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Anthony Zee (Chinese: 徐一鴻, b. 1945) (Zee comes from /ʑi23/, the Shanghainese pronunciation of ) is a Chinese-American physicist, writer, and a professor at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics and the physics department of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Anthony Zee
Born1945[1]
Alma materPrinceton University
Harvard University
AwardsSloan Research Fellowship
Humboldt Research Award
Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Fellow of the American Physical Society
Scientific career
FieldsTheoretical Physics
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Santa Barbara
Doctoral advisorSidney Coleman
Doctoral studentsStephen Barr
David Wolpert
Anthony Zee
Traditional Chinese徐一鴻
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinXú Yīhóng
Wu
Shanghainese
Romanization
ʑi23 iɪ̆ʔ55 ɦʊŋ22

Early life and education

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Zee was born in Kunming, China, in 1945, but his family fled to Hong Kong when he was four years old.[2][3] His father was a self-taught businessman, and after a few years in Hong Kong, during a slump in business, decided to move the family again, this time to Brazil.[2] The family settled in Sao Paolo, where Zee attended an American international high school before immigrating to the US in 1962 to attend Princeton University, where he worked with physicist John Wheeler.[2][4] After graduating from Princeton University, Zee obtained his PhD from Harvard University, where he focused on group theory in physics, supervised by Sidney Coleman.[2] He graduated in 1970 and went on to complete a postdoc at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.[2] He would later return to the Institute from 1977-78 during a sabbatical year while on faculty at Princeton.[2]

Career

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After completing his postdoctoral studies, Zee accepted an assistant professorship at Rockefeller University in New York in 1972. He only stayed a year before returning to Princeton as an assistant professor in 1973.[2] In his first year back at Princeton, Zee had Ed Witten as his teaching assistant and grader. In 1978 Zee moved on to the University of Pennsylvania for two years.[2] From there he went to the University of Washington before settling at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1985.[5] At UCSB, Zee teaches courses on both general relativity and quantum field theory.[6] The culmination of his teaching is his highly regarded and widely praised "trilogy" of graduate level textbooks: Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell, Einstein Gravity in a Nutshell, and Group Theory in a Nutshell for Physicists. He is also the author of several books for general readers about physics and Chinese culture.

Research

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Zee specializes in theoretical physics; research interests include high energy physics, field theory, cosmology, biophysics, condensed matter physics, and mathematical physics.[7] He has authored or co-authored more than 200 scientific publications and several books on particle physics, condensed matter physics, anomalies in physics, random matrix theory, superconductivity, the quantum Hall effect, and other topics in theoretical physics and evolutionary biology, as well as their various interrelations.[citation needed]

Books

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Technical:

  • 1982. Unity of Forces in the Universe. Singapore: World Scientific.
  • 2010. Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell. 2nd ed. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691140346[8]
  • 2013. Einstein Gravity in a Nutshell. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691145587
  • 2016. Group Theory in a Nutshell for Physicists. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691162690
  • 2020. Fly by Night Physics: How Physicists Use the Backs of Envelopes. Princeton University Press. 2020. ISBN 9780691182544.

General readers:

Awards and honors

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  • Institute for Advanced Study Dyson Distinguished Visiting Professor[10]
  • Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship – 1973[11]
  • Harvard Radcliffe Fellowship – 2006-2007[12]
  • Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation Humboldt Research Award – 2011[10]
  • Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences – 2014[13]
  • Fellow of American Physical Society (APS) - 2014[14]

Notes

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  1. ^ Deutsche Nationalbibliothek "Zee, A."
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Interview of Anthony Zee by David Zierler on 2020 December 15,Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics,College Park, MD USA, www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/45421
  3. ^ "DNB, Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek". portal.dnb.de. Retrieved 25 June 2024.
  4. ^ "Around the Globe: Tony Zee '66". Princeton Alumni Weekly. 8 September 2016. Retrieved 25 June 2024.
  5. ^ Zee, Anthony (8 June 2005). "Dr. Anthony Zee, KITP, Folding RNA". Retrieved 25 June 2024.
  6. ^ "Courses | KITP". www.kitp.ucsb.edu. Retrieved 25 June 2024.
  7. ^ "Research | KITP". www.kitp.ucsb.edu. Retrieved 25 June 2024.
  8. ^ Peskin, Michael E. (2011). "Review of Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell (2nd edn)". Classical and Quantum Gravity. 28 (8): 089003. doi:10.1088/0264-9381/28/8/089003. S2CID 250860979.
  9. ^ Bultheel, Adhemar (2 December 2016). "Review of Fearful Symmetry: The Search for Beauty in Modern Physics". European Mathematical Society.
  10. ^ a b Staff, Indy (25 April 2011). "UCSB Physics Professor Receives International Award". The Santa Barbara Independent. Retrieved 25 June 2024.
  11. ^ "Fellows Database | Alfred P. Sloan Foundation". sloan.org. Retrieved 25 June 2024.
  12. ^ "Anthony Zee". Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Retrieved 25 June 2024.
  13. ^ "Two UCSB Faculty Members Named to American Academy of Arts and Sciences". The Current. 23 April 2014. Retrieved 25 June 2024.
  14. ^ "Five From UCSB Named APS Fellows". The Current. 17 December 2014. Retrieved 25 June 2024.
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