Sidney Coleman

Sidney Coleman (7 March 1937 – 18 November 2007) was an eminent theoretical physicist who studied under Murray Gell-Mann.

Sidney Coleman

Quotes

• Not only God knows, I know, and by the end of the semester, you will know.
  • Said during one of his lectures at Harvard University [1].

• People get a lot of confusion, because they keep trying to think of quantum mechanics as classical mechanics
  • Quantum Mechanics in Your Face, a lecture given by Sidney Coleman at the New England sectional meeting of the American Physical Society (Apr. 9, 1994)
• Every successful physical theory swallows its predecessor alive. But it does so by interpreting the concepts of the old theory in terms of the new, not the other way around. Thus our aim is not "the interpretation of quantum mechanics." It is the interpretation of classical mechanics.
  • Quantum Mechanics in Your Face

• The career of a young theoretical physicist consists of treating the harmonic oscillator in ever-increasing levels of abstraction.
  • Said during one of his lectures at Harvard University [2].

Quotes about Coleman

• Sidney Coleman was not only a leader in theoretical particle physics, but also a hugely gifted and dedicated teacher. In his courses he found just the right balance between rigor and intuition, enlivened by wit, humor and a deep store of anecdotes about the history of physics. Very often these were first-hand accounts; if he wasn't a participant, he was an eyewitness.
  • David Derbes in preface to Chen, Bryan Gin-ge, et al., ed (2018). Quantum field theory: lectures of Sidney Coleman, preface by David Kaiser. World Scientific. p. xxix. 

• If you haven't read his Erice Lectures, you don't know the heights that scientific writing can attain.
  • Jacques Distler: Liveblogging from SidneyFest. Musings: Thoughts on Science, Computing, and Life on Earth (18 March 2005).

• Steve Weinberg was giving the gauge seminar one Wednesday and was, as I recall nearly finished or just finishing his talk. Sidney had not arrived. So-Young Pi asked Steve a question and Steve replied (as I recall) “That’s a good question. I don’t know the answer; I haven’t thought about it.” At that exact instant Sidney enters the room, hears Steve’s reply, heads for the coffee pot, and says “I know the answer; what’s the question?” He was told the question, and he answered it. (Correctly, of course.)
  • Ken Lane: blogpost comment on Nov. 20, 2007; 10:40 AM, as quoted by Betsy Devine in Our friend Sidney Coleman has left the planet. betsydevine.com (blog) (20 November 2007).