David Gross

David Gross (born 1941) is an American theoretical physicist who shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in quantum chromodynamics. Gross's 1973 calculation with Wilczek, performed while both were at Princeton, demonstrated that non-abelian gauge theories have a negative beta function, establishing QCD as the correct theory of the strong nuclear force.

Gross went on to become a central figure in the development of string theory, where he contributed to the heterotic string and the understanding of the strongly coupled limit of gauge theories through the AdS/CFT correspondence. His later work has focused on the fundamental structure of quantum field theory and the search for a unified theory of all forces.

Gross's career illustrates a pattern common among great physicists: the tools developed to solve one problem become the foundation for an entirely different research program. Asymptotic freedom was the answer to a puzzle about quarks; it became the starting point for a revolution in quantum gravity.