Steven Weinberg

Born on 3 May 1933 in New York City, Steven Weinberg is a nuclear physicist who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Sheldon Glashow and Abdus Salam for his development of the electroweak theory of particle physics. Weinberg attended the Bronx High School of Science and was in the same graduating class as Glashow. They both attended Cornell University, where they earned their bachelor’s degrees in 1954. After a year of graduate study at the Institute for Theoretical Physics (now known as the Niels Bohr Institute) in Copenhagen, Weinberg returned to the US and completed his PhD at Princeton University in 1957. Before settling in 1982 at the University of Texas at Austin, Weinberg served on the faculties of Columbia University; the University of California, Berkeley; MIT; and Harvard University. Although he conducted research on a wide variety of topics, including scattering theory and quantum field theory, Weinberg is best known for his 1967 paper that demonstrates how to unify the weak and electromagnetic forces. Besides receiving the Nobel, Weinberg has won several other prestigious awards, such as the National Medal of Science in 1991. He has been elected to several scientific societies, including the US National Academy of Sciences; served with the JASON group of defense consultants; been a prominent spokesperson for science; written several science books; and served as a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books. He has also written a number of articles for Physics Today, including an evaluation of the prospects of unified gauge theories , a rundown of Albert Einstein’s errors , and a set of advice for postdoctoral researchers . (Photo credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Physics Today Collection)

Date in History: 3 May 1933