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Murray Gell-Mann - Early days at Santa Fe (171/200)

1,987 views · Published 11 May 2016 · 1:28 · Indexed 6 November 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2016 · Science & Technology

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New York-born physicist Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019) was a theoretical physicist. His considerable contributions to physics include the theory of quantum chromodynamics. He was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. [Listener: Geoffrey West; date recorded: 1997]

TRANSCRIPT: After we held the founding workshops in the fall if '84, we incorporated. I was the first chairman of the board, I believe and we selected George Cowan to be the President and pretty soon we had rented a convent from the Catholic Church and we began to have some wonderful visitors and everything was off to a very good start. I recruited a number of the people, especially in the early days, for workshops, visits, membership on our various boards and so on, and I was very apprehensive - at first especially - because many of the people I was calling were people who were in very different fields, had never heard of me or had barely heard of me, and I was fairly sure what their response would be in most cases; if they were busy, famous people they would say,’ I'm really... what you propose is very interesting, your institute sounds very nice, but you know I'm awfully busy. I have my research and my students and my consulting and my lecturing and I'm writing a book and I really don't have any time. Please don't call me, I'll call you’. Instead the people whose names we selected, people we had heard were interested in interdisciplinary co-operation, almost always said the opposite, something like, ‘Can't I come sooner? I've been waiting for this all my life’. Something of that kind, it was very heartening.

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