Theoretical Physicist Joseph Polchinski Dies At 63 : NPR
Joe Polchinski
CHANG: So  Joe Polchinski  sounded like quite the character from what I gather. Can you share with us - what was  he  like as a guy?
CARROLL: Yeah   Joe  was great because  he  was an enormously clear thinker as a physicist  but  he  also had this mischievous sense of humor.  He  wrote this gigantic  definitive  two-volume textbook on superstring theory. And what  he  really wanted to title it was " Joe 's Big Book Of String"...
CARROLL: ...As if  he  were a little kitten playing with a ball of yarn.
CARROLL: But  he  was always working these little jokes  these little sly asides into  his  deepest questions about physics.
CARROLL: And so  Joe  put these out there. And  he  said  you can't avoid these guys. And people who started thinking about them realized they all actually help the different kinds of string theory fit together. String theory is a much more unified  coherent framework than anyone had ever imagined.
CHANG: Well  at the end of his life   Joe Polchinski  developed a brain tumor and - which made it very hard for  him  to think through physics problems the way  he  used to. And  he  turned towards writing to get through that phase of  his  life. Can you tell us a little bit about what you learned from  him  when you read  his  writing?
CARROLL: Yeah.  He - Joe  was always an enormously clear expositor. You loved to read  his  papers  to hear  him  talk. So  he  turned to writing sort of  his  physics memoirs   his  life as a physicist. And it was very  very physics-oriented. Like  it wasn't who I met at a party. It was like what calculation I was doing that night. And it's a wonderful experience to read as a physicist because for one thing  you see all the mistakes  right? When you read a physics paper  people don't tell you what mistakes they made along the way. They tell you the answer they finally got. But here he is saying why I didn't do this  why did I do this  what a struggle it was for him. That makes us feel good  the rest of us  the rest of us more human-level physicists  to think that even Joe Polchinski could struggle a little bit.
CHANG: So  [TGT]sounded like quite the character from what I gather. Can you share with us - what was  [TGT]  like as a guy?
CARROLL: Yeah   [TGT]was great because  [TGT]  was an enormously clear thinker as a physicist  but  [TGT]  also had this mischievous sense of humor.  [TGT]  wrote this gigantic  definitive  two-volume textbook on superstring theory. And what  [TGT]  really wanted to title it was " Joe 's Big Book Of String"...
CARROLL: ...As if [TGT][TGT]  were a little kitten playing with a ball of yarn.
CARROLL: But  he  was always working these little jokes  these little sly asides into  his  deepest questions about physics.
CARROLL: And so  [TGT]put these out there. And  [TGT]  said  you can't avoid these guys. And people who started thinking about them realized they all actually help the different kinds of string theory fit together. String theory is a much more unified  coherent framework than anyone had ever imagined.
CHANG: Well  at the end of his life   Joe Polchinski  developed a brain tumor and - which made it very hard for  him  to think through physics problems the way  he  used to. And  he  turned towards writing to get through that phase of  his  life. Can you tell us a little bit about what you learned from  him  when you read  his  writing?
CARROLL: Yeah.  [TGT]was always an enormously clear expositor. You loved to read  [TGT]  papers  to hear  [TGT]  talk. So  [TGT]  turned to writing sort of  [TGT]  physics memoirs   [TGT]  life as a physicist. And it was very  very physics-oriented. Like  it wasn't who I met at a party. It was like what calculation I was doing that night. And it's a wonderful experience to read as a physicist because for one thing  you see all the mistakes  right? When you read a physics paper  people don't tell you what mistakes they made along the way. They tell you the answer they finally got. But here [TGT] is saying why I didn't do this  why did I do this  what a struggle it was for [TGT]. That makes us feel good  the rest of us  the rest of us more human-level physicists  to think that even Joe Polchinski could struggle a little bit.