Geoffrey Chew

Geoffrey Chew (born 1924) was a Physicist. He was a student of Enrico Fermi and his students include David Gross. He was known as a leader of the S matrix approach to the strong interaction and the associated bootstrap principle, a theory whose popularity peaked in the 1960s when he lead an influential theory group at UC Berkeley. The S-matrix approach sought to understand the strong interaction through focusing on the analytic properties of the scattering matrix or S matrix, rather than viewing the S-matrix as the product of a more fundamental theory. The S-matrix approach was largely abandoned by the particle physics community in the 1970s in favor of the theory of quantum chromodynamics, following the discovery of asymptotic freedom by his former student David Gross and others. Although a dead-end for the strong force, S-matrix theory did lead indirectly to the early discovery of string theory.

Related Topics:
Enrico Fermi - David Gross - S matrix - Strong interaction - UC Berkeley - Quantum chromodynamics - Asymptotic freedom - String theory

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