Jean Zinn-Justin (born 10 July 1943 in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

) is a French

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experime ...

Biography

Zinn-Justin was educated in physics (

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...

1964) at the

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

, and did graduate work in theoretical physics at Orsay, (Ph.D. 1968) under the supervision of Marcel Froissart. Zinn-Justin has worked since 1965 as a theoretical and mathematical physicist at the Saclay Nuclear Research Centre ( CEA), where he was head of theoretical physics in 1993−1998 . He has served as a visiting professor at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(MIT),

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, State University of New York at Stony Brook (1972), and

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, and further guest scientists at CERN. From 1987 to 1995 he was Director of the

Les Houches Les Houches () is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Eastern France. In 2017, it had a population of 2,943. Overview Les Houches, located 6 kilometres from Chamonix, is a ski resort with a domain wh ...

summer school for theoretical physics. In 2003 he became leader of DAPNIA (Department of Astrophysics, Particle Physics, Nuclear Physics and Associated Instrumentation) at Saclay. He has made seminal contributions to the renormalizability of gauge theories. He is a world authority on Quantum Field Theory in particle and

Phase transition In chemistry, thermodynamics, and other related fields, a phase transition (or phase change) is the physical process of transition between one state of a medium and another. Commonly the term is used to refer to changes among the basic states o ...

s in statistical physics, and, in particular, the

Renormalization group In theoretical physics, the term renormalization group (RG) refers to a formal apparatus that allows systematic investigation of the changes of a physical system as viewed at different scales. In particle physics, it reflects the changes in the ...

organizing and connecting these two areas. He has written definitive books on the subject. In 1977, he was awarded the Paul Langevin Prize of the Société Française de Physique; in 1981 the

Ampère prize The Prix Ampère de l’Électricité de France is a scientific prize awarded annually by the French Academy of Sciences. Founded in 1974 in honor of André-Marie Ampère to celebrate his 200th birthday in 1975, the award is granted to one or m ...

of the French Academy of Sciences; in 1996 the Gentner-Kastler Prize of the

Société Française de Physique The Société Française de Physique (SFP), or the French Physical Society, is the main professional society of French physicists. It was founded in 1873 by Charles Joseph d'Almeida. History The French Physical Society is a state-approved non-p ...

jointly with the

Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft The German Physical Society (German: , DPG) is the oldest organisation of physicists. The DPG's worldwide membership is cited as 60,547, as of 2019, making it the largest physics society in the world. It holds an annual conference () and multiple ...

(DPG); in 2003 the Gay-Lussac-Humboldt prize. In 2011, he was elected to the French Academy of Sciences.

Notes

Books

*Quantum Field Theory and Critical Phenomena, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989, 1993, 1996, 2002, 2021 *Path Integrals in Quantum Mechanics, Oxford University Press, 2005, *Phase Transitions and Renormalization Group, Oxford University Press, 2007, *From Random Walks to Random Matrices, Oxford University Press, 2021,

External links

Scientific publications of Jean Zinn-Justin
on INSPIRE-HEP * *Zinn-Justin's autho
page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zinn-Justin, Jean 1943 births Living people Theoretical physicists Fellows of the Institute of Physics Mathematical physicists French physicists École Polytechnique alumni People associated with CERN Members of the French Academy of Sciences