Remarks at the introduction of a lecture by Professor Leon Cooper
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Robert J. Zimmer
It’s a great pleasure for me to be here this afternoon, and I want to thank Chung-I and the dept for inviting me to say a few words.
The world-wide attention to physics in this 100th anniversary of a remarkable year in the life one physicist is certainly cause for reflection. One marvels at the staggering nature of Einstein’s individual achievements, but likewise at the amazing development of physics as a whole over the last 100 years. Our understanding of the physical world has changed dramatically in the past 100 years due to the work of so many physicists, and the impact of that work has been transforming not only on fundamental understanding but on the society in which we live. It is work and impact of which physicists are justifiably proud, and which we all would do well to remember. It is also an indicator of just how important are our societal and institutional investments in science. Those who will be standing here in 100 years will surely look back over the coming century with the same amazement at the achievements of physics as we have now looking back ourselves.
The subject of today’s talk is relativity – and whenever I hear about relativity, I am reminded of something that happened to me about 20 years ago, and I hope you will forgive me if I tell this story. Physics, particularly theoretical physics, has always had a special relationship with mathematics. As most of you know, I am a mathematician, but I actually started college as a physics major. I switched to mathematics when I tried unsuccessfully for 45 minutes to get an oscilloscope to show a sine wave. In any case, physics, in addition to its many other influences, has had a great impact on mathematics over time - and I think physicists are always pleased by this and are somewhat perturbed when mathematicians don’t seem to realize it. So, as a mathematician, I will tell you one personal story about how physics influenced mathematics – and this concerns Lorentz manifolds, which are an abstract version of space-time which I am sure
About 20 years ago I proved a theorem about the symmetry group of an arbitrary compact Lorentz manifold. I was very pleased with this result (and still am), and I mentioned it to someone in Chicago who response was “physicists think compact Lorentz manifolds are stupid.” I was rather displeased since I had actually been looking for something a bit more enthusiastic as a response, so I went back to my office in a rather dark mood to mull this over. I had a wonderful graduate student at the time who was just beginning to look for a dissertation topic, and when I saw her next I told her what had happened and that she was going to prove a great theorem about symmetry groups of non-compact Lorentz manifolds, which physicists did not think were stupid. And that is exactly what she did. So many are the ways in which physics has influenced mathematics.
And before I turn the floor over to our President to make a few remarks, let me conclude by saying how pleased I am to be here at this inaugural event of what I know will be an exciting programmatic year for physics at Brown, and for the physics community more generally.