Professor David Jonathan Gross, 2004 Nobel Laureate for Physics
Professor David Gross, 2004 Nobel Laureate for Physics at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics of the University of California in Santa Barbara, was on campus last January 10, 2008 and delivered a lecture under the program, Bridges: Dialogues towards a Culture of Peace, hosted through the International Peace Foundation. He talked about “The coming revolutions in fundamental physics.”
Gross, together with H. David Politzer of the California Institute of Technology and Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, won the Nobel Prize for the “discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction.”
According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, their “discovery was expressed in 1973 in an elegant mathematical framework that led to a completely new theory, Quantum ChromoDynamics.” With this discovery, “Gross, Politzer and Wilczek have brought physics one step closer to fulfilling a grand dream, to formulate a unified theory comprising gravity as well––a unified theory for everything.”
The International Peace Foundation started Bridges in Thailand, and extended it to the Philippines, with the aim of facilitating and strengthening dialogue and communication between societies in Southeast Asia as well as with peoples in other parts of the world, to promote understanding and trust.
Through Nobel Laureates and with local universities and other institutions in Southeast Asia, Bridges seeks to contribute to the United Nations’ Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-violence, with the establishment of long-term relationships which may result in common research programs and other forms of collaboration.
Washington SyCip, founder of the SGV Group and of the Asian Institute of Management, is the Philippine honorary chairman of Bridges, and Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, chair and CEO of the Ayala Corporation, is the program’s Philippine chairman.