Peter van Nieuwenhuizen (; born October 26, 1938) is a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

. He is now a distinguished Professor at

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Van Nieuwenhuizen is best known for his discovery of

supergravity In theoretical physics, supergravity (supergravity theory; SUGRA for short) is a modern field theory that combines the principles of supersymmetry and general relativity; this is in contrast to non-gravitational supersymmetric theories such as ...

with

Sergio Ferrara Sergio Ferrara (born May 2, 1945) is an Italian physicist working on theoretical physics of elementary particles and mathematical physics. He is renowned for the discovery of theories introducing supersymmetry as a symmetry of elementary particles ...

and

Daniel Z. Freedman Daniel Zissel Freedman (born 1939 in Hartford, Connecticut) is an American theoretical physicist. He is an Emeritus Professor of Physics and Applied Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and is currently a visiting profe ...

Life and career

Peter van Nieuwenhuizen studied physics and mathematics at the University of Utrecht, where he obtained in 1971 his Ph.D. under the supervision of later Nobel laureate

Martinus Veltman Martinus Justinus Godefriedus "Tini" Veltman (; 27 June 1931 – 4 January 2021) was a Dutch theoretical physicist. He shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in physics with his former PhD student Gerardus 't Hooft for their work on particle theory. Biogr ...

. After his studies in Utrecht he went to

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...

(Geneva), the University of Paris in Orsay, and

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , pro ...

(Waltham), each for two years. In 1975 he joined the Institute for Theoretical Physics, now named

C. N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics __NOTOC__ The C. N. Yang Institute of Theoretical Physics (YITP) is a research center at Stony Brook University. In 1965, it was the vision of then University President J.S. Toll and Physics Department chair T.A. Pond to create an institute for th ...

, of the

, where he succeeded Nobel laureate

C. N. Yang Yang Chen-Ning or Chen-Ning Yang (; born 1 October 1922), also known as C. N. Yang or by the English name Frank Yang, is a Chinese Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist who made significant contributions to statistical mechanics, integrab ...

as its director from 1999 till 2002. He is married to Marie de Crombrugghe, and they have three children.

Awards and honors

For constructing

, the first

supersymmetric In a supersymmetric theory the equations for force and the equations for matter are identical. In theoretical and mathematical physics, any theory with this property has the principle of supersymmetry (SUSY). Dozens of supersymmetric theories ...

extension of Einstein's theory of

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...

, and for their central role in its subsequent development Peter van Nieuwenhuizen,

and

received in 1993 the

Dirac medal The Dirac Medal is the name of four awards in the field of theoretical physics, computational chemistry, and mathematics, awarded by different organizations, named in honour of Professor Paul Dirac, one of the great theoretical physicists of the 20 ...

from the

International Centre for Theoretical Physics The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) is an international research institute for physical and mathematical sciences that operates under a tripartite agreement between the Italian Government, United Nations Education ...

in Trieste (Italy), in 2006 the

Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics is an award given each year since 1959 jointly by the American Physical Society and American Institute of Physics. It is established by the Heineman Foundation in honour of Dannie Heineman. As of 2010 ...

of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

and in 2016 the

Ettore Majorana Medal Ettore is a given name, the Italian version of Hector. People * Ettore Arrigoni degli Oddi (1867–1942), Italian naturalist * Ettore Bassi (born 1970), Italian actor and television presenter *Ettore Bastianini (1922–1967), Italian opera singer * ...

from EMFCSC, Erice. In 2019 the three were awarded a special

Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics is one of the Breakthrough Prizes, awarded by the Breakthrough Prize Board. Initially named Fundamental Physics Prize, it was founded in July 2012 by Russia-born Israeli entrepreneur, venture capita ...

of $3 million for the discovery. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, and a corresponding member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

since 1994, and of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He was made a Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion in 2004, and Honorary professor of the

Technical University of Vienna TU Wien (TUW; german: Technische Universität Wien; still known in English as the Vienna University of Technology from 1975–2014) is one of the major universities in Vienna, Austria. The university finds high international and domestic recogn ...

(Austria) in 2005.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nieuwenhuizen, Peter Van 1938 births Living people 20th-century Dutch physicists Stony Brook University faculty Scientists from Utrecht (city) Utrecht University alumni Theoretical physicists People associated with CERN Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences