63岁的多重宇宙主要理论家和弦论学家Joseph Polchinski谢世

Joseph Polchinski, one of the most creative physicists of his generation, whose work helped lay the mathematical foundation for the controversial proposition that our universe is only one in an almost endless assemblage that cosmologists call the “multiverse,” died Feb. 2 at his home in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was 63.

Raphael Bousso of the University of California Berkeley, who worked with him, said in an e-mail interview that Mr. Polchinski “ranks among the greatest theorists of the last half-century.”

“Remarkably little theoretical physics is done today that doesn’t build on Polchinski’s work,” said Bousso, who collaborated with him on string theory calculations of the number of universes.

Mr. Polchinski wrote a widely used two-volume textbook on string theory, and for his work on branes he was awarded the Dirac Medal, which has often been a precursor of the Nobel Prize in physics, in 2008. He shared a $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics with Andrew Strominger and Cumrun Vafa, both of Harvard, in 2017.

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Joseph Polchinski, 63, leading theorist on multiple universes

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/obituaries/2018/02/17/joseph-polchinski-leading-theorist-multiple-universes/C0oVQL0tLtl4L26y3xow1M/story.html