Norman Christ
Encyclopedia
Norman Howard Christ is a physicist
and a professor
at Columbia University
, where he holds the Ephraim Gildor Professorship of Computational Theoretical Physics. He graduated Salutatorian
with an undergraduate degree in physics from Columbia in 1965 and received his Ph.D.
from the same institution in 1966 under Nobel Laureate Tsung-Dao Lee
. Christ became a professor at Columbia after graduation, and has remained there since. He is also a leading researcher at Brookhaven National Laboratory
. His current research lies in the fields of quantum chromodynamics
and quantum field theory
, which he conducts largely using the twin QCDSP supercomputer
s at Columbia and Brookhaven. QCDSP is an abbreviation of "Quantum ChromoDynamics on Digital Signal Processors". Likewise, Christ is also a collaborator on the QCDOC
supercomputer, or "Quantum ChromoDynamics On a Chip".
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...
and a professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
at 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...
, where he holds the Ephraim Gildor Professorship of Computational Theoretical Physics. He graduated Salutatorian
Salutatorian
Salutatorian is an academic title given, in the United States and Canada, to the second highest graduate of the entire graduating class of a specific discipline. Only the valedictorian is ranked higher. This honor is traditionally based on grade point average and number of credits taken, but...
with an undergraduate degree in physics from Columbia in 1965 and received his Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
from the same institution in 1966 under Nobel Laureate Tsung-Dao Lee
Tsung-Dao Lee
Tsung-Dao Lee is a Chinese born-American physicist, well known for his work on parity violation, the Lee Model, particle physics, relativistic heavy ion physics, nontopological solitons and soliton stars....
. Christ became a professor at Columbia after graduation, and has remained there since. He is also a leading researcher 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...
. His current research lies in the fields of 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...
and 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...
, which he conducts largely using the twin QCDSP supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
s at Columbia and Brookhaven. QCDSP is an abbreviation of "Quantum ChromoDynamics on Digital Signal Processors". Likewise, Christ is also a collaborator on the QCDOC
QCDOC
The QCDOC, Quantum ChromoDynamics On a Chip, is a supercomputer technology focusing on using relatively cheap low power processing elements to produce a massively parallel machine...
supercomputer, or "Quantum ChromoDynamics On a Chip".
Important contributions to physics
- Christ helped create the QCD Teraflops supercomputer project.
- He has been instrumental in the development of the Columbia-Brookhaven QCDSP project, for which he, Robert Mawhinney, and Pavlos Vranas were awarded the 1998 Gordon BellGordon BellC. Gordon Bell is an American computer engineer and manager. An early employee of Digital Equipment Corporation 1960–1966, Bell designed several of their PDP machines and later became Vice President of Engineering 1972-1983, overseeing the development of the VAX...
Prize (see CQFT Homepage). - Christ has also been a member of the JASON Defense Advisory GroupJASON Defense Advisory GroupJASON is an independent group of scientists which advises the United States government on matters of science and technology. The group was first created as a way to get a younger generation of scientists—that is, not the older Los Alamos and MIT Radiation Laboratory alumni—involved in advising the...
.
Publications
- Ping Chen, Norman H. Christ, George Tamminga Fleming, Adrian Kaehler, Catalin Malureanu, Robert Mawhinney, Gabriele Siegert, Cheng-zhong Sui, Yuri Zhestkov (Columbia U.) , Pavlos M. Vranas (Illinois U., Urbana), "Toward the Chiral Limit of QCD: Quenched and Dynamical Domain Wall Fermions", in Vancouver 1998, High energy physics, vol. 2, 1802-1808.
- Dong Chen, Ping Chen, Norman H. Christ, George Tamminga Fleming, Alan Gara, Chulwoo Jung, Adrian L. Kaehler, Yu-bing Luo, Catalin I. Malureanu, Robert D. Mawhinney, John Parsons, Cheng-Zhong Sui, Pavlos M. Vranos, Yuri Zhestkov (Columbia U.), Robert G. Edwards, Anthony D. Kennedy (Florida State U.), Sten Hansen (Fermilab), Gregory W. Kilcup (Ohio State U.), "Status of the QCD Project", Nucl. Phys. Proc. Suppl. 73, 898 (1999).
- All publications from SPIRES High-Energy Physics Literature Database.
External links
- Norman Christ's Columbia faculty homepage
- Christ's Doctoral Dissertation – "Possible Tests of the Cst and Tst Invariance of Electromagnetic Phenomena."
- PARTICLE PHYSICS: Monster Machines – ScienceScience (journal)Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
, 16 May 2003 - Computing the Quarks, Symmetry magazine, November 2005
- Lattice Gauge Theory at Brookhaven National Laboratory