Hugh David Politzer (; born August 31, 1949)
is an American theoretical physicist at the
California Institute of Technology.
He shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics
with David Gross and Frank Wilczek for their
discovery of asymptotic freedom in quantum
chromodynamics.
== Life and career ==
Politzer was born in New York City.
His parents, Alan and Valerie Politzer, both
from Czechoslovakia, immigrated to the U.S.
after World War II and were both doctors.
He graduated from the Bronx High School of
Science in 1966, received his bachelor's degree
from the University of Michigan in 1969, and
his PhD in 1974 from Harvard University, where
his graduate advisor was Sidney Coleman.
In his first published article, which appeared
in 1973, Politzer described the phenomenon
of asymptotic freedom: the closer quarks are
to each other, the weaker the strong interaction
will be between them.
When quarks are in extreme proximity, the
nuclear force between them is so weak that
they behave almost like free particles.
This result—independently discovered at
around the same time by Gross and Wilczek
at Princeton University—was extremely important
in the development of quantum chromodynamics.
With Thomas Appelquist, Politzer also played
a central role in predicting the existence
of "charmonium", a subatomic particle formed
of a charm quark and a charm antiquark.
Politzer was a junior fellow at the Harvard
Society of Fellows from 1974 to 1977 before
moving to the California Institute of Technology
(Caltech), where he is currently professor
of theoretical physics.
In 1989, he appeared in a minor role in the
movie Fat Man and Little Boy, as Manhattan
Project physicist Robert Serber.
== Trivia ==
Politzer played a role in the 1989 movie "Fat
Man and Little Boy", about the Manhattan project.Politzer
was also the lead vocalist in the 1980s for
"Professor Politzer and the Rho Mesons", which
put out their single, "The Simple Harmonic
Oscillator".Politzer's Erdős-Bacon number
is 5 -- via appearing in Fat Man and Little
Boy with Laura Dern (in Novocaine with Kevin
Bacon,) and publishing once with Sidney Coleman
(Erdős number 2).
== References ==
Politzer, H.D. (1974).
"Asymptotic Freedom: An Approach to Strong
Interactions".
Physics Reports.
14: 129.
Bibcode:1974PhR....14..129D. doi:10.1016/0370-1573(74)90014-3.
== External 
links ==
Nobel Citation
Nobel Lecture, "The Dilemma of Attribution"
(pdf document.
Adobe Acrobat required)
List of papers, from SPIRES
Hugh David Politzer on IMDb
Caltech press release on Politzer winning
the Nobel Prize
Hugh David Politzer at the Mathematics Genealogy
Project
