By Vic Cox

Economist Finn E. Kydland

Physicist David J. Gross

In a remarkable burst of international scholarly achievement, UC Santa Barbara faculty members this month collected two Nobel Prizes, first in physics and then in economics.

Last Monday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that recently hired UCSB economist Finn E. Kydland was co-winner of the Nobel Prize in economics. Six days earlier, the academy had named physicist David J. Gross co-winner of the Nobel in physics.

“Our campus is tremendously honored and proud of these prizes to truly outstanding scholars and colleagues, David Gross and Finn Kydland,” said Chancellor Henry T. Yang. “We are extremely pleased by this news and offer them and the researchers with whom they share the Nobels our warmest congratulations.”

These were the fourth and fifth Nobel Prizes to be awarded to UCSB faculty members in the past six years, and the second time the campus could point to two Nobel Laureates in the same year. In 2000, Alan J. Heeger, professor of physics and materials, won in chemistry and Herbert Kroemer, professor of electrical and computer engineering, won in physics. In 1998, physicist Walter Kohn, founding director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics (now KITP, the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics) was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

On Oct. 5, physicist David J. Gross, director of the KITP, secured the 2004 Nobel Prize in physics for the “discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction.” He shared it with two others, H. David Politzer of the California Institute of Technology, and Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Wilczek, who served on the UCSB faculty from 1981 to 1989, was a student of Gross’s at Princeton University when in 1973 they published their mathematical explanation of the nature of a strong force binding subatomic particles in the nucleus. Politzer was working independently on a similar calculation while at Harvard University.

According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, their “discovery was expressed in 1973 in an elegant mathematical framework that led to a completely new theory, Quantum ChromoDynamics.” With this discovery, “Gross, Politzer, and Wilczek have brought physics one step closer to fulfilling a grand dream, to formulate a unified theory comprising gravity as well—a unified theory for everything.”

At the time of the Oct. 11 announcement, Kydland, who joined the UCSB Economics Department in July, was in his hometown of Bergen, Norway, on a long-planned lecture trip. Through a speakerphone arrangement at the Faculty Club the following day he expressed “delight” with the news, even if he was disappointed he could not be with colleagues in Santa Barbara.

He noted that as a Norwegian undergraduate he had done part of the work on the winning theories at the same school in which he was currently lecturing. “So there’s a lot of excitement here, too,” he said.

In addition, his 82-year-old mother lives in Bergen and, he reported to the Faculty Club audience, she had been featured in several newspaper articles and television reports, which she apparently enjoyed. She had also shared pictures of her son when he was three and crowned with long, blond hair. “Unfortunately that’s gone now,” he commented wryly.

	Oracle Chair Jeff Henley, who endowed the economics chair held by Nobelist Finn Kydland, signals what he thinks of the award.

Kydland, who holds the Jeff Henley Chair in Economics, shared the Nobel with Edward C. Prescott of Arizona State University, “for their contribution to dynamic macroeconomics: the time consistency of economic policy, and the driving forces behind business cycles,” said the academy.

He previously taught at Carnegie Mellon University, where he earned his Ph.D and first met Prescott. The two economists have worked together since then, developing explanations in seminal papers published in 1977 and 1982 of expansions, recessions, and the inflation-fighting roles of central banks.

Prescott, a visiting economics professor at UCSB last academic year, is also a senior monetary adviser at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank.

“Your work demonstrated the power of good social science,” Melvin Oliver, dean of social sciences, told Kydland over the phone hook-up last week. This was the first Nobel the campus had claimed in the social sciences, added Economics Department Chair Peter Kuhn.

For Gross, holder of the Fred Gluck Chair in Theoretical Physics, the Nobel arrived at a propitious time: He had assembled a multitude of brilliant minds to ponder “The Future of Physics,” celebrate the 25th anniversary of the pioneering Institute for Theoretical Physics (the Kavli ITP since 2002), and dedicate a new wing of Kohn Hall. The conference began two days after the physics prize was announced.

So happy was the timing that Gross repeatedly was asked how he pulled it off. His first sally was that “it took 31 years of preparation,” the time between publication of his work and announcement of the Nobel. Later, he refined the quip to tell the conferees that he had written the Royal Academy “a letter every year, saying ‘Wait!’”

On a more serious note, Gross, who left endowed chairs at Princeton to direct the institute in 1997, welcomed people to the newly expanded facility, made possible through inventor Fred Kavli’s $7.5 million donation. He also thanked the National Science Foundation for its steadfast support. NSF launched the institute at UCSB in 1979 after accepting a proposal from four UCSB physicists for a unique form of think-tank.

Keynote speaker Michael Turner, NSF assistant director for mathematics and physical sciences, lauded the way the hall’s 10,000-square-foot new wing blended with the original building. Then he praised how the institute has fulfilled its promise: “Every good idea has a way of exceeding our wildest expectations, and KITP is a good example of that,” he said.

Other supporters were equally pleased. Businessman Fred Gluck, who endowed the KITP directorship, marveled at how the institute’s free-form exchange of ideas tackles the greatest challenges in theoretical physics. “It really works,” he said.

Industrialist and inventor Fred Kavli, whose foundation helped finance Kohn Hall’s new wing, added his praise for Gross and the institute, noting that “the best science is created at the intersections” of disciplines.

Subsequently, at the Kydland audio news conference, Oracle Chair Jeff Henley felt he was getting a good return on his endowment. If the economic policy insights of Kydland and Prescott are correctly applied, the UCSB alumnus said, “They will raise living standards around the world.”

UC President Robert C. Dynes also congratulated professors Gross and Kydland, and noted that the awards underscore “the major contribution that research universities make to our understanding of the world.” Since 1995, 17 UC researchers have been awarded Nobel Prizes.

	New Nobel Laureate David Gross, second from right, shares his pleasure in a group embrace with, from left, Chancellor Henry Yang, businessman Fred Gluck, and inventor/philanthropist Fred Kavli.