In his first published article, which appeared in 1973, Politzer described the phenomenon of asymptotic freedom: the closerquarks are to each other, the weaker thestrong interaction will be between them.[4] When quarks are in extreme proximity, the nuclear force between them is so weak that they behave almost like free particles. This result—independently discovered at around the same time by Gross and Wilczek atPrinceton University—was extremely important in the development ofquantum chromodynamics. WithThomas Appelquist, Politzer also played a central role in predicting the existence of "charmonium", a subatomic particle formed of acharm quark and acharm antiquark.
Politzer was the lead vocalist in the 1980s for Professor Politzer and the Rho Mesons, which put out their single, "The Simple Harmonic Oscillator".[11][12]
