Steven Weinberg

Steven Weinberg (1933–2021) was an American theoretical physicist whose work unified electromagnetism and the weak interaction, helping establish the Standard Model of particle physics.

Electroweak interaction: The unified description of electromagnetism and the weak interaction within the Standard Model. Weinberg independently formulated this unification, one of his defining contributions.
Gauge theory: A field theory whose laws remain invariant under specified local transformations. Weinberg built electroweak unification as a gauge theory.
Glashow–Salam–Weinberg theory: The electroweak gauge theory developed independently by Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam, and Steven Weinberg. Weinberg’s 1967 paper supplied a key version of the unified theory.
John Bardeen: An American physicist who made foundational contributions to superconductivity and semiconductor physics. Weinberg worked with Bardeen at the University of Illinois early in his career.
Standard Model: The quantum field theory describing known elementary particles and three fundamental interactions. His electroweak work became a central part of this framework.
Spontaneous symmetry breaking: A state of a system that fails to display a symmetry obeyed by its underlying laws. It allows the electroweak equations to retain gauge symmetry while particles acquire mass.
Sheldon Glashow: An American theoretical physicist who formulated an early electroweak gauge theory. His earlier model supplied a foundation that Weinberg developed independently.
Harvard University: A private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Weinberg spent much of his career as a professor there.
Nobel Prize in Physics: An annual award recognizing outstanding contributions to physics. Weinberg shared the 1979 prize for electroweak unification.
Weak neutral current: A weak interaction in which a particle’s electric charge does not change. Its prediction provided a test of electroweak theory before W and Z discovery.

Linked from 14 pages