Medal in 1983 from the Institute of Physics in London.
• In 1991, he was awarded the Dirac Medal.

See also

• Adiabatic quantum computation
• Effective action
• Goldstinos
• Sgoldstino
• Goldstone's theorem
• Quantum approximate optimization algorithm