Freeman Dyson
Born: 15 Dec 1923 in Berkshire,
England
Freeman Dyson attended Twyford College at the age of nine, and then won first place in a scholarship to Winchester College in 1936 at the age of twelve. That first place indicated significant promise. He was an outstanding student across the curriculum, but proved to be brilliant at mathematics.
He gained a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1941. In his first year he studied physics under Dirac and pure mathematics under Hardy and Besicovitch. During his time there he wrote several papers that were not published until 1943/44. As a diversion from his work, he and his friends would occupy evenings "night climbing" various architectural features of Cambridge.
In 1943 Dyson started work as a scientist with Bomber Command where he worked on increasing mission efficiency.
At the end of the war, Dyson took a job as a demonstrator at Imperial College. During this time he wrote an influential paper on continued fractions. He returned to Trinity College in 1946 as a fellow, working on theoretical physics. During this time he was advised to consider moving to the USA. On advice from Peierls ( Birmingham ) and others, he decided to apply to work with Bethe in Cornell. Dyson worked closely with Bethe and became deeply impressed by him (as all Bethe's students were.) In 1948 Dyson published a paper on Lamb shift in Physical Review called The Electromagnetic Shift of Energy Levels. It is clear that at this time Dyson was considered to be an extraordinarily gifted and able student. Bethe persuaded Oppenheimer to take Dyson on at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. It was from this time that Dyson's work focused on Quantum Electro-Dynamics. Something happened at this time that greatly pleased Dyson; Tomanaga in Japan had developed significant work in relativistic quantum field theory. It was not just that the work was so significant, it was that it came from an unexpected source and indicated that the USA was not the only place producing significant research in this field. Tomonaga's work differed from Schwinger's by virtue of its clarity and simplicity.
Around spring in 1948, Dyson and Feynman became friends and Dyson became familiar with Feynman's methods. What characterised the two was their prodigious ability at calculation.
After a long bus ride to Princeton Dyson famously figured out a very significant problem that had bothered him during the year. He now saw how to demonstrate the equivalence of Schwinger's and Feynman's theories.
Dyson arrived at Princeton in the Autumn of 1948. He was never quite at ease with Oppenheimer. He felt that Oppenheimer was superficial - and compared with Bethe was poor at giving guidance and support to his students. Bethe continued to be a real support to Dyson and at an influential seminar helped Dyson persuaded the audience ( including Oppenheimer ) that Feynman's methods were the most promising way to proceed.
Dyson's famous paper on renormalisation of the S-matrix in 1949 became a very highly regarded and influential work in Quantum Electro-Dynamics. He stared to become a celebrity in scientific circles. He was aware of the risks of such fame and tellingly said: "I believe I am wise enough to enjoy this sort of success without having been taken in by it; if I were not, I have the example of Feynman to instruct me."
In early 1949 he planned to return to Britain and asked Oppenheimer's advice on which institution to join. Oppenheimer said: "Well, Birmingham has much the best theoretical physicist to work with, Peierls; Bristol has much the best experimental physicist, Powell; Cambridge has some excellent architecture..."
In Bethe's reference for Dyson's application to join Peierls, he described Dyson as the "best English theorist since Dirac."
After finishing the S-matrix paper, Dyson turned to meson theory where he devised a method of separating the calculation of high and low frequency interactions.
After publication and contributions to conferences, in May 1950 Dyson took over Feynman's professorship at Cornell. Bethe's admiration for Dyson had by now become great. Bethe stated that Dyson was "the only man in the world " who could replace Feynman at Cornell.
It is amusing to note that at no point during Dyson's impressive career did he appear to obtain a Ph.D. It just didn't figure in the scheme of things. Less amusing perhaps is that he may well qualify for the "best physicist never to receive a Nobel Prize" award. This never seemed to trouble him, but many people believe he should have received one along with Feynman, Schwinger and Tomonaga.
In 1953 Dyson accepted a post as professor of physics at Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.
More recently Dyson has published several popular books on science/philosophy, including Origins of Life and Imagined Worlds.