Murray Gell-Mann

Gell-Mann was born in Lower Manhattan to a family of Jewish immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, specifically from Czernowitz in present-day Ukraine.{{Cite web |author=M. Gell-Mann |date=October 1997 |title=My Father |url=http://www.webofstories.com/play/10555 |work=Web of Stories |access-date=October 1, 2010 |archive-date=August 29, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120829203517/http://www.webofstories.com/play/10555 |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |author=J. Brockman |year=2003 |title=The Making of a Physicist: A talk with Murray Gell-Mann |url=http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gell-mann03/gell-mann_print.html |work=Edge Foundation, Inc. |access-date=October 1, 2010 |archive-date=May 17, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210517173722/http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gell-mann03/gell-mann_print.html |url-status=live }} His parents were Pauline (née Reichstein) and Arthur Isidore Gelman, who taught English as a second language.[http://www.nndb.com/people/310/000023241 Profile] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210601055314/http://www.nndb.com/people/310/000023241 |date=June 1, 2021 }}, NNDB; accessed April 26, 2015.

Propelled by an intense boyhood curiosity and love for nature and mathematics, he graduated valedictorian from the Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School aged 14 and subsequently entered Yale College as a member of Jonathan Edwards College.{{cite web |url=https://je.yalecollege.yale.edu/about-us/history/notable-alumni |title=Notable Alumni |publisher=Jonathan Edwards College |access-date=27 May 2019 |archive-date=May 27, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190527031521/https://je.yalecollege.yale.edu/about-us/history/notable-alumni |url-status=live }} At Yale, he participated in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition and was on the team representing Yale University (along with Murray Gerstenhaber and Henry O. Pollak) that won the second prize in 1947.{{cite journal |title=The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition |author=G. W. Mackey | authorlink= George Mackey |journal=The American Mathematical Monthly |volume=54 |issue=7 |pages=400–3 |year=1947 |jstor=2304390 |doi=10.1080/00029890.1947.11990193 }}

Gell-Mann graduated from Yale with a bachelor's degree in physics in 1948 and intended to pursue graduate studies in physics. He sought to remain in the Ivy League for his graduate education and applied to Princeton University as well as Harvard University. He was rejected by Princeton and accepted by Harvard, but the latter institution was unable to offer him needed financial assistance.

He was accepted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and received a letter from Victor Weisskopf urging him to attend MIT and become Weisskopf's research assistant. This would provide Gell-Mann with the financial assistance he required. Unaware of MIT's eminent status in physics research,

Gell-Mann was "miserable" with the fact that he would not be able to

attend Princeton or Harvard and in characteristic dark irony, said he

considered suicide. Gell-Mann stated that he realized he could try to first enter MIT and commit suicide afterwards if he found it to be truly terrible. However, he couldn't first choose suicide and then attend MIT; the two "didn't commute", as Gell-Mann said.{{Citation|title=Murray Gell-Mann - MIT or suicide (17/200)| date=August 11, 2011 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfEvQMPDhOg |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/nfEvQMPDhOg| archive-date=2021-12-11 |url-status=live|language=en|access-date=2020-06-06}}{{cbignore}}{{Cite book|last=Strogatz|first=Steven|title=The Joy of x: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity|publisher=Mariner Books|year=2013|isbn=978-0544105850|pages=27}}

He received his Ph.D. in physics from MIT in 1951 after completing a doctoral dissertation, titled "Coupling strength and nuclear reactions", under the supervision of Weisskopf.{{Cite thesis|title=Coupling strength and nuclear reactions|url=https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/12195|publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology|date=1951|degree=Thesis|first=Murray|last=Gell-Mann|hdl=1721.1/12195|access-date=June 6, 2020|archive-date=January 28, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230128220413/https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/12195|url-status=live}}

Subsequently, Gell-Mann was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 1951, and a visiting research professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign from 1952 to 1953.in 1954, there, working with Francis E. Low, he discovered the renormalization group equation of QED. He was a visiting associate professor at Columbia University and an associate professor at the University of Chicago in 1954–1955, before moving to the California Institute of Technology, where he taught from 1955 until he retired in 1993.{{cite web |url=http://oralhistories.library.caltech.edu/228/ |title=Interview with Murray Gell-Mann [Oral History] |website=Caltech Institute Archives |access-date=May 25, 2019 |archive-date=February 21, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240221011410/https://oralhistories.library.caltech.edu/228/ |url-status=live }} He was on sabbatical at the Collège de France for the academic year 1958–1959.{{cite journal|journal=Inference|volume=4|issue=4|date=July 2019|title=In Memoriam. Murray Gell-Mann|author=Glashow, Sheldon Lee|doi=10.37282/991819.19.42|s2cid=241304235|url=https://inference-review.com/article/in-memoriam-murray-gell-mann|access-date=November 8, 2023|archive-date=February 3, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240203174027/https://inference-review.com/article/in-memoriam-murray-gell-mann|url-status=live}}

Gell-Mann married J. Margaret Dow in 1955; they had a daughter and a son. Margaret died in 1981, and in 1992 he married Marcia Southwick, whose son became his stepson.

In 2011, Gell-Mann attended an event on Jeffrey Epstein's private island, Little Saint James, known as the "Mindshift Conference", hosted by Epstein and Al Seckel.{{Cite web |title=Jeffrey Epstein to Host Mindshift Conference |url=http://www.jeffreyepsteinscience.com/ |access-date=June 1, 2024 |archive-date=November 11, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20101111012357/http://www.jeffreyepsteinscience.com/ |url-status=bot: unknown }}{{Cite web |last=Masters |first=Kim |date=2019-09-18 |title=The Strange Saga of Jeffrey Epstein's Link to a Child Star Turned Cryptocurrency Mogul |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/strange-saga-jeffrey-epstein-s-link-brock-pierce-1240462/ |access-date=2024-07-12 |website=The Hollywood Reporter |language=en-US}}

Gell-Mann's extensive interests outside of physics included archaeology, numismatics, birdwatching and linguistics. Along with S. A. Starostin, he established the Evolution of Human Languages project{{Cite book | last1=Peregrine | first1=Peter Neal | author-link1=Peter N. Peregrine | title=Ancient Human Migrations: A Multidisciplinary Approach |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-AQNAQAAMAAJ |year=2009 |publisher=The University of Utah Press |isbn=978-0-87480-942-8 |page=ix |quote=Sergei Starostin and I established the Evolution of Human Languages project}} at the Santa Fe Institute. As a humanist and an agnostic, Gell-Mann was a Humanist Laureate in the International Academy of Humanism.[http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=iah&page=index The International Academy of Humanism] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080424101318/http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=iah&page=index |date=April 24, 2008 }} at the website of the Council for Secular Humanism. Retrieved October 18, 2007. Some of this information is also at the [http://www.iheu.org/american-humanist-association-building-momentum International Humanist and Ethical Union] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120418195201/http://www.iheu.org/american-humanist-association-building-momentum |date=April 18, 2012 }} website{{Cite book |title=The Language God Talks: On Science and Religion |year=2010 |publisher=Hachette Digital, Inc. |isbn=9780316096751 |author=Herman Wouk |quote=Feynman, Gell-Mann, Weinberg, and their peers accept Newton's incomparable stature and shrug off his piety, on the kindly thought that the old man got into the game too early. ... As for Gell-Mann, he seems to see nothing to discuss in this entire God business, and in the index to The Quark and the Jaguar God goes unmentioned. Life he called a "complex adaptive system", which produces interesting phenomena such as the jaguar and Murray Gell-Mann, who discovered the quark. Gell-Mann is a Nobel-class tackler of problems, but for him the existence of God is not one of them.|author-link=Herman Wouk }} Novelist Cormac McCarthy saw Gell-Mann as a polymath who "knew more things about more things than anyone I've ever met...losing Murray is like losing the Encyclopædia Britannica."{{cite journal |last1=Frazier |first1=Kendrick |author-link1=Kendrick Frazier |title=In Memory of Murray Gell-Mann, Who Gave Us Quarks and Ordered the Subatomic World |journal=Skeptical Inquirer |date=2019 |volume=43 |issue=5 |page=10}}

Gell-Mann died on May 24, 2019, at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.{{Cite press release |first=Jenna |last=Marshall |title=Murray Gell-Mann passes away at 89 |url=https://santafe.edu/news-center/news/murray-gell-mann-passes-away-89 |work=Santa Fe Institute |date=May 24, 2019 |access-date=May 24, 2019 |archive-date=November 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231102034700/https://santafe.edu/news-center/news/murray-gell-mann-passes-away-89 |url-status=live }}{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jun/02/murray-gell-mann-obituary|title=Murray Gell-Mann obituary|last=Dombey|first=Norman|date=2019-06-02|work=The Guardian|access-date=2019-06-06|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077|archive-date=May 23, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240523052504/https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jun/02/murray-gell-mann-obituary|url-status=live}}

Gell-Mann was the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Theoretical Physics Emeritus at California Institute of Technology as well as a university professor in the physics and astronomy department of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the Presidential Professor of Physics and Medicine at the University of Southern California.{{Cite web |url=http://uscnews.usc.edu/university/nobel_prize_winner_appointed_presidential_professor_at_usc.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100919003453/http://uscnews.usc.edu/university/nobel_prize_winner_appointed_presidential_professor_at_usc.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 19, 2010 |title=Nobel Prize Winner Appointed Presidential Professor at USC}}

He was a member of the editorial board of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Gell-Mann spent several periods at CERN, a nuclear research facility in Switzerland, among others as a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellow in 1972.{{Cite book |publisher=Springer |pages=733–761|doi = 10.1007/978-3-7091-4034-5_20|chapter = Quarks|year = 1972|last1 = Gell-Mann|first1 = M.|title=Elementary Particle Physics |isbn=978-3-7091-4036-9}}[https://inspirehep.net/author/profile/M.Gell.Mann.1 Scientific publications of M. Gell-Mann] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190603132002/https://inspirehep.net/author/profile/M.Gell.Mann.1 |date=June 3, 2019 }} on INSPIRE-HEP

In 1984 Gell-Mann was one of several co-founders of the Santa Fe Institute—a non-profit theoretical research institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico intended to study various aspects of a complex system and disseminate the notion of a separate interdisciplinary study of complexity theory.{{cite book | author = Mitchell M. Waldrop | year = 1993 | title = Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos | publisher = Simon & Schuster | url =https://archive.org/details/complexityemergi00wald| url-access = registration | isbn = 9780671872342 }}{{cite book | author = George A. Cowan | year = 2010 | title = Manhattan Project to the Santa Fe Institute: The Memoirs of George A. Cowan | publisher = University of New Mexico Press}}

File:Murray Gell-Mann at Lection (big).jpg

He wrote a popular science book about physics and complexity science, The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex (1994).Reviews of The Quark and the Jaguar:

• {{cite journal |last=Ferris |first=Timothy |author-link=Timothy Ferris |title=On the Edge of Chaos |journal=The New York Review of Books |date=September 21, 1995 |volume=42 |issue=14 |access-date=May 26, 2019 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/09/21/on-the-edge-of-chaos/ |archive-date=May 26, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190526154946/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/09/21/on-the-edge-of-chaos/ |url-status=live }}
• {{cite journal|last=Mermin |first=N. David |author-link=N. David Mermin |title=A "Virtuosically Adaptive" System as Seen by a "Marginally Adaptive" One |journal=Physics Today |volume=47 |number=9 |pages=89 |doi=10.1063/1.2808634}} The title of the book is taken from a line of a poem by Arthur Sze: "The world of the quark has everything to do with a jaguar circling in the night".{{Cite web |url=https://www.webofstories.com/play/murray.gell-mann/190 |title=Murray Gell-Mann – Physicist – The decision to write "The Quark and the Jaguar" – Web of Stories |access-date=July 17, 2020 |archive-date=August 5, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200805165915/https://www.webofstories.com/play/murray.gell-mann/190 |url-status=live }}{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWcks_wwJSg |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/bWcks_wwJSg| archive-date=2021-12-11 |url-status=live|access-date=July 17, 2020|title=Murray Gell-Mann - The decision to write "The Quark and the Jaguar" (190/200)|website=YouTube |date=May 11, 2016 }}{{cbignore}}

The author George Johnson has written a biography of Gell-Mann, Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann, and the Revolution in 20th-Century Physics (1999),{{cite web |first=George |last=Johnson |title=Strange Beauty |url=http://talaya.net/strangebeauty.html |work=Talaya.net |access-date=June 3, 2019 |archive-date=May 8, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190508041954/http://talaya.net/strangebeauty.html |url-status=live }}{{unreliable source?|reason=this source is merely a collection of plaudits from a variety of reviewers about Johnson's book; it is not a biography|date=February 2022}}

which was shortlisted for the Royal Society Book Prize.

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T2Ec5KacJ4p2IWWz6m4RUbZhTlT-LOfEvqWlzrAAq5I/edit#gid=0 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize winners list at docs.google.com/spreadsheets] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191023213941/https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T2Ec5KacJ4p2IWWz6m4RUbZhTlT-LOfEvqWlzrAAq5I/edit#gid=0 |date=October 23, 2019 }} Retrieved February 15, 2017

Although Gell-Mann himself criticized Strange Beauty for some inaccuracies, with one interviewer reporting him wincing at the mention of it, the book was acclaimed by a number of his colleagues.

{{cite web |url=https://physicsworld.com/a/the-many-worlds-of-murray-gell-mann/ |title=The many worlds of Murray Gell-Mann |website=Physics World |last=Rodgers |first=Peter |date=June 1, 2003 |access-date=May 26, 2019 |archive-date=November 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231102034704/https://physicsworld.com/a/the-many-worlds-of-murray-gell-mann/ |url-status=live }}

In a review in the Caltech magazine Engineering & Science, Gell-Mann's colleague, the physicist David Goodstein, wrote: "I don't envy Murray the weird experience of reading so penetrating and perceptive a biography of himself. George Johnson has written a fine biography of this important and complex man". {{cite journal |first=David L. |last=Goodstein |title=Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics |url=http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/3985/ |journal=Engineering and Science |volume=62 |number=4 |publisher=Caltech |issn=0013-7812 |date=1999 |access-date=June 3, 2019 |archive-date=May 29, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190529004610/http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/3985/ |url-status=live }}.

Physicist and Nobel laureate Philip Anderson, called the book "a masterpiece of scientific explication for the layman" and a "must read" in a review for the Times Higher Education Supplement and in his chapter on Gell-Mann from a 2011 book.{{Cite book |author=Anderson, Philip W. |title=More and Different: Notes from a Thoughtful Curmudgeon |chapter=Ch. V Genius. Search for Polymath's Elementary Particles |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tU9yOac455kC&pg=PA241 |year=2011 |publisher=World Scientific |isbn=978-981-4350-14-3 |pages=241–2 }} Philip Anderson, More and Different, Chapter V, World Scientific, 2011. Sheldon Glashow, another Nobel laureate, gave Strange Beauty a generally positive review while noting some inaccuracies, {{cite journal|last=Glashow |first=Sheldon Lee |author-link=Sheldon Glashow |title=Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics |journal=American Journal of Physics |volume=68 |number=6 |pages=582 |year=2000 |doi=10.1119/1.19489|bibcode=2000AmJPh..68..582J }}

and physicist and science historian Silvan S. Schweber called the book "an elegant biography of one of the outstanding theorists of the twentieth century" though he noted that Johnson did not go into depth about Gell-Mann's work with military–industrial organizations like the Institute for Defense Analyses. {{cite journal|last=Schweber |first=Silvan S. |author-link=Silvan S. Schweber |title=Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics |journal=Physics Today |volume=53 |number=8 |pages=43–44 |doi=10.1063/1.1310122|year=2000 |bibcode=2000PhT....53h..43J }}

Johnson has written that Gell-Mann was a perfectionist and that The Quark and the Jaguar was consequently submitted late and incomplete.{{Cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/07/the-jaguar-and-the-fox/378264/|title=The Jaguar and the Fox|last=Johnson|first=George|date=2000-07-01|website=The Atlantic|language=en-US|access-date=2019-05-27|archive-date=May 5, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190505210036/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/07/the-jaguar-and-the-fox/378264/|url-status=live}} In an item on Edge.org, Johnson described the back story of his relationship with Gell-Mann {{cite web |first=Geoffrey |last=West |title=Remembering Murray |url=https://www.edge.org/conversation/murray_gell_mann-remembering-murray/ |work=Edge Foundation, Inc. |date=May 28, 2019 |access-date=June 3, 2019 |archive-date=May 28, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190528225438/https://www.edge.org/conversation/murray_gell_mann-remembering-murray/ |url-status=live }} and noted that an errata sheet appears on the biography's webpage. {{cite web |first=George |last=Johnson |title=Errata |url=http://talaya.net/strangebeauty.errata.html |work=Talaya.net |access-date=June 3, 2019 |archive-date=May 28, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190528231850/http://talaya.net/strangebeauty.errata.html |url-status=live }}.

Gell-Mann's one-time Caltech associate Stephen Wolfram called Johnson's book "a very good biography of Murray, which Murray hated". name=wolfram>Stephen Wolfram, [https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2019/05/remembering-murray-gell-mann-1929-2019-inventor-of-quarks/ Remembering Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019), Inventor of Quarks] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190601221540/https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2019/05/remembering-murray-gell-mann-1929-2019-inventor-of-quarks/ |date=June 1, 2019 }} Wolfram also wrote that Gell-Mann thought the writing of The Quark and the Jaguar to be responsible for a heart attack he (Gell-Mann) had had. A revised second edition was published in 2023 by the Santa Fe Institute Press with a foreword by Douglas Hofstadter.{{Cite web|url=https://www.sfipress.org/books/strange-beauty|title=Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann & the Revolution in Physics|website=SFI Press|language=en-US|access-date=2023-11-26|archive-date=November 26, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231126173753/https://www.sfipress.org/books/strange-beauty|url-status=live}}

In 2012 Gell-Mann and his companion Mary McFadden published the book Mary McFadden: A Lifetime of Design, Collecting, and Adventure.{{Cite book|author1=Mary McFadden|author2=Murray Gell-Mann|title=Mary McFadden: A Lifetime of Design, Collecting, and Adventure|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oKlOygAACAAJ|year=2012|publisher=Random House Incorporated|isbn=978-0-8478-3656-7}}

In 1958, Gell-Mann in collaboration with Richard Feynman, in parallel with the independent team of E. C. George Sudarshan and Robert Marshak, discovered the chiral structures of the weak interaction of physics and developed the V-A theory (vector minus axial vector theory).{{Cite journal|last1=Sudarshan|first1=E. C. G.|last2=Marshak|first2=R. E.|date=June 1, 2016|title=Origin of the Universal V-A theory|journal=AIP Conference Proceedings|volume=300|issue=1|pages=110–124|doi=10.1063/1.45454|issn=0094-243X|hdl=2152/29431|s2cid=10153816 |hdl-access=free}} This work followed the experimental discovery of the violation of parity by Chien-Shiung Wu, as suggested theoretically by Chen-Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee.{{cite book |last=Gleick |first=James |author-link=James Gleick |title=Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman |publisher=Pantheon Books |year=1992 |isbn=0-679-40836-3|oclc=243743850}}

Gell-Mann's work in the 1950s involved recently discovered cosmic ray particles that came to be called kaons and hyperons. Classifying these particles led him to propose that a quantum number, called strangeness, would be conserved by the strong and the electromagnetic interactions, but not by the weak interaction.{{cite journal|last=Gell-Mann |first=M. |title=The Interpretation of the New Particles as Displaced Charge Multiplets |journal=Il Nuovo Cimento |year=1956 |volume=4 |number=supplement 2 |pages=848–866 |doi=10.1007/BF02748000|bibcode=1956NCim....4S.848G |s2cid=121017243 }} Another of Gell-Mann's ideas is the Gell-Mann–Okubo formula, which was, initially, a formula based on empirical results, but was later explained by his quark model.{{cite book|last=Georgi |first=Howard |author-link=Howard Georgi |title=Lie Algebras in Particle Physics: from Isospin to Unified Theories |publisher=Perseus Books |year=1999 |edition=2nd |isbn=9780738202334 |oclc=479362196}} Gell-Mann and Abraham Pais were involved in explaining this puzzling aspect of the neutral kaon mixing.{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/science/quantum-mechanics-physics/Applications-of-quantum-mechanics#ref77525|title=Quantum mechanics – Applications of quantum mechanics – Decay of the Kaon|last=Squires|first=Gordon Leslie|date=July 26, 1999|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|access-date=May 27, 2019|archive-date=March 28, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230328223015/https://www.britannica.com/science/quantum-mechanics-physics/Applications-of-quantum-mechanics#ref77525|url-status=live}}

Murray Gell-Mann's fortunate encounter with mathematician Richard Earl Block at Caltech, in the fall of 1960, "enlightened" him to introduce a novel classification scheme, in 1961, for hadrons.{{cite report |last=Gell-Mann |first=M. |author-link=Murray Gell-Mann |date=March 15, 1961 |title=The Eightfold Way: A Theory of Strong Interaction Symmetry |publisher=California Inst. of Tech., Synchrotron Laboratory |location=Pasadena, CA |doi=10.2172/4008239 |id=TID-12608 |url=https://www.osti.gov/scitech/servlets/purl/4008239 |via=OSTI.GOV |access-date=May 25, 2019 |archive-date=March 9, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200309114449/https://www.osti.gov/biblio/4008239 |url-status=live }}{{cite AV media |title=Murray Gell-Mann - Sheldon Glashow. The SU(2) times U1 theory: Part 2 (91/200) |url=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UoRm30T2058&t=2m32s |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/UoRm30T2058| archive-date=2021-12-11 |url-status=live|date=May 19, 2016 |publisher=Web of Stories |via=YouTube |access-date=June 3, 2019}}{{cbignore}} A similar scheme had been independently proposed by Yuval Ne'eman, and has come to be explained by the quark model.{{cite journal |last=Ne'eman |first=Y. |author-link=Yuval Ne'eman |date=August 1961 |title=Derivation of Strong Interactions from a Gauge Invariance |journal=Nuclear Physics |publisher=North-Holland Publishing Co. |location=Amsterdam |doi=10.1016/0029-5582(61)90134-1 |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=222–229|bibcode=1961NucPh..26..222N }} Gell-Mann referred to the scheme as the eightfold way, because of the octets of particles in the classification (the term is a reference to the Eightfold Path of Buddhism).{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/may/26/murray-gell-mann-nobel-prize-physicist-quarks-dies |title=Murray Gell-Mann, Nobel Prize-winning physicist who named quarks, dies at 89 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=26 May 2019 |access-date=27 May 2019 |archive-date=August 4, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200804030901/https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/may/26/murray-gell-mann-nobel-prize-physicist-quarks-dies |url-status=live }}

Gell-Mann, along with Maurice Lévy, developed the sigma model of pions, which describes low-energy pion interactions.{{Cite journal

| last1=Gell-Mann | first1=M.

| last2=Lévy | first2=M.

| year=1960

| title=The axial vector current in beta decay

| journal=Il Nuovo Cimento

| volume=16 | issue=4

| pages=705–726

| doi=10.1007/BF02859738

| bibcode=1960NCim...16..705G| s2cid=122945049

}}

In 1964, Gell-Mann and, independently, George Zweig went on to postulate the existence of quarks, particles which make up the hadrons of this scheme. The name "quark" was coined by Gell-Mann, and is a reference to the novel Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce ("Three quarks for Muster Mark!" book 2, episode 4). Zweig had referred to the particles as "aces",{{Cite book |author=G. Zweig |orig-date=1964 |chapter=An SU(3) model for strong interaction symmetry and its breaking II |chapter-url=http://cdsweb.cern.ch/search.py?recid=570209&ln=en |editor1=D. Lichtenberg |editor2=S. Rosen |year=1980 |title=Developments in the Quark Theory of Hadrons |volume=1 |pages=22–101 |publisher=Hadronic Press |doi=10.17181/CERN-TH-412 }} but Gell-Mann's name caught on. Quarks, antiquarks, and gluons were soon established as the underlying elementary objects in the study of the structure of hadrons. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1969 for his contributions and discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions.[http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1969/ Simple listing of Nobel Prize in Physics, 1969] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120713083609/http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1969/ |date=July 13, 2012 }} Retrieved February 15, 2017

In the 1960s, he introduced current algebra as a method of systematically exploiting symmetries to extract predictions from quark models, in the absence of reliable dynamical theory. This method led to model-independent sum rules confirmed by experiment, and provided starting points underpinning the development of the Standard Model (SM), the widely accepted theory of elementary particles.{{cite conference|last=Ellis |first=John |title=Prospects for New Physics at the LHC |book-title=Proceedings of the Conference in Honour of Murray Gell-Mann's 80th Birthday: Quantum Mechanics, Elementary Particles, Quantum Cosmology and Complexity : Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, February 24–26, 2010 |publisher=World Scientific |year=2011 |isbn=9789814335607 |editor1-last=Fritzsch |editor1-first=Harald |editor2-last=Phua |editor2-first=K. K. |editor3-last=Baaquie |editor3-first=B. E.}}{{cite book|last=Cao |first=Tian Yu |title=From Current Algebra to Quantum Chromodynamics: A Case for Structural Realism |year=2010 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9781139491600}}

In 1972 Gell-Mann, while on sabbatical leave to CERN, together with Harald Fritzsch, Heinrich Leutwyler and William A. Bardeen, considered a Yang-Mills theory of "quark color," and coined the term quantum chromodynamics (QCD) as the gauge theory of the strong interaction.{{cite journal | last1 = Fritzsch | first1 = H. | last2 = Gell-Mann | first2 = M. | last3 = Leutwyler | first3 = H. | title = Advantages of the color octet gluon picture | journal = Physics Letters | volume = 47B | issue = 4| pages = 365–368 | year = 1973 | doi=10.1016/0370-2693(73)90625-4| bibcode = 1973PhLB...47..365F | citeseerx = 10.1.1.453.4712 }} The quark model is a part of QCD, and it has been robust enough to accommodate in a natural fashion the discovery of new "flavors" of quarks, which has superseded the eightfold way scheme.{{cite web |url=http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/qg-spring2003/eightfold/ |title=The Eightfold Way |last=Baez |first=John C. |author-link=John C. Baez |year=2003 |website=Quantum Gravity Seminar — Spring 2003 |publisher=University of California, Riverside |access-date=2019-05-28 |archive-date=February 15, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190215231205/http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/qg-spring2003/eightfold/ |url-status=live }}

Gell-Mann was responsible, with Pierre Ramond and Richard Slansky,M. Gell-Mann, P. Ramond and R. Slansky, in Supergravity, ed. by D. Freedman and P. Van Nieuwenhuizen, North Holland, Amsterdam (1979), pp. 315–321. {{ISBN|044485438X}} and independently of Peter Minkowski, Rabindra Mohapatra, Goran Senjanović, Sheldon Glashow, and Tsutomu Yanagida, for proposing the seesaw theory of neutrino masses. This produces masses at the large scale in any theory with a right-handed neutrino. He is also known to have played a role in keeping string theory alive through the 1970s and early 1980s, supporting that line of research at a time when it was a topic of niche interest.{{cite book|last=Rickles |first=Dean |title=A Brief History of String Theory: From Dual Models to M-Theory |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |year=2014 |isbn=9783642451287 |oclc=968779591}}{{cite web |url=https://www.sciencenews.org/node/205111 |title=Murray Gell-Mann gave structure to the subatomic world |last=Siegfried |first=Tom |website=Science News |date=May 24, 2019 |access-date=May 26, 2019 |archive-date=May 25, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190525071755/https://www.sciencenews.org/node/205111 |url-status=dead }}

Gell-Mann was a proponent of the consistent histories approach to understanding quantum mechanics, which he advocated in papers with James Hartle.{{cite journal|last=Kent |first=Adrian |title=Consistent Sets Yield Contrary Inferences in Quantum Theory |journal=Physical Review Letters |volume=78 |number=15 |date=April 14, 1997 |pages=2874–2877 |doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.78.2874|bibcode=1997PhRvL..78.2874K |arxiv=gr-qc/9604012 |s2cid=16862775 }}

Gell-Mann won numerous awards and honours including the following:

{{Div col|colwidth=35em}}

• 1959 – Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics{{Cite web|url=https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm|title=1959 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics Recipient|website=American Physical Society|access-date=May 25, 2019|quote=For his contributions to field theory and to the theory of elementary particles.|archive-date=February 3, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070203124059/https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm|url-status=live}}
• 1960 – Elected member of the National Academy of Sciences[http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/members/55410.html Gell-Mann listing at member-directory of nasonline.org] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190324140321/http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/members/55410.html |date=March 24, 2019 }} Retrieved February 15, 2017
• 1962 – American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award {{Cite news|title=Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D. Biography and Interview|newspaper=Academy of Achievement|publisher=American Academy of Achievement|url=https://www.achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/#interview|access-date=April 17, 2019|archive-date=February 16, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240216064450/https://achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/#interview|url-status=live}}
• 1964 – Elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences{{Cite web|url=https://www.amacad.org/person/murray-gell-mann|title=Murray Gell-Mann|website=amacad.org|date=February 9, 2023|access-date=June 6, 2020|archive-date=November 3, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231103021135/https://www.amacad.org/person/murray-gell-mann|url-status=live}}
• 1966 – Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award{{Cite web|url=https://science.energy.gov/lawrence/award-laureates/1960s/gell-mann/|title=Murray Gell-Mann 1966|date=May 3, 2016|website=US Department of Energy, Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170522023038/https://science.energy.gov/lawrence/award-laureates/1960s/gell-mann/|archive-date=May 22, 2017|access-date=May 25, 2019|quote=For his contributions of the highest significance to the theory of elementary and theoretical work in the field of physics.}}
• 1967 – Franklin Medal{{cite web |url=https://www.fi.edu/laureates/murray-gell-mann |title=Murray Gell-Mann, Physics (1967) |website=The Franklin Institute |access-date=May 25, 2019 |date=January 15, 2014 |archive-date=February 23, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210223024441/https://www.fi.edu/laureates/murray-gell-mann |url-status=dead }}
• 1968 – National Academy of Sciences – John J. Carty Award{{Cite web |title=John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science |url=http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_carty |publisher=National Academy of Sciences |access-date=March 7, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101229180532/http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_carty |archive-date=December 29, 2010 }}
• 1969 – Research Corporation Award
• 1969 – Nobel Prize in Physics {{cite web |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1969/gell-mann/biographical/ |title=Murray Gell-Mann – Biographical |website=The Nobel Prize |access-date=May 25, 2019 |archive-date=December 9, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231209051354/https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1969/gell-mann/biographical/ |url-status=live }}
• 1978 – Elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS)
• 1988 – United Nations Environment Programme Roll of Honor for Environmental Achievement (The Global 500) {{cite web |url=https://www.global500.org/index.php/thelaureates/online-directory/item/621-murray-gell-mann |title=Murray Gell-Mann |website=Global 500 Environmental Forum |access-date=May 25, 2019 |archive-date=May 25, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190525213759/https://www.global500.org/index.php/thelaureates/online-directory/item/621-murray-gell-mann |url-status=dead }}
• 1993 – Elected member of The American Philosophical Society{{Cite web|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Murray+Gell-Mann&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|title=APS Member History|access-date=March 15, 2022|archive-date=March 15, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220315152706/https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Murray+Gell-Mann&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|url-status=live}}
• 2005 – Albert Einstein Medal{{Cite web|url=http://www.einstein-bern.ch/en/einstein-society|title=Albert Einstein Medal|website=Einstein Society {{!}} Einsteinhaus Bern|access-date=May 25, 2019|archive-date=January 24, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190124033213/http://einstein-bern.ch/en/einstein-society|url-status=live}}
• 2005 – American Humanist Association – Humanist of the Year {{cite web |title=The Humanist of the Year |url=https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/humanist-of-the-year-awards/ |publisher=American Humanist Association |access-date=May 25, 2019 |archive-date=June 7, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200607163248/https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/humanist-of-the-year-awards/ |url-status=live }}
• 2014 – Helmholtz-Medal of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities [http://www.bbaw.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/pressemitteilungen/portal_factory/PDFs/bbaw-10-2014 Press Release, 10–2014, from Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190525212153/http://www.bbaw.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/pressemitteilungen/portal_factory/PDFs/bbaw-10-2014 |date=May 25, 2019 }} Retrieved February 15, 2017

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Universities that gave Gell-Mann honorary doctorates include Cambridge, Columbia, the University of Chicago, Oxford and Yale.

{{Portal|Biographies|Physics}}

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{{Reflist|30em}}

• [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Murray-Gell-Mann Encyclopædia Britannica biography of Murray Gell-Mann] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726083120/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Murray-Gell-Mann |date=July 26, 2020 }}
• {{Cite journal |author1=Fritzsch, H. |author2=Gell-Mann, M. |author3=Leutwyler, H. |title=Advantages of the color octet gluon picture |journal=Physics Letters B |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=365–8 |date=November 26, 1973 |doi=10.1016/0370-2693(73)90625-4 |bibcode=1973PhLB...47..365F |citeseerx=10.1.1.453.4712 }}
• {{Cite book |author1=Fritzsch, H. |author2=Gell-Mann, M. |chapter=Current algebra- quarks and what else? |editor1-first=J.D. |editor1-last=Jackson |editor2-first=A. |editor2-last=Roberts |editor3=International Union of Pure and Applied Physics |title=Proceedings of the XVI International Conference on High Energy Physics |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0_FAAQAAIAAJ |volume=2 |year=1972 |publisher=National Accelerator Laboratory |oclc=57672574 |pages=135–165}}
• [http://webofstories.com/gl/murray.gell-mann Murray Gell-Mann tells his life story at Web of Stories]{{Dead link|date=July 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
• {{cite book |first=George |last=Johnson |title=Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in 20th Century Physics |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |date=October 1999 |edition=1st |isbn=978-0-679-43764-2 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/strangebeautymur00john }}
• [http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gell-mann03/gell-mann_print.html The Making of a Physicist: A Talk With Murray Gell-Mann] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210517173722/http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gell-mann03/gell-mann_print.html |date=May 17, 2021 }}
• {{Cite news |author=Berreby, D. |title=The Man Who Knows Everything |newspaper=New York Times |date=May 8, 1994 |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9504E6DB1530F93BA35756C0A962958260 |access-date=February 11, 2017 |archive-date=October 25, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071025031340/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9504E6DB1530F93BA35756C0A962958260 |url-status=live }}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20011120130443/http://www.geocities.com/omegaman_uk/gellmann.html The Man With Five Brains]
• [http://www.williamjames.com/transcripts/gell1.htm The Simple and the Complex, Part I: The Quantum and the Quasi-Classical with Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070604180205/http://www.williamjames.com/transcripts/gell1.htm |date=June 4, 2007 }}
• Interview of Murray Gell-Mann by Lillian Hoddeson on 1982 July 27, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD USA, [https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/32880 www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/32880] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221031194749/https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/32880 |date=October 31, 2022 }} Retrieved 2023-06-20.
• Interview of Murray Gell-Mann by Finn Aaserud on 1987 April 23, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD USA, [https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/31110 www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/31110] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230204030629/https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/31110 |date=February 4, 2023 }} Retrieved 2023-06-20.
• Interview of Murray Gell-Mann by Dan Ford on 2017 January 15, Audio and video interviews about the life and work of Richard Garwin, 2004-2012 Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD USA, [https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/40912-9 www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/40912-9] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221204085109/https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/40912-9 |date=December 4, 2022 }} Retrieved 2023-06-20.

{{Commons category}}

{{Wikiquote}}

• {{INSPIRE-HEP author}}
• {{TED speaker}}
• [http://www.ted.com/talks/murray_gell_mann_on_beauty_and_truth_in_physics "Beauty, truth and ... physics?" (TED2007)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150714162105/https://www.ted.com/talks/murray_gell_mann_on_beauty_and_truth_in_physics |date=July 14, 2015 }}
• [http://www.ted.com/talks/murray_gell_mann_on_the_ancestor_of_language "The ancestor of language" (TED2007)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150820102915/http://www.ted.com/talks/murray_gell_mann_on_the_ancestor_of_language |date=August 20, 2015 }}
• [https://achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/ Murray Gell-Mann Video Interview with the Academy of Achievement] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200527033020/https://achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/ |date=May 27, 2020 }} in 1990
• [https://www.theguardian.com/science/video/2010/oct/22/murray-gell-mann-quarks Murray Gell-Mann talks quarks (Video)]
• [https://www.cfr.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/FY17%20Membership%20Roster.pdf Membership] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308040831/https://www.cfr.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/FY17%20Membership%20Roster.pdf |date=March 8, 2021 }} at the Council on Foreign Relations
• {{Nobelprize}}

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