Feza Gürsey
Encyclopedia
Feza Gürsey was a Turkish
mathematician
and physicist
. His best known contribution to theoretical physics
is his work on the Nonlinear Chiral
Lagrangian
.
, to Reşit Süreyya Gürsey, a military physician, and Remziye Hisar (:tr:Remziye Hisar), a chemist and a pioneering female Turkish scientist. He graduated from Galatasaray High School in 1940, and received his degree in Mathematics – Physics from Istanbul Fen Fakultesi in 1944.
Through a scholarship of the Turkish Ministry of Education
he received while he was an assistant in Istanbul University
, he pursued a doctorate degree at the Imperial College London
in the United Kingdom. He completed his work on Application of Quaternions to Quantum Field Theory
in 1950. After spending the period from 1950–1951 in postdoctoral research at Cambridge University
, he worked as an assistant at Istanbul University
, where he married Suha Pamir, also a physics assistant, in 1952, and in 1953 he acquired the title of Associate Professor.
During 1957–1961 he worked at Brookhaven National Laboratory
, Institute for Advanced Study
in Princeton, New Jersey
, and Columbia University
. In 1960s, he worked on the Nonlinear Chiral
Lagrangian
, and produced results of relevance to Quantum Chromodynamics
.
Returning to Turkey
in 1961, he accepted the title of Professor from Middle East Technical University
(METU) and took part in the establishment of METU
Department of Theoretical Physics. Continuing his work as a lecturer at METU
until 1974, he formed a research group.
Being offered a position at Yale University
in 1965, he started to work in both Yale University
and METU
, until 1974, when he decided to give up his position in METU
and settle in the United States to continue with Yale
. During these years, he took part in the formulation of E(6) grand unified theories
.
Gürsey died in 1992, in New Haven, Connecticut
. He is survived by his son, Yusuf Gürsey. The Feza Gürsey Institute
, founded by the joint effort of Boğaziçi University
and TÜBİTAK
in Turkey
, is named in his honor.
Edward Witten
Notes
Feza Gürsey was one of the most respected members of the physics community and his untimely death on April 13, 1992 was a great loss to theoretical physics. He will always be remembered for his many seminal and deep contributions to theoretical physics as well as for his kindness, civility and scholarship. For those of us who knew him he epitomized a style of physics and an epoch in the history of physics.
Feza's scientific work is marked with remarkable originality and elegance as well as intellectual courage. He never hesitated to pick problems that were not fashionable. He worked at them in depth, planting seeds that in some cases developed into whole branches of our discipline. Outstanding examples would include his conception of the pion in terms of spontaneously broken chiral symmetry, and his contributions to the introduction of exceptional gauge groups for grand unification. To the end of his life he was tackling the most difficult problems, planting new seeds in unknown soil.
In the early part of his career, Gürsey studied the conformal group and conformally invariant quantum field theories, concepts whose role in physics are now central. This developed into his long and multifaceted interest in the unitary representations of non-compact groups and their applications to space-time. In the late fifties he did his work on Pauli-Gürsey transformations and later introduced the non-linear chiral Lagrangian, one of his most seminal contributions to theoretical physics. Chiral symmetry and non-linear realizations of symmetry groups have since become an integral part of theoretical physics. In the 1960s, Feza became well known for his work on the SU(6) symmetry that combines the unitary spin SU(3) of the eightfold way with non-relativistic spin degrees of freedom of quarks. Subsequent attempts to understand the origin of SU(6) symmetry led to the introduction of the color degrees of freedom of quarks. Feza's introduction in the mid-1970s of the grand unified theory based on the exceptional group E6 -which has continued to fascinate theoretical physicists ever since- was one facet of his long interest in the possible role of quaternions and octonions in physics. This interest also led to Feza's work on quaternion analyticity, which continued practically to the end of his life.
Feza was an exceptionally inspiring teacher. He trained many Ph.D students who now hold academic positions in numerous countries of the world. Throughout his life he retained a youthful spirit and was always enthusiastic about learning new things. He had a special rapport with the young people and enjoyed their company.
Reminiscing only about Feza Gürsey the physicist would not do full justice to him. He was a very cultured man who distilled the essential and sublime elements of Western and Turkish cultures and synthesized them into a singularly unique whole in his personality and wisdom. One could have deep and penetrating discussions with him on the music of Franz Schubert and Dede Efendi, on the poetry of Yunus Emre and Goethe, on the novels of Thomas Mann and Marcel Proust, on the paintings of Van Gogh and Giotto, in short, on essentially any subject of depth and beauty.
The Gürsey Memorial Conferences that are to be held biannually are hopefully a fitting way to pay tribute to his memory. We hope that these will be conferences that Gürsey himself would have enjoyed! His memory will always be with those of us who were his friends and colleagues.
(Courtesy of the Editors of Strings and Symmetries, Proceedings, Istanbul, Turkey, 1994, Aktas et al.)
The Feza Gürsey Institute
in Istanbul and Feza Gürsey Science Center
in Ankara are named in his honor.
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
and physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
. His best known contribution to theoretical physics
Theoretical physics
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics which employs mathematical models and abstractions of physics to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena...
is his work on the Nonlinear Chiral
Chirality (physics)
A chiral phenomenon is one that is not identical to its mirror image . The spin of a particle may be used to define a handedness for that particle. A symmetry transformation between the two is called parity...
Lagrangian
Lagrangian
The Lagrangian, L, of a dynamical system is a function that summarizes the dynamics of the system. It is named after Joseph Louis Lagrange. The concept of a Lagrangian was originally introduced in a reformulation of classical mechanics by Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton known as...
.
Biography
Feza Gürsey was born on April 7, 1921 in IstanbulIstanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, to Reşit Süreyya Gürsey, a military physician, and Remziye Hisar (:tr:Remziye Hisar), a chemist and a pioneering female Turkish scientist. He graduated from Galatasaray High School in 1940, and received his degree in Mathematics – Physics from Istanbul Fen Fakultesi in 1944.
Through a scholarship of the Turkish Ministry of Education
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
he received while he was an assistant in Istanbul University
Istanbul University
Istanbul University is a Turkish university located in Istanbul. The main campus is adjacent to Beyazıt Square.- Synopsis :A madrasa, a religious school, was established sometime in the 15th century after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. An institution of higher education named the...
, he pursued a doctorate degree at the Imperial College London
Imperial College London
Imperial College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom, specialising in science, engineering, business and medicine...
in the United Kingdom. He completed his work on Application of Quaternions to Quantum Field Theory
Quantum field theory
Quantum field theory provides a theoretical framework for constructing quantum mechanical models of systems classically parametrized by an infinite number of dynamical degrees of freedom, that is, fields and many-body systems. It is the natural and quantitative language of particle physics and...
in 1950. After spending the period from 1950–1951 in postdoctoral research at Cambridge University
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, he worked as an assistant at Istanbul University
Istanbul University
Istanbul University is a Turkish university located in Istanbul. The main campus is adjacent to Beyazıt Square.- Synopsis :A madrasa, a religious school, was established sometime in the 15th century after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. An institution of higher education named the...
, where he married Suha Pamir, also a physics assistant, in 1952, and in 1953 he acquired the title of Associate Professor.
During 1957–1961 he worked at Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory , is a United States national laboratory located in Upton, New York on Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base...
, Institute for Advanced Study
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...
in Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...
, and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. In 1960s, he worked on the Nonlinear Chiral
Chirality (chemistry)
A chiral molecule is a type of molecule that lacks an internal plane of symmetry and thus has a non-superimposable mirror image. The feature that is most often the cause of chirality in molecules is the presence of an asymmetric carbon atom....
Lagrangian
Lagrangian
The Lagrangian, L, of a dynamical system is a function that summarizes the dynamics of the system. It is named after Joseph Louis Lagrange. The concept of a Lagrangian was originally introduced in a reformulation of classical mechanics by Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton known as...
, and produced results of relevance to Quantum Chromodynamics
Quantum chromodynamics
In theoretical physics, quantum chromodynamics is a theory of the strong interaction , a fundamental force describing the interactions of the quarks and gluons making up hadrons . It is the study of the SU Yang–Mills theory of color-charged fermions...
.
Returning to Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
in 1961, he accepted the title of Professor from Middle East Technical University
Middle East Technical University
Middle East Technical University is a public technical university located in Ankara, Turkey...
(METU) and took part in the establishment of METU
Middle East Technical University
Middle East Technical University is a public technical university located in Ankara, Turkey...
Department of Theoretical Physics. Continuing his work as a lecturer at METU
Middle East Technical University
Middle East Technical University is a public technical university located in Ankara, Turkey...
until 1974, he formed a research group.
Being offered a position at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in 1965, he started to work in both Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
and METU
Middle East Technical University
Middle East Technical University is a public technical university located in Ankara, Turkey...
, until 1974, when he decided to give up his position in METU
Middle East Technical University
Middle East Technical University is a public technical university located in Ankara, Turkey...
and settle in the United States to continue with Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. During these years, he took part in the formulation of E(6) grand unified theories
Grand unification theory
The term Grand Unified Theory, often abbreviated as GUT, refers to any of several similar candidate models in particle physics in which at high-energy, the three gauge interactions of the Standard Model which define the electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions, are merged into one single...
.
Gürsey died in 1992, in New Haven, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
. He is survived by his son, Yusuf Gürsey. The Feza Gürsey Institute
Feza Gürsey Institute
Feza Gürsey Institute is a joint institute of Boğaziçi University and TÜBİTAK on physics research, founded in 1983 by Erdal İnönü with the name Research Institute for Basic Sciences. It now continues as the Feza Gürsey Institute, having been renamed in honor of Feza Gürsey, a distinguished...
, founded by the joint effort of Boğaziçi University
Bogaziçi University
Boğaziçi University is a public university located on the European side of the Bosphorus strait in Istanbul, Turkey. It has five faculties and two schools offering undergraduate degrees, and six institutes offering graduate degrees...
and TÜBİTAK
TÜBITAK
The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey is the main body responsible for organizing research and development activities on the national level in Turkey, with headquarters located in Ankara.-History:...
in Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, is named in his honor.
Edward Witten
Edward Witten
Edward Witten is an American theoretical physicist with a focus on mathematical physics who is currently a professor of Mathematical Physics at the Institute for Advanced Study....
Notes
Feza Gürsey was one of the most respected members of the physics community and his untimely death on April 13, 1992 was a great loss to theoretical physics. He will always be remembered for his many seminal and deep contributions to theoretical physics as well as for his kindness, civility and scholarship. For those of us who knew him he epitomized a style of physics and an epoch in the history of physics.
Feza's scientific work is marked with remarkable originality and elegance as well as intellectual courage. He never hesitated to pick problems that were not fashionable. He worked at them in depth, planting seeds that in some cases developed into whole branches of our discipline. Outstanding examples would include his conception of the pion in terms of spontaneously broken chiral symmetry, and his contributions to the introduction of exceptional gauge groups for grand unification. To the end of his life he was tackling the most difficult problems, planting new seeds in unknown soil.
In the early part of his career, Gürsey studied the conformal group and conformally invariant quantum field theories, concepts whose role in physics are now central. This developed into his long and multifaceted interest in the unitary representations of non-compact groups and their applications to space-time. In the late fifties he did his work on Pauli-Gürsey transformations and later introduced the non-linear chiral Lagrangian, one of his most seminal contributions to theoretical physics. Chiral symmetry and non-linear realizations of symmetry groups have since become an integral part of theoretical physics. In the 1960s, Feza became well known for his work on the SU(6) symmetry that combines the unitary spin SU(3) of the eightfold way with non-relativistic spin degrees of freedom of quarks. Subsequent attempts to understand the origin of SU(6) symmetry led to the introduction of the color degrees of freedom of quarks. Feza's introduction in the mid-1970s of the grand unified theory based on the exceptional group E6 -which has continued to fascinate theoretical physicists ever since- was one facet of his long interest in the possible role of quaternions and octonions in physics. This interest also led to Feza's work on quaternion analyticity, which continued practically to the end of his life.
Feza was an exceptionally inspiring teacher. He trained many Ph.D students who now hold academic positions in numerous countries of the world. Throughout his life he retained a youthful spirit and was always enthusiastic about learning new things. He had a special rapport with the young people and enjoyed their company.
Reminiscing only about Feza Gürsey the physicist would not do full justice to him. He was a very cultured man who distilled the essential and sublime elements of Western and Turkish cultures and synthesized them into a singularly unique whole in his personality and wisdom. One could have deep and penetrating discussions with him on the music of Franz Schubert and Dede Efendi, on the poetry of Yunus Emre and Goethe, on the novels of Thomas Mann and Marcel Proust, on the paintings of Van Gogh and Giotto, in short, on essentially any subject of depth and beauty.
The Gürsey Memorial Conferences that are to be held biannually are hopefully a fitting way to pay tribute to his memory. We hope that these will be conferences that Gürsey himself would have enjoyed! His memory will always be with those of us who were his friends and colleagues.
(Courtesy of the Editors of Strings and Symmetries, Proceedings, Istanbul, Turkey, 1994, Aktas et al.)
Publications
- (With Chia-Hsiung Tze) On the Role of Division, Jordan, and Related Algebras in Particle Physics (1996), ISBN 981-02-2863-5
Awards and honors
- 1969 Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) Science Award
- 1977 OppenheimerRobert OppenheimerJulius Robert Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Along with Enrico Fermi, he is often called the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II project that developed the first...
Award together with Sheldon Glashow - 1977 A. Cressey Morrison Prize together with R. Griffiths in Natural Sciences
- 1979 Einstein Medal
- 1981 Collège de FranceCollège de FranceThe Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
Award - 1984 Honorary title of "CommendatoreCommendatoreLiterally Commander, the official title of Commendatore is awarded by decree of the President of Italy to individuals who are given this honour in the Italian Order of Merit known as the Ordine al Merito della Repubblica and other orders of knighthood...
" by Italy - 1986 Wigner medal administered by the Group Theory and Fundamental Physics Foundation
- 1987 The Wigner Award, given by the American Nuclear SocietyAmerican Nuclear SocietyThe American Nuclear Society is an international, not-for-profit 501 scientific and educational organization with a membership of approximately 11,000 scientists, engineers, educators, students, and other associate members. Approximately 900 members live outside the United States in 40 countries....
- 1989 Award of Association of Turkish - American Scientists and Engineers
- 1990 Galatasaray Foundation Award
The Feza Gürsey Institute
Feza Gürsey Institute
Feza Gürsey Institute is a joint institute of Boğaziçi University and TÜBİTAK on physics research, founded in 1983 by Erdal İnönü with the name Research Institute for Basic Sciences. It now continues as the Feza Gürsey Institute, having been renamed in honor of Feza Gürsey, a distinguished...
in Istanbul and Feza Gürsey Science Center
Feza Gürsey Science Center
Feza Gürsey Science Center is a science museum in Ankara, Turkey. It is named after Feza Gürsey , the renowned Turkish mathematician and physicist....
in Ankara are named in his honor.
External links
- Feza Gürsey Institute (official web site)
- Feza Gürsey