PHYSICIST

Murray Gell-Mann

1929 - 2019

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Murray Gell-Mann (; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019) was an American theoretical physicist who played a preeminent role in the development of the theory of elementary particles. Gell-Mann introduced the concept of quarks as the fundamental building blocks of the strongly interacting particles, and the renormalization group as a foundational element of quantum field theory and statistical mechanics. He played key roles in developing the concept of chirality in the theory of the weak interactions and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in the strong interactions, which controls the physics of the light mesons. In the 1970s he was a co-inventor of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) which explains the confinement of quarks in mesons and baryons and forms a large part of the Standard Model of elementary particles and forces. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Murray Gell-Mann is the 207th most popular physicist (up from 224th in 2019), the 771st most popular biography from United States (up from 888th in 2019) and the 38th most popular American Physicist.

Murray Gell-Mann is most famous for his contributions to the quark model, which is a model of the building blocks of matter.

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Among PHYSICISTS

Among physicists, Murray Gell-Mann ranks 207 out of 851Before him are Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov, Kip Thorne, Hugh Everett III, Klaus von Klitzing, Karl Schwarzschild, and Maurice Wilkins. After him are Theodor W. Hänsch, Edward Mills Purcell, James Cronin, Francesco Maria Grimaldi, David Lee, and Pyotr Kapitsa.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1929, Murray Gell-Mann ranks 39Before him are Richard E. Taylor, Isamu Akasaki, Hafizullah Amin, Oriana Fallaci, Werner Arber, and Fernanda Montenegro. After him are John Turner, Zdzisław Beksiński, Hebe Camargo, Lennart Meri, Richard F. Gordon Jr., and Eric Kandel. Among people deceased in 2019, Murray Gell-Mann ranks 28Before him are Agnès Varda, Beji Caid Essebsi, Franco Zeffirelli, Doris Day, Marie Fredriksson, and Bert Hellinger. After him are João Gilberto, Mariss Jansons, Immanuel Wallerstein, Alexei Leonov, Anna Karina, and Demetris Christofias.

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In United States

Among people born in United States, Murray Gell-Mann ranks 771 out of 20,380Before him are George Minot (1885), Frank Sheeran (1920), Natalie Wood (1938), Ellen G. White (1827), Darren Young (1983), and Christopher Lambert (1957). After him are Joanne Woodward (1930), Roy Sullivan (1912), Henry Molaison (1926), Florence Griffith Joyner (1959), Robert W. Holley (1922), and Carrie Fisher (1956).

Among PHYSICISTS In United States

Among physicists born in United States, Murray Gell-Mann ranks 38Before him are Douglas Osheroff (1945), George Smoot (1945), Val Logsdon Fitch (1923), Hugh David Politzer (1949), Kip Thorne (1940), and Hugh Everett III (1930). After him are Edward Mills Purcell (1912), James Cronin (1931), David Lee (1931), Steven Weinberg (1933), Robert H. Goddard (1882), and Melvin Schwartz (1932).