Why hasn't Edward Witten been awarded a Nobel prize on his work on the M-Theory?

Why hasn't Edward Witten been awarded a Nobel prize on his work on the M-Theory? Sort Profile photo for Dave Dave · Follow Data and AI Lead at Microsoft (company)Upvoted by Mack / Mac , PHD Physics & Mathematics, Max Plank Institute (1987) and Dan Blanks , Ph.D. Physics, The University of Texas at Austin (1982) · 1y Related Who is Edward Witten, and why are his ideas so out there? He’s probably one of the greatest physicists since Feynman. He is standing on the shoulders of giants, but he himself is also a giant. He and Maldacena have advanced modern theoretical physics by leaps and bounds over the last few decades. More so than Hawking and others who you’ve probably heard of. Not to slight Hawking, he was a great physicist, but he is no Witten. Now onto the “out there” ideas. I assume you’re talking about his contributions to string theory and the likes. Here’s the thing. Most theoretical physics is grounded on real observations and experiments. It’s not made up for the sa… (more) Promoted by Grammarly Profile photo for Grammarly Grammarly · Follow Great Writing, Simplified · Updated 1y How can I effectively edit my own writing? So, you think you’ve drafted a tweet, an email, a short story, or even a novel. These are different forms of communication, but the process of bringing them to fruition has a necessary, sometimes overlooked step: editing! Unless you’re a professional writer, it’s unlikely that you have an editor who can review your writing regularly. Here are some tips to help you review your own work. Give your writing some space. Have you ever felt a mix of pure relief and joy when you’ve finished a draft of something? Don’t downplay that feeling and the ability to walk away from your work before you start ed … (more) Profile photo for Rajratna Adsul Rajratna Adsul · Follow Former Physics writer.Upvoted by Syed Kazmi , Ph.D. Theoretical Physics, University of Houston (2005) · 10mo Related Richard Borcherd, a Field medalist, said that Ed Witten is intellectually terrifying. Is this how the scientific community generally perceives Ed Witten? Your question has spelling mistakes in personal names which make the splendor of the question less impressive. Please make it Borcherds. Then correct Field to Fields. Back to answer. I have already written some answers highlighting the vast range of intellectual spectrum of Edward Witten. And why only Borcherds? Almost all theoretical physicists and mathematicians have acknowledged his staggering intellectual activities: general relativity, Morse theory, geometry of higher dimensional manifolds, higher dimensional gauge theories, algebraic topology, knot theory, quantum field theory, supersymme… (more) Profile photo for Assistant Assistant Bot · Jul 14 Edward Witten is a highly respected physicist who has made significant contributions to theoretical physics, particularly in the development of M-theory. M-theory is a theoretical framework that attempts to unify various different versions of string theory. The Nobel Prize in Physics is typically awarded for experimental discoveries, rather than theoretical work, which can sometimes make it less likely for theoretical physicists like Witten to receive the award. Additionally, the Nobel Prize has specific criteria that the work must meet, including being able to be proven through experimental va… (more) Profile photo for Niranjan Mahajan Niranjan Mahajan · Follow Studied Theoretical Physics · Updated 4y Related If M-theory is proven true in some way, does Ed Witten go down as the greatest scientist of all time surpassing Einstein, Newton, etc.? Yes, If M-Theory is Proven true then Ed witten go down as the greatest Scientist of all time. He will surpass the legacy of Newton and Einstein. But the question is based on Ifs and Buts. The theory famously posits that gravitons, as well as electrons, photons and everything else, are not point-particles but rather imperceptibly tiny ribbons of energy, or “strings,” that vibrate in different ways. In… (more) Sponsored by Classmates Where is the best place to find a yearbook online? Classmates.com® has over 470,000 yearbooks online. Flip thru the pages, buy a reprint, search for free. Profile photo for Toby Bern Toby Bern · Follow B.S. from Brandeis University (Graduated 2017)Upvoted by Frederic Rachford , PhD Physics, Case Western Reserve University (1975) and Stephen Perrenod , physics degree from MIT and astrophysics Ph.D. from Harvard · Updated 5y Related How did Edward Witten get accepted for a PhD in Physics when he was a History major? My father is a theoretical physicist who knows him personally and this is the story he told me: Ed Witten was a journalism major at Brandeis University. After he graduated, he became interested in theoretical physics. His father Louis Witten was a physicist, so when he was home in Cincinnati he began talking with one of his father’s colleagues about physics. The professor told him that if he was really interested, he should read Jackson, the standard E/M textbook for physics grad students, and notoriously very difficult to read. The professor likely told him this to get rid of him. In two weeks h… (more) Profile photo for Rajratna Adsul Rajratna Adsul · Follow Former Physics writer.Upvoted by Frederic Rachford , PhD Physics, Case Western Reserve University (1975) and Alon Amit , PhD in Mathematics; Mathcircler. · Updated 2y Related Why is Edward Witten considered (one of) the best theoretical physicists? Edward Witten's strength lies in his staggering range of mathematical and geometric activities. Except Atiyah (who is no more) , he seems to be the only mathematician who has enriched physics with his profound and variegated geometric insights. That string theory is still way off completion is a different issue. His work on Morse theory, positive mass theorem, Seiberg-Witten theory, classification of 4-manifolds, knot theory, etc. are some of his deepest works in theoretical physics. Even Roger Penrose has admitted in his book The Road to Reality, that some of the most profound geometric insigh… (more) Sponsored by Spokeo Is there a way to find out if someone has a dating profile? Yes. All you need to do is enter their name here to see what dating websites or apps they are on. Profile photo for Giota Detsi Giota Detsi · Follow MSc in Physics, National Kapodistrian University of Athens (Graduated 1987)Upvoted by Rafael Freitas , PhD. Physics, UFU - Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (2026) and Frank Burgum , former Electronic Engineer, Software Engineer at Philips (1973-2007) · 1y Related Who is Edward Witten, and why are his ideas so out there? Edward Witten is the most important theoretical physicist of our time with a huge contribution to the string theory. A really gifted mathematician (Fields medalist) and a guru in physics. Edward Witten What is the string theory (in layman’s terms by Edward Witten): String theory is an attempt at a deeper description of nature by thinking of an elementary particle not as a little point but as a little loop of vibrating string. One of the basic things about a string is that it can vibrate in many different shapes or forms, which gives music its beauty. If we listen to a tuning fork, it sounds harsh … (more) Profile photo for Kaiser Tarafdar Kaiser Tarafdar · Follow Physician at Covenant Medical GroupUpvoted by Terry Moore , M.Sc. Mathematics, University of Southampton (1968) and Chris Sharp , PhD Physics, University of Washington (2029) · Updated 5y Related Is Edward Witten's ability in math and physics on par with the likes of Newton and Feynman? Newton is in a class of his own, please note. No one comes anywhere near him in the sheer depth and multiplicity of genius except Albert Einstein. Einstein was brilliant in mathematics as his professors had always said, though his genius in physics predominated during his entire life. Ed Witten has more similarity to Newton than Feynman, in comparing the facts that Newton was both a mind bogglingly brilliant mathematician and physicist/scientist, and Ed Witten is also a great mathematician and a physicist. Ed Witten is more of a string theorist now getting into uncharted areas that might or mi… (more) Sponsored by Online Shopping Tools Amazon Hates When Prime Members Do This, But They Can't Stop You. This simple trick can save tons of money on Amazon, but most Prime members are ignoring it. Profile photo for Rory Coker Rory Coker · Follow Professor of Physics at The University of Texas at Austin (1966–present)Upvoted by Frederic Rachford , PhD Physics, Case Western Reserve University (1975) and Stephen Selipsky , ex-particle theorist; Stanford Ph.D., research at CERN, BU, Yale · 2y Related How could Ed Witten become one of the most influential physicist of our time after getting a degree in history and journalism? So reaching that level is only a matter of hard work and not innate talent? Witten’s father was a theoretical physicist. Witten tended to avoid physics and mathematics when he first entered college in 1968, and toyed with journalism and political activism for a few years. In 1973 he entered graduate school at Princeton, starting in mathematics, but quickly switched to physics and earned a Ph. D. in theoretical physics in 1976. He exhibited enormous talent in both math and physics, from the beginning, and quickly became one of the most famous theoretical physicists in the world. Anyone who knows anything about his career would say he started with an enormous amount of … (more) Profile photo for Adolph Lu Adolph Lu · Follow Former High Energy Research Physicist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (1979–2002) · 2y Related How could Ed Witten become one of the most influential physicist of our time after getting a degree in history and journalism? So reaching that level is only a matter of hard work and not innate talent? Your question is exactly backwards. Because of Witten’s innate talent, it made no difference what he studied as an undergrad, it was totally irrelevant. When he wanted to study physics, it came so easily he could catch up to and then pass physics majors fast. As a physicist, I studied Jackson’s “Classic Electrodynamics” for a year and it was tough. Witten did it in a few weeks by himself. That is the very definition of innate talent. BTW, Andrei Sakharov, the father of the Russian hydrogen bomb and winner of the Nobel Peace prize, had a similar experience. He was some sort of engineer and was … (more) Profile photo for Ron Maimon Ron Maimon · Follow Lives in New York City · 11y Related Is Ed Witten really the world's greatest living theoretical physicist? I think the greatest living theoretical physicist is Stanley Mandelstam. His thinking and insights (usually with Chew) are the only reason there is such a thing as string theory. But this is just a stupid opinion, like "what's your favorite pizza topping". Physics is not a sport, like chess, where you can be the best by winning. It is not a competition, or rather, the competition is against nature, and each discovery is a win where nobody loses. You discover stuff, and you tell people, and then you go discover something else. At the end of your life, if you're lucky, like Ed Witten, or any of t… (more) Profile photo for Jason St. Pierre Jason St. Pierre · Follow Teaches history of science, which means I scoff at Aristotle · Feb 3 Related When will Ed Witten receive a Nobel Prize for his contributions to theoretical physics? Probably never. Look, Witten is an absolute genius who’s made some amazing contributions to physics. Unfortunately for him, they’re the type of contributions that the Nobel committee tends to overlook. For starters, he’s a theorist. For whatever reason, the Nobel committee has a real bias towards experimental science. They rarely give the award to a pure theorist and, when they do, they tend to only do so after their theories have sound experimental evidence backing them up. Hell, when Peter Higgs won the Nobel only two years after the Higgs boson was discovered - and some 50 years after he firs… (more) Profile photo for Ron Maimon Ron Maimon · Follow Lives in New York CityUpvoted by Ravi Mistry , PhD from University of Brasília (2023) and Sam Sinai , Ph.D student in Mathematical Biology · 10y Related How does Edward Witten know so much math? Researchers are expected to learn the stuff they need, and be familiar with everything. Since this is somewhat unrealistic, it just means you try to keep up all the time, and nobody feels they know enough, you always feel like you're missing something. Witten came before the internet, and one cannot overestimate how much more difficult it was to study mathematics back then. When you opened a math book, if you didn't know the definitions, you couldn't google them, you were just screwed. He studied mathematics (among other things) as an undergraduate, I remember he was grateful for the proper mat… (more) Profile photo for Adam Lantos Adam Lantos · Follow MSc in Theoretical Physics, University of Edinburgh (Graduated 2020)Upvoted by EventHorizon , Ph.D. Physics, Princeton University and Terry Moore , M.Sc. Mathematics, University of Southampton (1968) · 2y Related Was the mathematics Ed Witten did to receive the Fields Medal legitimate mathematics, or was it some string theory arbitrary nonsense? Do you think mathematicians would award the Fields medal for work that’s not legitimate? Of course it’s legitimate mathematics! Not only has Witten offered exciting and important new mathematics knowledge, but has opened the avenue for much more research that builds on top of his work. He did something similar later on in his life as well, but couldn’t be considered as a contender for another Fields medal due to the age restrictions behind the price; he was over 40 years old. His later work was instrumental to the so-called second superstring revolution. Lots of mathematicians say that his seco… (more) Profile photo for Brent Follin Brent Follin · Follow Machine Learning Professional, San Francisco AreaUpvoted by Mathieu Dutour Sikiric , studied Mathematics & Physics at École Normale Supérieure (1998) and Justin Rising , PhD in statistics · 10y Related How did Ed Witten get a Fields Medal? Hard-fast distinctions between fields are mostly man-made. In Witten's case, the dominant factor was that field theories were a much more active field of research in physics departments than in mathematics departments, due to their applicability in explaining results from particle accelerators. Mathematicians, on the other hand, were (broadly speaking) turned off by the lack of rigor in the use of Feynman diagrams, the dominant method of calculation. Witten, in trying to make progress in the UV (high energy) completion of field theories (which are known to give nonsense at sufficiently high e… (more) Profile photo for Adam Môss Adam Môss · Follow Upvoted by Steve Hewson , PhD, MA, MMath, MEd, PGCE Mathematics & Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge · 2y Related Why is Edward Witten considered (one of) the best theoretical physicists? Let’s put it this way. Ed Witten needed something to give a speech on for the String Theory Conference at University of Southern California in1995. So he was playing around with the then 5 string theories thinking he could whittle them down some. When he was done, on just a whim to have something to give a speech on, he not only put all 5 string theories together, he also invented M-theory. There are few in physics that deep down don’t think he is so much smarter than me, (and probably loathe him for it). See the video above. Reminds me of a story of Steven Weinberg. Someone said to Alan Guth t… (more) Profile photo for Lalit Patel Lalit Patel · Follow PhD Physics, MBA · 4y Related Is Edward Witten's ability in math and physics on par with the likes of Newton and Feynman? It is reasonable to say that: Newton made a foundation of the building of physics (and calculus). Einstein strengthened the foundation of the building of physics, by adding some reinforcements. Feynman made a helipad on the building of physics. Witten installed a giant telescope on the building of physics. From the foundation, you cannot run a helicopter. From the helipad, you can run a helicopter. From the foundation, you cannot see the sky. From a telescope, you can see the sky. A foundation, a helipad, and a telescope serve totally different objectives, and they cannot be compared. Builders thereof… (more) Profile photo for Niranjan Mahajan Niranjan Mahajan · Follow Bestselling Author of Prime Thinker: Chronological Protocol · 5y Related Is Edward Witten's ability in math and physics on par with the likes of Newton and Feynman? Edward Witten’s mathematical Ability is far more better than Feynman and Einstein. But, Newton and Witten are on th... Profile photo for Mo Nastri Mo Nastri · Follow B.S. in Physics, University of California, Los AngelesUpvoted by Syed Kazmi , Ph.D. Theoretical Physics, University of Houston (2005) and Tiberiu Tesileanu , PhD string theory · 6y Related What are some interesting anecdotes involving Ed Witten? This quote was pretty funny: [O]ne day Ed Witten said to me, ‘I just learnt a new way to find exact S-matrices in two dimensions invented by Zamolodchikov and I want to extend the ideas to supersymmetric models. You are the S-matrix expert, aren’t you? Why don’t we work together?’ I was delighted. All my years of training in Berkeley gave me a tremendous advantage over Ed—for an entire week. (from the then-John Randolph Huffman Professor of Physics at Yale, Shankar 1999, p.48) Here’s another one, this time from Polchinski’s Memories of a Theoretical Physicist, when he was a grad student at Berkel… (more) Profile photo for Marshall Barnes Marshall Barnes · Follow Have caught more mistakes made by Stephen Hawking than anyone else in the world · 7y Related Why is Edward Witten not as famous as Stephen Hawking? Because Hawking has a damn good agent. Many people don’t realize that on the level of Hawking, Thorne, Gott, Kaku, and many others, it’s a business. The first physics rock star was Einstein. The next one was Hawking and then slowly but surely, many more got into the game. Kaku was the first after Hawking, I think, boosted by his seminal radio show in New York. Then he jumped to TV and he was off and running. A more recent one is England’s Brian Cox, who actually used to be a rock star in a band. In America it’s been Sean Carroll and Brain Greene. In between Einstein and Hawking, but not a phys… (more) Profile photo for Konstantinos Konstantinides Konstantinos Konstantinides · Follow EE (Ph.D.); Loves to read about the history of science · 8y Related How did Edward Witten transition from being a newspaper writer with a history degree to a Ph.D. student in physics at Princeton studying under a future Nobel laureate (David Gross)? It is quite common for kids to try to explore things outside of the "sphere of knowledge" of their parents. So, it is possible that E. Witten wanted to escape his father's influence to study Physics. He did try a variety of things, including studying Economics at the Univ. of Wisconsin (as a graduate student). Eventually, his love for mathematics brought him to Princeton, where he switched to Physics. From all accounts, he had an amazing talent for physics. He joined Princeton in 1973 and had his first paper in 1975. He received his Ph.D. in 1976. In 1980, he was already a tenured professor … (more) Profile photo for Francis Francis · Follow A degree in maths many years agoUpvoted by Terry Moore , M.Sc. Mathematics, University of Southampton (1968) and Vance Faber , Ph. D. Mathematics · 1y Related Was the mathematics Ed Witten did to receive the Fields Medal legitimate mathematics, or was it some string theory arbitrary nonsense? This is a question based on a misunderstanding. Mathematics is allowed to be arbitrary nonsense as long as it’s rigorous arbitrary nonsense. Mathematicians are allowed to create utterly inapplicable things and call it mathematics - and time and again what was thought to be utterly useless mathematics has been found to tie in to the world in unexpected places. As mathematics string theory is fine, and Ed Witten’s mathematics was legitimate. The problem with string theory isn’t that the mathematics doesn’t work, it’s that it can’t be shown to model the real world or be tested in any useful way. T… (more) Profile photo for Zakary Jay Nicholls Zakary Jay Nicholls · Follow Tutor in Economics/Engineering/Mathematics/Physics at Education Sector (2011–present) · 10mo Related Richard Borcherd, a Field medalist, said that Ed Witten is intellectually terrifying. Is this how the scientific community generally perceives Ed Witten? Academics of every variety tend to love sophisticated language and they tend to love directing attention to their disciplines. In fact, the main difference between myself and a lay person is that I can actually read a paper in an econometrics/mathematics/astrophysics journal and understand to some extent what is being said. Most ordinary people cannot. The use of the word terrifying is simply a cheap and deliberate upsell, used to invoke a sense of fear or mystery in the ears of the public (presumably with the intent of having more people focus on Witten and his interesting achievements). [Horro… (more) Profile photo for Rory Coker Rory Coker · Follow Professor of Physics at The University of Texas at Austin (1966–present) · 5y Related How will Edward Witten’s legacy be viewed if string/M-theory, supersymmetry and extra dimensions are disproven? Will he be relegated to a footnote? Science is NOT mathematics. Nothing in physics is "disproven," that's a concept from mathematics. As for string theory, it makes no contact at all currently with any aspect of physical reality, so there is hardly any imaginable observation that could "contradict" its structure and assumptions. The pessimistic view of string theory is that it will never become part of established physics, but because some of the best physicists around have been working on it for nearly 40 years, it is a huge toolbox full of nifty mathematical techniques, that really have nothing to do with "strings." The formal… (more) Profile photo for David Eliezer David Eliezer · Follow 5y Related How will Edward Witten’s legacy be viewed if string/M-theory, supersymmetry and extra dimensions are disproven? Will he be relegated to a footnote? Ed Witten has done hugely important work outside of String Theory. For example, he invented a novel method of proving the Positive Energy Theorem in General Relativity, and was the first to do so. He introduced topological terms to quantum field theories, and fixed many problems using these terms. For example, the Skyrme model, a semi-empirical QCD model that parametrizes the ground state in terms of measured parameters, was incomprehensibly producing wrong results, until Ed showed that one overlooked discrete symmetry was present on the Skyrme Model, that shouldn’t have been. He showed that th… (more) Profile photo for Akash Pandey Akash Pandey · Follow Msc in Satistics & Data Science, Panjab University, Chandigarh · 6y Related What is "M Theory" exactly (in detail)? M-theory, the theory formerly known as Strings The Standard Model In the standard model of particle physics, particles are considered to be points moving through space, tracing out a line called the World Line. To take into account the different interactions observed in Nature one has to provide particles with more degrees of freedom than only their position and velocity, such as mass, electric charge, color (which is the "charge" associated with the strong interaction) or spin. The standard model was designed within a framework known as Quantum Field Theory (QFT), which gives us the tools to bui… (more) Profile photo for Nasir Afaf Nasir Afaf · Follow Studied Mathematics & Quantum Field Theory · 2y Related Do you think Ed Witten is more intelligent than Richard Feynman? You have to admit that Donald J Trump is more intelligent than the guys you mentioned. Plus he managed to get into Wharton on a transfer from FU. And neither of your guys ever got into Wharton. Not even FU. Heck, Witten couldn't even do an economics PhD at Wisconsin. He dropped out. This proves that all economics PhDs are much smarter than him. And I won't even get started on how much money your guys make compared to Trump. Zero. And Trump started a university called Trump University. If these guys were so intelligent why don't they have a university named after them? They didn't discover black swi… (more) Profile photo for Nikhil Anand Nikhil Anand · Follow Physicist (2018–present) · 5y Related How will Edward Witten’s legacy be viewed if string/M-theory, supersymmetry and extra dimensions are disproven? Will he be relegated to a footnote? No, the idea of Witten being relegated to a footnote is laughable. Here are a few very high-impact papers Witten has written which can stand apart from string theory on their own. For people not doing physics, it’s difficult to explain how incredible it is for one person to consistently write papers of this calibre (you can probably count on one hand the number of physicists who have.) Limits on Massless Particles Nonabelian Bosonization in Two-Dimensions Baryons in the 1/n Expansion Quantum Field Theory and the Jones Polynomial (2+1)-Dimensional Gravity as an Exactly Soluble System There are undoub… (more) Profile photo for Anonymous Anonymous 10y Related If M-theory is proven true in some way, does Ed Witten go down as the greatest scientist of all time surpassing Einstein, Newton, etc.? It's not likely, because the marginal insight provided to society by high energy theoretical physics is leveling off. Newtonian physics was a revolution for the world. Einsteinian physics (Relativity and Quantum Mechanics) was an even more profound revolution for the world. M Theory, even if proved, would only be a revolution for the physics community. M theory is at its heart still uses special relativity and quantum mechanics, neither's principles are changed, they're just applied to strings and membranes. The conceptual jump and the additional insights aren't so nearly as large as going from … (more) Profile photo for Frank Heile Frank Heile · Follow Ph.D. in Physics, Stanford UniversityUpvoted by Andrea Klein , B.S. in Physics from Stanford and Ananthu , MS Physics, Stevens Institute of Technology (2021) · 11y Related Is Ed Witten really the world's greatest living theoretical physicist? The h-index is a way to measure a physicists' impact and productivity on the field (see Paper on Arxiv.) I could not find a source for the current ranking of all physicists, but in 2005, according to "H-index Me": The highest h-index among physicists, Hirsch claims, is Ed Witten who has an h-index of 110. This means he has written 110 papers with greater than 110 citations. Wow! Another important quantity Hirsch defines is the average rate at which an h-index has been changing per year over a career. This is just a person current h-index divided by the time since they first started publishing. … (more) Profile photo for William Smith William Smith · Follow Senior executive and consultant in travel industry (1986–present) · 6y M-theory is a mathematical abstraction, that has not been proven observationally, and cannot be. That is the ongoing problem with string theory and its derivatives. There are some in the physics community who think that string theory et al are an ingenious dead end. Profile photo for Theo-Astro by Jagat Joshi Theo-Astro by Jagat Joshi · Follow Radiographer (2010–present) · 3y Since his work about M theory still need experimental verification. Although he achieved field medal in maths & break through prize for theortical physics. These are two famous prizes in respective fields. He is the only scientist to achieve these two prize of different fields. Profile photo for Gavin Kanowitz Gavin Kanowitz · Follow Physics Teacher · 6y Science is driven by two forces - rationalism and empiricism. The mathematical rationalism is solid but the experimental verification needs to follow. It hasn’t yet in the case of M-Theory. Profile photo for Udit Singh Tomar Udit Singh Tomar · Follow Student IIT (ISM) Dhanbad · 7y Because the theory has been established on mathematical basis only, whether theory actually holds is still unknown. Though the theory is very beautiful Profile photo for Jad Mogaizel Jad Mogaizel · Follow Studied at American University of Beirut · 7y The first and foremost reason Edward Witten has not been awarded a Nobel prize on his work on the M-Theory is because it has not been proven experimentally. Related questions How did Edward Witten get accepted for a PhD in Physics when he was a History major? Who is Edward Witten, and why are his ideas so out there? What are some interesting anecdotes involving Ed Witten? What's Edward Witten's personality like? How does Edward Witten know so much math? Is Edward Witten's ability in math and physics on par with the likes of Newton and Feynman? How did Ed Witten get a Fields Medal? How much of a genius is Ed Witten when compared to Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton? How did Edward Witten transition from being a newspaper writer with a history degree to a Ph.D. student in physics at Princeton studying under a future Nobel laureate (David Gross)? Do you think Ed Witten is more intelligent than Richard Feynman? Is it true that Edward Witten's IQ is 202? Would Edward Witten be considered a more capable physicist than Richard Feynman? Richard Borcherd, a Field medalist, said that Ed Witten is intellectually terrifying. Is this how the scientific community generally perceives Ed Witten? How could Ed Witten become one of the most influential physicist of our time after getting a degree in history and journalism? So reaching that level is only a matter of hard work and not innate talent? What is it like to work with Edward Witten?