The Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics (BCTP) is a research center for theoretical

particle physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) an ...

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount (lexicographer), Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in ...

string theory In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interac ...

and

quantum gravity Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics; it deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the vi ...

at the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

About

The BCTP houses theoretical physics research at Berkeley and has close links to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). It is located in Old

LeConte Hall LeConte Hall is the former name of a building on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, which is home to the physics department. LeConte Hall was one of the largest physics buildings in the world at the time it was opened in 1924, an ...

on the Berkeley campus. Though the BCTP itself was founded at the turn of the 21st century, Berkeley has a rich history in the field of theoretical particle physics, with prominent former physicists including Manhattan project director

Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is often ...

; Nobel Laureates

Steven Weinberg Steven Weinberg (; May 3, 1933 – July 23, 2021) was an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interactio ...

Sheldon Glashow Sheldon Lee Glashow (, ; born December 5, 1932) is a Nobel Prize-winning American theoretical physicist. He is the Metcalf Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Boston University and Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at Harvard U ...

, and

David Gross David Jonathan Gross (; born February 19, 1941) is an American theoretical physicist and string theorist. Along with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of asymptotic freedom. Gr ...

; Breakthrough Prize winners John Schwarz,

Joseph Polchinski Joseph Gerard Polchinski Jr. (; May 16, 1954 – February 2, 2018) was an American theoretical physicist and string theorist. Biography Polchinski was born in White Plains, New York, the elder of two children to Joseph Gerard Polchinski Sr. (1929� ...

, and

Nima Arkani-Hamed Nima Arkani-Hamed ( fa, نیما ارکانی حامد; born April 5, 1972) is an American-Canadian

; Sakurai Prize winners

Mary Gaillard Mary Katharine Gaillard (born April 1, 1939) is an American theoretical physicist. Her focus is on particle physics. She is a professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, a member of the Berkeley Center for Theore ...

Leonard Susskind Leonard Susskind (; born June 16, 1940)his 60th birthday was celebrated with a special symposium at Stanford University.in Geoffrey West's introduction, he gives Suskind's current age as 74 and says his birthday was recent. is an American physicis ...

, and

Lisa Randall Lisa Randall (born June 18, 1962) is an American theoretical physicist working in particle physics and cosmology. She is the Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science on the physics faculty of Harvard University. Her research includes the funda ...

; as well as Dirac Medal winners

Bruno Zumino Bruno Zumino (28 April 1923 − 21 June 2014) was an Italian theoretical physicist and faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley. He obtained his DSc degree from the University of Rome in 1945. He was renowned for his rigorous pro ...

and

Stanley Mandelstam Stanley Mandelstam (; 12 December 1928 – 23 June 2016) was a South African theoretical physicist. He introduced the relativistically invariant Mandelstam variables into particle physics in 1958 as a convenient coordinate system for formulating ...

. The current senior members consist of 10 UC Berkeley faculty and 4 LBNL staff members.

References

{{authority control University of California, Berkeley Theoretical physics institutes Physics institutes