Charles Thorn

Charles Thorn (born 14 August 1946) is a Professor of Physics at University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida.[1] He played an important role in the development of dual models and string theory.[2] Among his contributions is the proof of the non-existence of ghosts in string theory. The Goddard–Thorn theorem is a result about certain vector spaces in string theory. Thorn developed it with Peter Goddard.

For the professional golfer, see Charles Thorn (golfer). For the New Zealand carpenter, undertaker and trade unionist, see Charles Thorn (trade unionist).
Charles Thorn
Born14 August 1946 (1946-08-14) (age 77)
Washington, Indiana, US
Alma materMassachusetts Institute of Technology
University of California, Berkeley
AwardsJesse W. Beams Medal, 2005
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
InstitutionsUniversity of Florida
Doctoral advisorStanley Mandelstam

Education and personal life

Thorn obtained his undergraduate degree in physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and completed his Ph.D. in physics from University of California, Berkeley in 1971 under the supervision of Stanley Mandelstam. He has held postdoctoral positions at MIT and CERN.[3] He is fond of tango dancing.

Research

Charles Thorn also has developed an approach to string theory based on the idea of string bits.[4][5] This idea led him to the conclusion that in this formalism one of the dimensions of spacetime appears to be dynamic. The fundamental degrees of freedom propagated on a surface in one lower dimension thus giving a holographic theory.

He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1989 "For important contributions to the theory of elementary particles. Nominated by: Division of Particles and Fields" [6]

References
  1. Charles Thorn at University of Florida
  2. Goddard P. From dual models to string theory, The Birth of String Theory (18–19 May 2007)] arXiv:0802.3249v1 (accessed 16 April 2008)
  3. Cappelli, Andrea; Castellani, Elena; Colomo, Filippo; Vecchia, Paolo Di (2012-04-12). The Birth of String Theory. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-19790-8.
  4. Strings Branes and Gravity. Jeffrey A. Harvey, Shamit Kachru, Eva Silverstein. World Scientific TASI 1999
  5. Reformulating String Theory with the 1/N expansion. arXiv:hep-th/9405069
  6. "APS Fellow Archive". APS. Retrieved 5 October 2020.
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