Joël Scherk | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1946-05-27)27 May 1946 |
| Died | 16 May 1980(1980-05-16) (aged 33) |
| Alma mater | Paris-Sud University |
| Known for | Scherk–Schwarz mechanism GSO projection |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Theoretical physics |
| Doctoral advisor | Claude Bouchiat Philippe Meyer [fr] |
Joël Scherk (French:[jɔɛlʃɛʁk]; 27 May 1946 – 16 May 1980) was aFrench theoreticalphysicist who studiedstring theory andsupergravity.[1]
Scherk studied in Paris at theÉcole Normale Supérieure (ENS). In 1969 he received his diploma (Thèse de troisième cycle) atUniversity of Paris XI in Orsay withPhilippe Meyer [fr] andClaude Bouchiat and in 1971 he completed his doctorate (Doctorat d'État) at the same time as his colleagueAndré Neveu.[2]
In 1974, together withJohn H. Schwarz, Scherk realised that string theory was a theory ofquantum gravity. In 1978, together withEugène Cremmer andBernard Julia, Scherk constructed theLagrangian andsupersymmetry transformations foreleven-dimensional supergravity,[3] which is one of the foundations ofM-theory.
He died unexpectedly, and in tragic circumstances, months after the supergravity workshop at theState University of New York at Stony Brook that was held on 27–29 September 1979. The workshop proceedings were dedicated to his memory, with a statement that Scherk, adiabetic, had been trapped somewhere without hisinsulin and went into adiabetic coma.[4] Two decades later, in his 2001 bookEuclid's Window, author and theoretical physicistLeonard Mlodinow credited Schwarz and Scherk for their "astounding discovery" that gravity was part of string theory in a way that would "avoid contradictions between general relativity and quantum mechanics", but noted that Scherk suffered abreakdown, his wife left with their children, and he later committedsuicide.[5]
The high-energy theory library of the Laboratoire de Physique Théorique atÉcole Normale Supérieure (Paris) is dedicated in his honor. Aconference inParis, on 16–20 October 2006, celebrating 30 years of supergravity,[6] was dedicated to Scherk.
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