Biography

Murray Gell-Mann was born on 15th September 1929, in New York City. He obtained his B.Sc. at Yale University in 1948, and his Ph.D. in 1951 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1952 he became a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, during 1952-1953 he was instructor at the University of Chicago, from 1953 to 1954 he was Assistant Professor, in 1954 he was appointed Associate Professor for research on dispersion relations. In this period he developed the strangeness theory and the eightfold way theory. In 1956 he was appointed Professor, his research then turned more to the theory of weak interactions.

In 1959 Professor Gell-Mann was awarded the Dannie Heineman Prize of the American Physical Society. He is a Fellow of this society and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Murray Gell-Mann was in 1955 married to J. Margaret Dow; they have a daughter, Elizabeth, and a son, Nicholas.

From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1963-1970, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972

This autobiography/biography was first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

 

 

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