Julian Schwinger

It’s the birthday of Julian Schwinger, who was born in 1918 in New York City. Schwinger studied physics at Columbia University and did a postdoc with Robert Oppenheimer at the University of California, Berkeley. After working at MIT’s Radiation Laboratory during World War II, he took a position at Harvard, where he developed a field theory of quantum electrodynamics. For that work, he, Richard Feynman and Shin’ichiro Tomonaga were awarded in the 1965 physics Nobel. Schwinger was not afraid to take up unorthodox approaches. In an oral history interview he remarked: “If my history lesson has done nothing else, it should have reminded you that, during any given period in the evolving history of physics, the prevailing, main line, climate of opinion was likely as not to be wrong, as seen in the light of later developments. And yet, in those earlier times, with relatively few individuals involved, change did occur, but slowly. What is fundamentally different in the present day situation in high energy physics is that large numbers of workers are involved, with corresponding pressures to conformity and resistance to any deflection in direction of the main stream, and that the time scale of one scientific generation is much too long for the rapid pace of experimental discovery. I also have a secret fear that new generations may not necessarily have the opportunity to become familiar with dissident ideas.”

Date in History: 12 February 1918