Steven Weinberg: The Conjectural Sublime

Steven Weinberg had been working for some time on the problem of the strong force that holds together the components of an atom’s nucleus. He was getting nowhere. “Suddenly,” while driving home in his red Camaro, insight arrived. He did not have the wrong answer to the problem of the strong force but the right answer to a different, equally interesting problem: …And I realized the massless particle in this theory that had given me so much trouble had nothing to do with the heavy particles that feel the strong interaction; it was the photon, the particle of which light was composed, that is responsible for electric and magnetic forces and that indeed has zero mass. I realized that what I had cooked up was an approach not just to understanding the weak interaction but to unifying the theories of the weak and electromagnetic forces into what has since come to be called the electroweak theory… “A Model of Leptons” is a paper of which he is justly proud. It has garnered 4,503 citations; a copy has been offered for sale at $950. This is the physicist at his mathematical best, a language he speaks as if it were his native tongue. Another incident confirms Weinberg’s extraordinary talent. Physicist Rich Muller has a bright idea. After several tries, however, the mathematics continues to defeat him. Despondent, he walks down the hall to an office where Steven Weinberg is chatting with Freeman Dyson. The two agree to help: …Weinberg went to the blackboard, wrote down the first equation. “And then he did some manipulations on it,” said Muller, “and stood back.” Dyson said, “I think if you make a substitution of variables now— .” Weinberg said, “Oh, yes, of course,” and wrote several more lines. “I was taking notes,” Muller said, “but I wasn’t sure what he was doing.” Weinberg paused in his writing, and Dyson said, “Now evaluate the delta function,” and Weinberg said, “Oh, okay.” Weinberg wrote down a few more lines, and Dyson said, “Good. You’ve proven it.”