Frank Wilczek
Frank Wilczek is an American theoretical physicist who shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery, with David Gross and others, of asymptotic freedom in the strong interaction; he also introduced and developed the ideas of axions, anyons and time crystals and is the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at MIT.
Contents21 sections
Key facts
May 15, 1951Born in New York
Wilczek was born in New York on May 15, 1951.[1]
He has written that he grew up in Glen Oaks, Queens, and that his grandparents emigrated from Italy and Poland after World War I; raised a Catholic, he later lost faith in conventional religion under the influence of Bertrand Russell’s writings and science.[2]
1970Graduates from the University of Chicago
He received a BS from the University of Chicago in 1970 and an MA and PhD from Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private university and Ivy League member in Princeton, New Jersey. Chartered on October 22, 1746 as the College of New Jersey, it moved to Princeton in 1756 and adopted its present name in 1896. Undergraduate education leads to A.B. and B.S.E. degrees and emphasizes small-group discussion, independent research and residential college life. Graduate education spans the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering. As of October 2026, Christopher L. Eisgruber was president. Its 2026–27 operating budget was $3.407 billion, including $342 million for undergraduate aid.Open the full entry in 1972 and 1974.[3]
1973Discovers Asymptotic Freedom with David Gross; Marries Betsy Devine
He entered Princeton as a mathematics graduate student and turned to physics after talking with a young professor, David Gross; he calls helping to discover QCD, the basic theory of the strong force, the great event of his early career.[2]
His work with Gross at Princeton gave asymptotic freedom its mathematical expression in 1973.[4]
He has been married since 1973 to the journalist and author Betsy Devine; they have two daughters.[5]
1974–1981Teaches at Princeton University
From 1974 he was an instructor and then assistant professor at Princeton University, becoming associate professor in 1978 and professor in 1980.[1]
1980Moves to UC Santa Barbara
He was a full professor at Princeton by 28 and joined the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1980, later becoming Chancellor Robert Huttenback Professor of Physics.[6]
Beyond asymptotic freedom, he is credited with the invention of axions and with discovering and exploiting a new form of quantum statistics, anyons.[6]
1982Receives a MacArthur Fellowship
In 1982, aged 31 and based in Santa Barbara, he was named a MacArthur Fellow.[3]
1989–2000Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study
From 1989 to 2000 he was a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, holding the J. Robert Oppenheimer professorship from 1997.[1]
2000Joins MIT
In fall 2000 he moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics.[7]
October 2004Wins the Nobel Prize in Physics
In October 2004, aged 53, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics, worth about $1.3 million, with David J. Gross and H. David Politzer for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction; he was in the shower when the call from Sweden came.[4]
2008Publishes The Lightness of Being
In 2008 Basic Books published his The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces (270 pages), which explores the essence of the matter that makes up the universe and explains ideas such as mass coming from energy.[8]
2012Proposes Quantum Time Crystals
In 2012 he published “Quantum Time Crystals” in Physical Review Letters, envisaging attracting bosons on a ring forming a soliton that moves periodically under a perpendicular magnetic field, creating a crystal periodic in time. A commentary noted that he did not address how such a system could be engineered.[9]
October 2014Wilczek Quantum Center Founded
In October 2014 the Wilczek Quantum Center, with him as chief scientist, was founded at Zhejiang University of Technology in Hangzhou to advance fundamental research there and promote international collaboration; it moved to Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2017.[10]
January 2015Stockholm University Funded to Recruit Wilczek
In January 2015 the Swedish Research Council granted Stockholm University’s physics department 60 million SEK over ten years to recruit Wilczek, then an MIT professor, who would mainly work at the Oskar Klein Centre.[11]
July 2015Publishes A Beautiful Question
In July 2015 Penguin Press published his A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design, whose central question a review summarized as “Does the world embody beautiful ideas?”[12]
He called the book “both more personal and more exploratory” and said it “won’t hurt to give beauty a chance” as long as researchers respect nature’s verdict.[13]
September 2017Founding Director of the Tsung-Dao Lee Institute
In September 2017, while Distinguished Origins Professor at Arizona State University, he was appointed founding director of the Tsung-Dao Lee Institute at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.[14]
The institute was inaugurated on November 28, 2016, with the aim of becoming a world-leading center for pure science.[10]
January 2021Publishes Fundamentals
On January 12, 2021, Penguin Press published his Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality, which presents ten core principles of modern physics; a review called it “a breathtaking feat of popularization.”[15]
May 29, 2021Appears on the Lex Fridman Podcast
On May 29, 2021, he appeared on episode 187 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, discussing the limits of what physics can understand, the big bang, the emergence of life, aliens, consciousness, free will, the Nobel Prize, axions and dark matter, time crystals and a theory of everything.[16]
May 11, 2022Wins the Templeton Prize
On May 11, 2022, he was awarded the Templeton Prize, worth more than $1.3 million, with recognition of his naming and developing the theories of anyons, time crystals and axions. He called the prize’s intent “noble and timely.”[5]
As of October 2026: Current Roles and Honors
He is Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at MIT and since 2002 an adjunct professor at the Centro de Estudios Científicos in Valdivia, Chile; his other honors include the 1986 J.J. Sakurai Prize, the 1994 ICTP Dirac Medal, the 2003 Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize and the 2005 King Faisal International Prize for Science.[7]
Related Organizations, Websites, and Public Accounts
Personal website: Public link: https://www.frankawilczek.com/ (opens in a new window)[16]
X: Public account: https://x.com/FrankWilczek (opens in a new window)[16]
Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Official website: https://www.mit.edu/ (opens in a new window)[7]
Arizona State University: Official website: https://www.asu.edu/ (opens in a new window)[14]
Institute for Advanced Study: Official website: https://www.ias.edu/ (opens in a new window)[3]
Princeton University: Official website: https://www.princeton.edu/ (opens in a new window)[3]
University of California, Santa Barbara: Official website: https://www.ucsb.edu/ (opens in a new window)[6]
Sources
- FRANK WILCZEK (opens in a new window)
- A Very Brief Autobiography (opens in a new window)
- Frank Wilczek - MacArthur Foundation (opens in a new window)
- MIT's Wilczek Wins 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics (opens in a new window)
- ASU's Frank Wilczek receives 2022 Templeton Prize (opens in a new window)
- Professor Frank Wilczek (opens in a new window)
- Frank Wilczek » MIT Physics (opens in a new window)
- Book Review: The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces by Frank Wilczek (opens in a new window)
- Physics - Crystals of Time (opens in a new window)
- Wilczek in China (opens in a new window)
- Grant for recruiting Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics to Stockholm University (opens in a new window)
- A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design by Frank Wilczek (opens in a new window)
- Questions and answers with Frank Wilczek (opens in a new window)
- Wilczek appointed founding director of the Tsung-Dao Lee Institute in China (opens in a new window)
- FUNDAMENTALS (opens in a new window)
- #187 - Frank Wilczek: Physics of Quarks, Dark Matter, Complexity, Life & Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast (opens in a new window)