GellMann

Gell-Mann, Murray (1929–2019) was an American theoretical physicist known for foundational work in the classification of elementary particles and the development of the quark model. He coined the term quark, drawing it from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, and he proposed that hadrons are composed of more fundamental constituents called quarks. In 1964 he introduced the eightfold way, organizing hadrons into multiplets using SU(3) flavor symmetry, which provided a powerful framework for understanding particle spectra.

Among his key conceptual contributions were the introduction of the quantum number strangeness to explain the behavior of strange particles, and the suggestion of a new internal degree of freedom to resolve statistics problems in quark models, later understood as color charge. These ideas laid important groundwork for the development of quantum chromodynamics, the theory of strong interactions.

Gell-Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1969 for his contributions to the theory of elementary particles, particularly his work on the classification of hadrons and their symmetries. He spent much of his career at the California Institute of Technology and was a central figure in the early days of the Santa Fe Institute, which focuses on complex systems research.

In addition to his technical work, Gell-Mann authored books and essays on physics and complexity, and he remained active in interdisciplinary discussions on time and the structure of scientific knowledge. His work helped shape the Standard Model and influenced generations of physicists and theorists studying the fundamental laws of nature.