Thursday, August 09, 2007

Julius Wess 1934-2007

Just got an email form Hermann Nicolai:

Dear All,

this is to inform you of the passing away of Julius Wess who
was a teacher and friend to many of us. His untimely death (at the age of 72) is particularly tragic in view of the fact that he
would have been a sure candidate for the Nobel Prize in physics if supersymmetry
is discovered at LHC. We will always remember him as a great physicist
and human being.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is very sad. Wess was considered a very friendly man. Among colleagues and students as well!
It was interesting, that, in recent years, he worked not only on supersymmetry but on non-cummutative geometry and Heisenberg Algebras:
http://www.theorie.physik.uni-muenchen.de/~wess/

The Book about Supersymmetry and Supergravity, which he wrote, had apparently no new edition.
Instead a new book appeared:
http://www.amazon.de/Supersymmetries-Quantum-Symmetries-Julius-Wess/dp/3540660046
Which is not only on supersymmetry but on other integrable Systems and Quantum algebras.

In other words:
Wess was one of the rare people in germany, who were able to "work on something else". If he would have lived longer, students would had the possibility to do diploma work in areas which are different from String theory and Supersymmetry, but rather in the field of true and almost unexplored mathematical physics (ie quantum algebra, non-commutative geometry etc.)

It is very sad that he passed away. He was a very nice man.

Anonymous said...

"If he would have lived longer, students would had the possibility to do diploma work in areas which are different from String theory and Supersymmetry, but rather in the field of true and almost unexplored mathematical physics (ie quantum algebra, non-commutative geometry etc.)"

Please how, as he was retired? Nonetheless, before scores of young researchers had worked in this field for two decades or so, but I fail to see what has been achieved. Working on "something else" is not necessarily a virtue....

Anonymous said...

He was a great physicist and a great human. Those who crossed his path will remember him...

Julius Wess, photographed by Tassilo.