Theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson dies at 96
Dyson lecturing at IAS. (Dan Komoda/Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ USA/)Theoretical physicist Freeman J. Dyson, known for his work across multiple scientific disciplines, passed away on February 28 in Princeton, NJ according to a press release put out by the Institute for Advanced Study. Born in 1923 in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England, Dyson did his undergraduate studies at Cambridge, taking a short break to work as a scientist for the Royal Air Force Bomber Command during World War II. He then went on to graduate school at Cornell University in 1947, where he never got around to completing a Ph.D.“I think the Ph.D. system is an abomination,” he told Quanta in 2014. Dyson was a mathematical prodigy who started his career on the right foot, publishing a landmark paper during his graduate studies in 1949 that would help advance the theory of quantum electrodynamics. His insights would lead to a...