10 Facts About Arthur Wightman

Arthur Strong Wightman was an American mathematical physicist.

Arthur Wightman was one of the founders of the axiomatic approach to quantum field theory, and originated the set of Wightman axioms.

Arthur Wightman was born on March 30,1922, in Rochester, in New York.

Arthur Wightman studied at the Yale University and in 1942 he earned a bachelor's degree in physics.

Arthur Wightman intended to graduate with Eugene Wigner, but he was spending most of his time at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Arthur Wightman's first wife, Anna-Greta Larsson, was an artist and photographer and died early.

Arthur Wightman died on January 13,2013, in Princeton, in New Jersey.

Already during his undergraduate studies, Arthur Wightman had close contacts with the mathematics department in Princeton.

Together with the mathematician John Tate, Arthur Wightman was engaged in the work on the Lorentz and Poincare groups representations.

In 1969 Arthur Wightman was awarded the Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics for founding and contributing in developing axiomatic quantum field theory and in 1997 the Henri Poincare Prize of the International Association of Mathematical Physics for his central role in the foundations of the general theory of quantum fields.