Robert Jaffe

Robert L. Jaffe (born May 23, 1946) is an American physicist and the Jane and Otto Morningstar Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was formerly director of the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics.

Quotes

• The theory community, myself included - became rather troubled about the particle.
  • about the pentaquark, soon after its thought-to-be discovery in 2003, particle physicists found that the particle took about 100 times longer to decay into a neutron and meson than other particles did of the same mass, as quoted by by Maggie McKee, New Scientist, (April 20, 2005)

• You can’t imagine how wonderful it is to teach physics at MIT. The physics majors at MIT are there because they want to be there. Their love of physics is infectious...I've likened it to teaching art history in Rome.
  • Oral history interview for AIP (April 24, 2020)

• I feel I may be controversial in this, but I think that wisdom doesn't count for a lot in theoretical physics. It’s not like history and literature, where you accumulate a broader and broader world view. It’s not a question of energy; I have plenty of energy. I just wrote—just finished writing this massive book...I think most theoretical physicists do their best work when they're young, because they see problems fresh for the first time.
  • Oral history interview for AIP (April 24, 2020)