Arthur S. Wightman *49

Arthur Wightman, a founding father of modern mathematical physics and Princeton’s Thomas D. Jones Professor of Mathematical Physics emeritus, died Jan. 13, 2013. He was 90 and had Alzheimer’s disease.

Wightman graduated from Yale in 1942, and was an instructor in physics there in 1943-44. He was a lieutenant junior grade in the Navy from 1944 to 1946. At Princeton, he earned a Ph.D. in physics in 1949. That year, he joined the Princeton faculty as an instructor, and rose to full professor by 1960 (in mathematical physics). He became emeritus in 1992.

Princeton has a long tradition in mathematical physics, with professors Weyl, von Neumann, and Wigner, among others. Continuing in that tradition, Wightman provided, for the first time, a mathematically elegant and axiomatic approach to quantum field theory.

Among his many honors, he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and was awarded the 1969 Heinemann Prize for Mathematical Physics and the first Poincaré Prize in 1997.

Wightman is survived by Ludmilla, his wife of 35 years, and a stepson. His first wife, Anna-Greta, predeceased him in 1976, after 30 years of marriage, as did their daughter at a young age. To mark his passing, Princeton flew its flag at half-staff for three days.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.