Freeman Dyson

On this date in 1923, theoretical physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson was born in Crowthorne, England. His contributions in math and physics are wide-ranging. He was the first to show the equivalence of the formulations of QED developed by Feynman and by Schwinger and Tomonaga, which earned him a lifetime appointment to the Institute for Advanced Study from Robert Oppenheimer in 1953. One of his best known concepts is the Dyson sphere, from a 1960 paper in which he theorized that an advanced civilization could completely build a structure around a star to harness as much of the star’s energy as possible. Earlier this year two collections of his writings were published and Physics Today’s books editor Jermey Matthews interviewed Dyson, which you can read here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.5.3026

Date in History: 15 December 1923