Sergio Fubini (December 31, 1928 – January 6, 2005) was an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

theoretical physicist. He was one of the pioneers of

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 ...

. He was engaged in peace activism in the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

Biography

Fubini was born in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

. In 1938, he fled the country as a politically persecuted Jew to

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

. In 1945, he attended the Lycée in Turin, where he studied physics and in 1950 graduated "cum laude." Afterwards, he was an assistant in Turin. From 1954 to 1957, he was in the USA. From 1958 to 1967, he was at

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 Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

. In 1959, he became a professor for nuclear physics at

University of Padua The University of Padua ( it, Università degli Studi di Padova, UNIPD) is an Italian university located in the city of Padua, region of Veneto, northern Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from B ...

. In 1961, he became a professor for theoretical physics at

University of Turin The University of Turin (Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Torino'', UNITO) is a public research university in the city of Turin, in the Piedmont region of Italy. It is one of the oldest universities in Europe and continues to play an impo ...

. From 1968 to 1973, he was at

MIT 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 m ...

, but taught summer courses in Turin. He went back to CERN in 1973 and was from 1971 to 1980 a member of the advisory board and had an important role in planning the Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP) as well as in discussions for the construction of the Middle East's Synchrotron,

SESAME Sesame ( or ; ''Sesamum indicum'') is a flowering plant in the genus ''Sesamum'', also called benne. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cu ...

. At MIT, he was with

Gabriele Veneziano Gabriele Veneziano (; ; born 7 September 1942) is an Italian theoretical physicist widely considered the father of string theory. He has conducted most of his scientific activities at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, and held the Chair of Elementa ...

, Emilio Del Giudice and

Paolo Di Vecchia Paolo Di Vecchia (born October 29, 1942 in Terracina) is an Italian theoretical physicist who works in the field of elementary particle physics, quantum field theory and string theory. Life Di Vecchia graduated from the University of Rome with Br ...

at the center of an active school of theoretical physicist with close connections to Italy (with one of the Italian

INFN The Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN; "National Institute for Nuclear Physics") is the coordinating institution for nuclear, particle, theoretical and astroparticle physics in Italy. History INFN was founded on 8 August 1951, to furt ...

and MIT financed "Bruno Rossi" exchange programs). He and his co-workers did fundamental work in

. Other well-known MIT colleagues at that time were

Victor Weisskopf Victor Frederick "Viki" Weisskopf (also spelled Viktor; September 19, 1908 – April 22, 2002) was an Austrian-born American theoretical physicist. He did postdoctoral work with Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, Wolfgang Pauli, and Niels Boh ...

(who was recruited by Fubini to MIT),

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 ...

and

Roman Jackiw Roman Wladimir Jackiw (; born 8 November 1939) is a theoretical physicist and Dirac Medallist. Born in Lubliniec, Poland in 1939 to a Ukrainian family, the family later moved to Austria and Germany before settling in New York City when Jackiw w ...

. From 1994 to 2001, he was a professor in Turin. Fubini worked in the 1960s on

current algebra Certain commutation relations among the current density operators in quantum field theories define an infinite-dimensional Lie algebra called a current algebra. Mathematically these are Lie algebras consisting of smooth maps from a manifold into a ...

s and

S-matrix theory ''S''-matrix theory was a proposal for replacing local quantum field theory as the basic principle of elementary particle physics. It avoided the notion of space and time by replacing it with abstract mathematical properties of the ''S''-matrix ...

(

Regge trajectories Regge may refer to * Tullio Regge (1931-2014), Italian physicist, developer of Regge calculus and Regge theory * Regge calculus, formalism for producing simplicial approximations of spacetimes * Regge theory, study of the analytic properties of sc ...

among other things), in particular on their field-theoretical foundations. In the 1970s, he was with his MIT colleagues and pupils Gabriele Veneziano, Emilio Del Giudice and Paolo Di Vecchia one of the pioneers of

(the team introduced the so-called

DDF states DDF may refer to: Biology and medicine * Digestive Disorders Foundation, a British medical research charity *(N,N-dimethyl-amino)-benzenediazonium-fluoroborate, a photoaffinity probe that competes with acetylcholine for receptor binding * Sulfox ...

). He worked in the 1970s on other classical solutions of

Yang–Mills equations In physics and mathematics, and especially differential geometry and gauge theory, the Yang–Mills equations are a system of partial differential equations for a connection on a vector bundle or principal bundle. They arise in physics as the Eu ...

and conformally invariant quantum field theory. Fubini died in 2005 in

Nyon Nyon (; outdated German language, German: or ; outdated Italian language, Italian: , ) is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in Nyon District in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It is located some 25 kilomet ...

. He married Marina Colombo in 1956 and had a daughter with her.

Honors

Fubini received 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 ...

in 1968 and received an honorary doctorate from the

University of Heidelberg } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

References

External links

Memorial tribute
b
Sameen Ahmed Khan
at the

International Association of Mathematical Physics The International Association of Mathematical Physics (IAMP) was founded in 1976 to promote research in mathematical physics. It brings together research mathematicians and theoretical physicists, including students. The association's ordinary memb ...

(2005).
Website on the history of SESAME

Memorial tribute by Jackiw

Memorial website at CERN

Scientific publications of Sergio Fubini
on

INSPIRE-HEP INSPIRE-HEP is an open access digital library for the field of high energy physics (HEP). It is the successor of the Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System (SPIRES) database, the main literature database for high energy physics since the 1970 ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fubini, Sergio 1928 births 2005 deaths People associated with CERN 20th-century Italian Jews Italian string theorists Jewish physicists Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty Scientists from Turin University of Padua faculty University of Turin faculty Jews who emigrated to escape Nazism