Physical genius
Murray Gell-Mann is one of the greatest legends in physics. He’s also described as The Man With Five Brains, and it’s no mystery why: He was admitted to Yale at age 15, got his PhD at MIT at age 21, and is an international environmental consultant. He was fluent in 13 languages, and had expertise in far-reaching fields such as natural history, historical linguistics, archaeology, bird watching, depth psychology and the theory of complex adaptive systems.
He also coined the term ‘quark’, after developing important aspects of the modern theory of quantum physics… for which he received an undivided Nobel Prize in physics in 1969. His ideas revolutionized thinking about elementary particles in the world. In this lecture he gives his thoughts “about getting creative ideas”.
Murray Gell
Murray Gell-Mann is a Distinguished Fellow of the Santa Fe Institute and author of the popular science book “The Quark and the Jaguar, Adventures in the Simple and the Complex.”
Professor Gell-Mann is not only a Nobel Prize winner, but also holds the Ernest O. Lawrence Memorial Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, the Franklin Medal from the Franklin Institute, the Research Corporation Award, and the John J. Carty Medal from the National Academy of Sciences. In 1988, he was listed on the United Nations Environment Programme Roll of Honour for Environmental Achievement (the Global 500). He also shared the 1989 Erice “Science For Peace” prize. In 1994, he received an honorary doctorate of Natural Resources from the University of Florida.