Nobel physicist to speak on NE
by Shannon Harrison, ne news editor

      A Nobel prize-winning physicist and his poet wife will visit NE Campus next week to talk to students and staff.

     Murray Gell-Mann will present Pletics: Simple to Complex Monday, Nov. 20, at 11 a.m., followed by a luncheon.

    Gell-Mann has been at the center of theoretical particle physics for 25 years. His theories brought order to the notion that the atom’s nucleus is composed of some 100 particles and that all of those particles are composed of fundamental building blocks, which he named quarks.

     For his work he was awarded the Nobel prize in physics in 1969. In addition, he has a variety of other interests, including natural history, art, archeology, psychology, history, historical linguistics, learning and thinking, biological evolution and cultural evolution.

     His recent research, both at the California Institute of Technology and at the Santa Fe Institute, brings all of these disciplines together under the field of complex adaptive systems.

     Gell-Mann has been extremely active in policy matters related to world environmental quality, restraining population growth, sustainable economic development and the stability of the world political system.

     He is the co-founding member of the Santa Fe Institute and co-chairman of the Santa Fe Institute’s science board. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the American Physical Society, foreign member of the Royalty Society of London, a director of the J.D. and C.T. MacArthur Foundation and a former member of the President’s Science Advisory Committee.

     In 1988, he was listed on the United Nations Environmental Program Roll of Honor for Environmental Achievement.

     Gell-Mann has also been awarded honorary doctoral degrees from numerous institutions, including the University of Chicago, Cambridge and Oxford universities.

     His wife, Marsha Southwick, who is an award-winning poet with numerous collections and awards (she just won a Pushcart this year) will be speaking with him.

     Together they conduct a talk on what they call Plexity Theory, the belief that quantity accumulates to the point where there is a qualitative shift. The two of them apply the theory first to physical laws, then to a cultural context, and then finally look at how it works in individual poems.

     At the end of the presentation Southwick will give a reading.

     This program is being sponsored by the Texas Council for the Humanities and the Writers Garret in Dallas.

     “Gell-Mann has been described as the greatest scientific mind of the century,” Dr. Paula Vastine-Norman, director of student developmental services, said.

     For more information, contact NE student services at 817-515-6456.