Freeman Dyson

Freeman Dyson, legendary theoretical physicist, dies at 96

Dyson helped create modern particle physics, criticized nuclear weapons tests, and imagined how civilizations could take to the stars.

Professor Freeman J. Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton is shown at Jadwyn Hall where he had an office and taught, November 15, 1972.
Photograph by William E. Sauro, The New York Times via Reuters

A great figure in 20th-century physics, Freeman J. Dyson—the theorist who unified the world of the atom and the electron, a critic of nuclear weapons tests, a designer of space civilizations, and a steadfast climate change contrarian—died on February 28, 2020, in Princeton, New Jersey. He was 96 years old.

At his death, Dyson still maintained an office at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, where he took up residence in 1953 as a professor of physics. The IAS confirmed Dyson's passing to National Geographic.

"No life is more entangled with the Institute and impossible to capture—architect of modern particle physics, free-range mathematician, advocate of space travel, astrobiology and disarmament, futurist, eternal graduate student, rebel to many

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