Philip Warren Anderson

American physicist (1923-2020)

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Lived 1923–2020, aged 97United States

United States ScientistsScientist

Wikipedia
68 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1923–2020
Aged 97
Awards
11
recognised works

Summary

Updated 2026-06-08

He coined the term that renamed an entire field — condensed matter physics — and wrote the 1962 paper on symmetry breaking that helped seed the Standard Model a decade later. Philip Warren Anderson won the 1977 Nobel for work on magnetism and disorder, but his real mark was showing how complexity emerges from simple rules.

Biography

About

Born December 13, 1923, Anderson built a career at the junction of deep theory and material reality. His early work mapped the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems, research rigorous enough to earn him the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physics alongside Nevill Mott and John Van Vleck. A 1962 paper on symmetry breaking in particle physics set concepts in motion that crystallized into the Standard Model about ten years on. He pushed into localization, antiferromagnetism, and later the puzzle of high-temperature superconductivity, always hunting the principles beneath the chaos. He also…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Philip Warren Anderson

Philip Warren Anderson

said2011

That Big Science culture in the USA, and similar groups elswhere, tended to have separate, direct access to government and hence to funding sources.

— p. 94

Philip Warren Anderson

said2011

Of course I am not religious—I don’t in fact see how any scientist who thinks at all deeply can be so ...

— p. 133

Philip Warren Anderson

said2011

All I can say to the younger theorists is: don’t trust anyone over 45, except maybe me, and I’m not so sure about me.

— p. 159, quoted by N. David Mermin in cite journal|title=Review of More and Different: Notes from a Thoughtful Curmudgeon by Philip W.

Philip Warren Anderson

said2011

My Harvard classmate, Thomas S. Kuhn wrote, some years ago, an influential book about scientific revolutions.

— p. 166

Philip Warren Anderson

said2011

We atheists can . . . argue that, with the modern revolution in attitudes toward homosexuals, we have become the only group that may not reveal itself in normal social discourse”.

— p. 177

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