Comments on: Sidney Coleman

By: roberta gordon

roberta gordon — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 22:33:34 +0000

I have written an obituary of Sidney for the Harvard Gazette, which can be read at:
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/11.29/15-coleman.html

Roberta Gordon

By: Mark Srednicki

Mark Srednicki — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 23:50:39 +0000

The Chicago Tribune has an obituary today:

http://tinyurl.com/2vvu7w

By: Chanda

Chanda — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 06:50:17 +0000

I have wonderful memories of waiting for the discussion section for classical mechanics right down the hall from Sidney Coleman’s office. He would walk by, a little bent over, still wearing his bicycle helmet and ankle reflectors. We’d look at him, then look at the bust of Einstein and think … is it possible? Looking back, what was striking about Professor Coleman wasn’t so much his passing (literally passing!) resemblance to Einstein, but the apparent humility of this little old man who, at an advanced age, still rode his bicycle to Jefferson Lab to pursue the mysteries to which he had devoted his life.

That’s an image which has always stayed with me and which I think about often. It is a reminder of the glory of the process, that though we may not get all the answers in the end, several decades decades down the line, we can still be inspired to go into the office and wonder about how it all works. That is a tremendous gift.

By: Steve’s No Direction Home Page » Blog Archive » Coleman on Quantum Flapdoodle

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 06:21:04 +0000

[...] Sidney Coleman, theoretical physicist [...]

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:45:46 +0000

…

By: Mark Srednicki

Mark Srednicki — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:49:46 +0000

When I was a grad student at Stanford, Sidney spent a sabbatical at SLAC. At one of the regular Friday lunch seminars (to be given by someone else), Sidney walked in wearing an outrageous green velvet suit. As all eyes turned to him, he looked around the room, and said “I’m sorry; I thought this was to be a formal seminar.”

(Later he admitted that he was attending some other formal function later that day.)

By: Scott Dodelson

Scott Dodelson — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:23:36 +0000

I echo the sentiments, especially about his generosity, of those who posted above. I applied to the Harvard theory group as a grad student and got a rejection letter from Sidney Coleman with the quote “I hope you will consider us again should the opportunity arise.” The phrase was so elegant, especially given the circumstances, that it stuck with me. Many years later, I was running the selection process for postdocs at Fermilab and inserted that phrase into my response whenever I had to let someone know we were making an offer to someone else. It probably didn’t make them feel any better but it always reminded me of our [physicists'] collective heritage.

My favorite story was the time he was asked to teach a course at 10AM. He said he had to refuse because he couldn’t stay up that late.

By: marc

marc — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 15:47:10 +0000

Perhaps my favorite Coleman quote was “QCD is the first theory to go from hypothesis to dogma without going through the intermediate stage of verification”.

He was extraordinarily generous with his time. I recall calling him once, out of the blue, and asking him whether the tunnelling rate for vacuum decay was gauge-dependent (since the effective potential is). He spent the next half hour on the phone with me (then a lowly postdoc) constructing a proof that the decay rate is gauge-independent.

He has taught a generation of physicists, and we’ll all miss him.

By: Haelfix

Haelfix — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:21:03 +0000

A wonderful man. Everytime I encountered him I was awed by his modesty and wit.

A great loss for physics, he was a giant of the field.

By: Michele Tizzoni

Michele Tizzoni — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:12:35 +0000

I’m so sad to hear this! When I read his “Aspects of Symmetry” I thought it was the best physics book ever written. We’ll miss you Sidney.