S. James Gates Jr

Born on 15 December 1950 in Tampa, Florida, theoretical physicist Sylvester James Gates is one of the leading thinkers on supersymmetry. As he was working toward his PhD at MIT in the 1970s, he came across a couple of papers on superspace and supersymmetry. Gates jumped on that area of research just before it took off. In 1984 he published the first comprehensive book on supersymmetry, which posits that each particle in the standard model has an associated partner particle. Searches for supersymmetry are ongoing at the Large Hadron Collider and other particle accelerators. Gates received the National Medal of Science in 2013, and he serves on both the US President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the National Commission on Forensic Science . Lately he has been studying potential links between theoretical physics and genetics . He has appeared in many popular science documentaries and even a TurboTax commercial. (Photo credit: John T. Consoli)

Date in History: 15 December 1950