Jean Zinn-Justin (born 10 July 1943 in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

) is a French

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experi ...

Biography

Zinn-Justin was educated in physics (

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

1964) at the

École Polytechnique (, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...

, and did graduate work in theoretical physics at Orsay, (Ph.D. 1968) under the supervision of Marcel Froissart. Zinn-Justin has worked since 1965 as a theoretical and mathematical physicist at the

Saclay Nuclear Research Centre The CEA Paris-Saclay center is one of nine centers belonging to the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). Following a reorganization in 2017, the center consists of multiple sites, including the CEA Saclay site (formerly a ...

( CEA), where he was head of theoretical physics in 1993−1998 . He has served as a visiting professor at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT),

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

State University of New York at Stony Brook Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public university, public research university in Stony Brook, New York, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is on ...

(1972), and

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, and further guest scientists at

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

. From 1987 to 1995 he was Director of the Les Houches School of Physics. In 2003 he became leader of DAPNIA (Department of Astrophysics, Particle Physics, Nuclear Physics and Associated Instrumentation) at Saclay. He has made seminal contributions to the renormalizability of gauge theories. He is a world authority on

quantum field theory In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines Field theory (physics), field theory and the principle of relativity with ideas behind quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct phy ...

in particle and

phase transition In physics, chemistry, and other related fields like biology, a phase transition (or phase change) is the physical process of transition between one state of a medium and another. Commonly the term is used to refer to changes among the basic Sta ...

s in statistical physics, and, in particular, the

renormalization group In theoretical physics, the renormalization group (RG) is a formal apparatus that allows systematic investigation of the changes of a physical system as viewed at different scales. In particle physics, it reflects the changes in the underlying p ...

organizing and connecting these two areas. He has written definitive books on the subject. In 1977, he was awarded the Paul Langevin Prize of the Société Française de Physique; in 1981 the

Ampère prize The Prix Ampère de l’Électricité de France is a scientific prize awarded annually by the French Academy of Sciences. Founded in 1974 in honor of André-Marie Ampère to celebrate his 200th birthday in 1975, the award is granted to one or mo ...

of the French Academy of Sciences; in 1996 the Gentner-Kastler Prize of the

Société Française de Physique The Société Française de Physique (SFP), or the French Physical Society, is the main professional society of French physicists. It was founded in 1873 by Joseph-Charles d'Almeida. History The French Physical Society is a state-approved non- ...

jointly with the

Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft The German Physical Society (German: , DPG) is the oldest organisation of physicists. As of 2022, the DPG's worldwide membership is cited as 52,220, making it one of the largest national physics societies in the world. The DPG's membership peaked ...

(DPG); in 2003 the Gay-Lussac-Humboldt prize. In 2011, he was elected to the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

Notes

Books

*Quantum Field Theory and Critical Phenomena, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989, 1993, 1996, 2002, 2021 *Path Integrals in Quantum Mechanics, Oxford University Press, 2005, *Phase Transitions and Renormalization Group, Oxford University Press, 2007, *From Random Walks to Random Matrices, Oxford University Press, 2021,

External links

Scientific publications of Jean Zinn-Justin
on

INSPIRE-HEP INSPIRE-HEP is an open access digital library for the field of high energy physics (HEP). It is the successor of the Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System (SPIRES) database, the main literature database for high energy physics since the 1 ...

* *Zinn-Justin's autho
page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zinn-Justin, Jean 1943 births Living people French theoretical physicists Fellows of the Institute of Physics French mathematical physicists French physicists École Polytechnique alumni People associated with CERN Members of the French Academy of Sciences