Julian Schwinger

Julian Seymour Schwinger was an American theoretical physicist, mathematician, and university teacher. Born in New York City in 1918, he worked at Harvard University, Purdue University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He was educated at Columbia University and the City College of New York, where his doctoral advisor was Isidor Isaac Rabi.

His primary field of work was quantum electrodynamics. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics and is recognized in the Nobel Laureates collection. Schwinger was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, and the National Academy of Sciences. He authored 26 works, including texts on quantum dynamics and nuclear physics.

Schwinger died of pancreatic cancer in Los Angeles in 1994 and was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery. He spoke English and had an Erdős number of 4. His doctoral students included Daniel J. Kleitman, Roy J. Glauber, Sheldon Glashow, and Bryce DeWitt. Other students were Walter Kohn, Ben Roy Mottelson, and Stanley Deser.