Sidney Coleman

Sidney Richard Coleman (7 March 1937 – 18

November 2007) was an American theoretical Sidney Coleman
physicist noted for his research in high-energy physics.

Life and work

Sidney Coleman grew up on the Far North Side of
Chicago. In 1957, he received his undergraduate
degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology
physics department.

Coleman received his Ph.D. from the California

Born March 7, 1937
Institute of Technology in 1962, where he was advised
Chicago, Illinois, US
by Murray Gell-Mann. He moved to Harvard
University that year, where he spent his entire career, Died November 18, 2007
meeting his wife Diana there in the late 1970s. They (aged 70)
were married in 1982. Cambridge, Massachusetts,
US
"He was a giant in a peculiar sense, because he's not Alma mater Illinois Institute of
known to the general populace," Nobel laureate Technology (B.Sc. 1957)
Sheldon Glashow told the Boston Globe. "He's not a Caltech (Ph.D. 1962)
Stephen Hawking; he has virtually no visibility Known for Coleman theorem
outside. But within the community of theoretical Coleman–Mandula theorem
physicists, he's kind of a major god. He is the Coleman–Weinberg
physicist's physicist."[3] potential
Q-ball
In 1966, Antonino Zichichi recruited Coleman as a
lecturer at the then-new summer school at International Awards Fellow, National Academy of
School for Subnuclear Physics in Erice, Sicily. A Sciences
legendary figure at the school throughout the 1970s Fellow, American Academy
and early 1980s, Coleman was awarded the title "Best of Arts and Sciences
Lecturer" on the occasion of the school's fifteenth NYAS Boris Pregel Award
anniversary (1979). His explanation of spontaneous NAS J. Murray Lack Award
symmetry breaking in terms of a little man living
NAS Award for Scientific
inside a ferromagnet has often been cited by later
Reviewing (1989)
popularizers.[4][5] The classic particle physics text
Aspects of Symmetry (1985) is a collection of Dirac Medal (1990)
Coleman's lectures at Erice. A quote from his Dannie Heineman Prize for
introduction to the book is worth sharing here:[6] Mathematical Physics
(2000)
Scientific career
 I first came to Erice in 1966, to lecture at Fields Quantum field theory
the fourth of the annual schools on Institutions Harvard University
subnuclear physics organized by Nino
Doctoral advisor Murray Gell-Mann
Zichichi. I was charmed by the beauty of
Erice, fascinated by the thick layers of Doctoral Ian Affleck
students Mark Alford
Sicilian culture and history, and terrified
by the iron rule with which Nino kept the Carl M. Bender
students and faculty in line. In a word, I Jacques Distler
David Griffiths
was won over, and I returned to Erice
Jeffrey Mandula
every year or two thereafter, to talk of
Stephen Parke
what was past, or passing, or to come, at
Leonard Parker
least insofar as it touched on subnuclear
David Politzer
theory…These lectures span fourteen
Lee Smolin
years, from 1966 to 1979. This was a great
Paul Steinhardt
time to be a high-energy theorist, the
Erick Weinberg
period of the famous triumph of quantum
Anthony Zee
field theory. And what a triumph it was, in
see [1]
the old sense of the word: a glorious
victory parade, full of wonderful things Other notable Edward Witten[2]
brought back from far places to make the students
spectator gasp with awe and laugh with
joy. I hope some of that awe and joy has
been captured here.

Coleman's lectures at Harvard were legendary. Students in one quantum field theory[7] course created T-
shirts bearing his image and a collection of his more noted quotations, among them: "Not only God
knows, I know, and by the end of the semester, you will know." Despite this acclaim, in 1977 he is quoted
as not generally enjoy teaching or mentoring graduate students:

I hate [teaching]. You do it as part of the job. Well, that's of course false ... or maybe more
true than false when I say I hate it. ... But I certainly would be just as happy if I had no
graduate students. ... Occasionally there is a graduate student who is a joy to collaborate
with. Both David Politzer and Erick Weinberg were of this kind, but they were essentially
almost mature physicists. They were very bright by the time they came to me. In general,
working with a graduate student is like teaching a course. It's tedious, unpleasant work. A
pain in the neck. You do it because you're paid to do it. If I weren't paid to do it I certainly
would never do it.[8]

In 1989, Coleman was awarded the NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing from the National Academy of
Sciences. That award praised his "lucid, insightful, and influential reviews on partially conserved
currents, gauge theories, instantons, and magnetic monopoles—subjects fundamental to theoretical
physics."[9] In 2005, Harvard University's physics department held the "SidneyFest",[10] a conference on
quantum field theory and quantum chromodynamics, organized in his honor.
Aside from his academic work, Coleman was a prominent science fiction enthusiast. He was one of the
founders of Advent: Publishers[11] and occasionally reviewed genre books for The Magazine of Fantasy
and Science Fiction.[12]

He died after a long struggle with Lewy body disease.[13]

Contributions to physics
Some of his best known works are

Bosonization
Coleman–Mandula theorem[14]
Tadpoles
Coleman theorem[15]
Equivalence of the Thirring model and the quantum sine-Gordon equation[16]
Semiclassical analysis of the fate of a false vacuum
Coleman–Weinberg potential
Q-balls in the thin-wall limit
Lectures at Erice, some of which are preserved in his book Aspects of Symmetry[6] (review
and teaching)

Famous quotes
"In order to know the truth, it is necessary to imagine a thousand falsehoods."[17]
"Quantum gravity is notoriously a subject where problems vastly outnumber results."[18]

Notes
1. List of Sidney's Forty Graduate Students (https://web.archive.org/web/20190415092257/htt
p://media.physics.harvard.edu/QFT/PDFs/SidneyStudents.pdf)
2. "Edward Witten – Adventures in physics and math" (https://web.archive.org/web/201608232
23743/http://www.sns.ias.edu/ckfinder/userfiles/files/ComemorativeLecturePopular(1).pdf)
(PDF). Archived from the original (http://www.sns.ias.edu/ckfinder/userfiles/files/Comemorati
veLecturePopular%281%29.pdf) (PDF) on 2016-08-23. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
3. Sidney Coleman; Harvard icon taught physics classes with wit (http://www.boston.com/bosto
nglobe/obituaries/articles/2008/01/20/sidney_coleman_harvard_icon_taught_physics_classe
s_with_wit/)
4. L. Ryder, "Symmetry breaking", J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 38, 9729 (2005) (http://www.iop.org/
EJ/abstract/0305-4470/38/44/B01)
5. Brading, Katherine and Castellani, Elena, "Symmetry and Symmetry Breaking", The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), [1] (http://pl
ato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/symmetry-breaking/)
6. Sidney Coleman (1988). Aspects of Symmetry (https://books.google.com/books?id=PX2Al8
LE9FkC). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-31827-0.
7. Sidney Coleman, Lectures on Quantum Field Theory (https://www.worldscientific.com/world
scibooks/10.1142/9371), World Scientific (2019) ISBN 978-981-4635-50-9.
 8. Sopka, Katherine. "Oral History Transcript - Interview with Dr. Sidney Coleman" (https://ww
w.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/31234) American Institute of
Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives (January 19, 1977)
9. "NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing" (https://web.archive.org/web/20110318130922/http://w
ww.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_scirev). National Academy of
Sciences. Archived from the original (http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=
AWARDS_scirev) on 18 March 2011. Retrieved 27 February 2011.
10. Sidneyfest - physicists' celebration of Sidney Coleman's life (https://web.archive.org/web/20
201029151159/http://media.physics.harvard.edu/QFT/sidneyfest.htm)
11. "Sidney Coleman Dies at 70" (http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/11/sidney-colema
n-dies-at-70/)
12. ISFDB bibliography (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?31516)
13. "Sidney Richard Coleman" (https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/61/5/69/914901/Sidney-
Richard-Coleman)
14. Sidney Coleman and Jeffrey Mandula (1967). "All Possible Symmetries of the S Matrix".
Physical Review. 159 (5): 1251–1256. Bibcode:1967PhRv..159.1251C (https://ui.adsabs.har
vard.edu/abs/1967PhRv..159.1251C). doi:10.1103/PhysRev.159.1251 (https://doi.org/10.11
03%2FPhysRev.159.1251).
15. Sidney Coleman (1973). "There are no Goldstone bosons in two dimensions" (https://web.ar
chive.org/web/20070310224613/http://projecteuclid.org/Dienst/UI/1.0/Summarize/euclid.cm
p/1103859034). Communications in Mathematical Physics. 31 (4): 259–264.
Bibcode:1973CMaPh..31..259C (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1973CMaPh..31..259C).
doi:10.1007/BF01646487 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2FBF01646487). S2CID 120770166 (htt
ps://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:120770166). Archived from the original (http://project
euclid.org/Dienst/UI/1.0/Summarize/euclid.cmp/1103859034) on 2007-03-10. Retrieved
2008-04-05.
16. Coleman, Sidney (1975). "Quantum sine-Gordon equation as the massive Thirring model".
Physical Review D. 11 (8): 2088–2097. Bibcode:1975PhRvD..11.2088C (https://ui.adsabs.h
arvard.edu/abs/1975PhRvD..11.2088C). doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.11.2088 (https://doi.org/10.
1103%2FPhysRevD.11.2088). S2CID 55746617 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:
55746617).
17. Socolow, Robert. "Reminiscences of Sidney Coleman" (https://web.archive.org/web/201904
15092256/http://media.physics.harvard.edu/QFT/PDFs/Letters-to-Sidney.pdf) (PDF).
Archived from the original (http://media.physics.harvard.edu/QFT/PDFs/Letters-to-Sidney.pd
f) (PDF) on 2019-04-15.
18. Coleman, S.; Hartle, J. B.; Piran, T.; Weinberg, S. (1991). Quantum Cosmology and Baby
Universes (https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/1190#t=aboutBook).
doi:10.1142/1190 (https://doi.org/10.1142%2F1190). ISBN 978-981-02-0345-0.

External links
Oral history interview transcript with Sidney Coleman on 18 January 1977, American
Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives (https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niel
s-bohr-library/oral-histories/31234)
Sidneyfest - physicists' celebration of Sidney Coleman's life (https://web.archive.org/web/20
201029151159/http://media.physics.harvard.edu/QFT/sidneyfest.htm)
List of Sidney's Forty Graduate Students (https://web.archive.org/web/20190415092257/htt
p://media.physics.harvard.edu/QFT/PDFs/SidneyStudents.pdf)
Chicago Tribune obituary (https://web.archive.org/web/20080907182403/http://www.chicago
tribune.com/news/local/chi-hed_coleman_20nov20,0,7943823.story), November 20, 2007.
 Harvard Gazette obituary (http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/11/sidney-coleman-di
es-at-70/), November 29, 2007.
Boston Globe obituary (http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2008/01/20/si
dney_coleman_harvard_icon_taught_physics_classes_with_wit/), January 20, 2008.
Physics Today obituary (https://web.archive.org/web/20150327011150/http://scitation.aip.or
g/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/article/61/5/10.1063/1.2930745), May 2008, written by
Sheldon Glashow.
"Quantum Mechanics In Your Face" (http://media.physics.harvard.edu/video/index.php?id=S
idneyColeman_QMIYF.flv) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20201112002602/http://me
dia.physics.harvard.edu/video/index.php?id=SidneyColeman_QMIYF.flv) 2020-11-12 at the
Wayback Machine, A lecture by Prof. Coleman at the New England sectional meeting of the
American Physical Society April 9, 1994.
Physics 253: Quantum Field Theory (http://www.physics.harvard.edu/about/Phys253.html)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20100801222140/http://www.physics.harvard.edu/abo
ut/Phys253.html) 2010-08-01 at the Wayback Machine. Video of lectures by Sidney
Coleman at Harvard in 1975-1976.
Sidney Coleman (https://mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=93780) at the Mathematics
Genealogy Project
Sidney Coleman (https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?31516) at the Internet Speculative
Fiction Database
National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir (https://www.nasonline.org/publications/
biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/coleman-sidney.pdf)

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