H. David Politzer '66

H. David Politzer '66

Award-winning physicist David Politzer was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with the strong interaction. Politzer and his team worked with the interaction that holds together the protons and neutrons that comprise the atomic nucleus. This interaction was thought to be so strong that no free quarks, or charged atomic particles, were ever observed. However, Politzer proposed the theory of asymptotic freedom, a hypothesis stating that when quarks come in close contact with one another, the attraction subsides and they behave like free particles. Politzer is now a professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology. After graduating from Bronx Science in 1966, Politzer earned his Bachelor’s from the University of Michigan and his Ph.D from Harvard University.