Watch Interview: Ed Witten on the Physics of the LHC / CERN Documentary Online


Discussion with Mathematical Physicist Edward Witten, one of the principal authors of the string theory / m theory, on sabbatical at CERN on the physics of the LHC and beyond.

Edward Witten (born August 26, 1951) is an American theoretical physicist with a focus on mathematical physics. He is a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. He is a leading researcher in superstring theory and winner of the highest honor in mathematics, the Fields Medal.

Witten was born in Baltimore, Maryland to a Jewish family, the son of Lorraine W. Witten and Louis Witten, a theoretical physicist specializing in gravitation and general relativity. He received his bachelor’s degree in history (with a minor in linguistics) from Brandeis University. Witten planned to become a political journalist, and published articles in The New Republic and The Nation. He worked briefly for George McGovern’s presidential campaign. Then, he attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison for one semester as an economics graduate student before dropping out.

He then returned to academia, enrolling in applied mathematics at Princeton University before shifting departments and receiving a Ph.D. in physics in 1976 under David Gross, the 2004 Nobel laureate in Physics.