Editing Murray Gell-Mann (section)

==Life and education==

Gell-Mann was born in Lower Manhattan to a family of [[Jews|Jewish]] immigrants from the [[Austria-Hungary|Austro-Hungarian Empire]], specifically from [[Chernivtsi|Czernowitz]] in present-day [[Ukraine]].<ref>{{Cite web |author=M. Gell-Mann |date=October 1997 |title=My Father |url=http://www.webofstories.com/play/10555 |work=[[Web of Stories]] |access-date=October 1, 2010 |archive-date=August 29, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120829203517/http://www.webofstories.com/play/10555 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |author=J. Brockman |year=2003 |title=The Making of a Physicist: A talk with Murray Gell-Mann |url=http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gell-mann03/gell-mann_print.html |work=[[Edge.org|Edge Foundation, Inc.]] |access-date=October 1, 2010 |archive-date=May 17, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210517173722/http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gell-mann03/gell-mann_print.html |url-status=live }}</ref> His parents were Pauline (née Reichstein) and Arthur Isidore Gelman, who taught [[English as a second or foreign language|English as a second language]].<ref>[http://www.nndb.com/people/310/000023241 Profile] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210601055314/http://www.nndb.com/people/310/000023241 |date=June 1, 2021 }}, [[NNDB]]; accessed April 26, 2015.</ref>

Propelled by an intense boyhood curiosity and love for nature and mathematics, he graduated [[valedictorian]] from the [[Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School]] aged 14 and subsequently entered [[Yale College]] as a member of [[Jonathan Edwards College]].<ref name="tnyt" /><ref>{{cite web |url=https://je.yalecollege.yale.edu/about-us/history/notable-alumni |title=Notable Alumni |publisher=[[Jonathan Edwards College]] |access-date=27 May 2019 |archive-date=May 27, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190527031521/https://je.yalecollege.yale.edu/about-us/history/notable-alumni |url-status=live }}</ref> At Yale, he participated in the [[William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition]] and was on the team representing [[Yale University]] (along with [[Murray Gerstenhaber]] and [[Henry O. Pollak]]) that won the second prize in 1947.<ref>{{cite journal |title=The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition |author=G. W. Mackey | authorlink= George Mackey |journal=[[The American Mathematical Monthly]] |volume=54 |issue=7 |pages=400–3 |year=1947 |jstor=2304390 |doi=10.1080/00029890.1947.11990193 }}</ref>

Gell-Mann graduated from Yale with a bachelor's degree in physics in 1948 and intended to pursue graduate studies in physics. He sought to remain in the [[Ivy League]] for his graduate education and applied to [[Princeton University]] as well as [[Harvard University]]. He was rejected by Princeton and accepted by Harvard, but the latter institution was unable to offer him needed financial assistance.

He was accepted by the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] (MIT) and received a letter from [[Victor Weisskopf]] urging him to attend MIT and become Weisskopf's research assistant. This would provide Gell-Mann with the financial assistance he required. Unaware of MIT's eminent status in physics research, 
Gell-Mann was "miserable" with the fact that he would not be able to 
attend Princeton or Harvard and in characteristic dark irony, said he
considered suicide. Gell-Mann stated that he realized he could try to first enter MIT and commit suicide afterwards if he found it to be truly terrible.  However, he couldn't first choose suicide and then attend MIT; the two "didn't commute", as Gell-Mann said.<ref>{{Citation|title=Murray Gell-Mann - MIT or suicide (17/200)| date=August 11, 2011 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfEvQMPDhOg |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/nfEvQMPDhOg| archive-date=2021-12-11 |url-status=live|language=en|access-date=2020-06-06}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Strogatz|first=Steven|title=The Joy of x: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity|publisher=Mariner Books|year=2013|isbn=978-0544105850|pages=27}}</ref>
He received his Ph.D. in physics from MIT in 1951 after completing a doctoral dissertation, titled "Coupling strength and nuclear reactions", under the supervision of Weisskopf.<ref>{{Cite thesis|title=Coupling strength and nuclear reactions|url=https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/12195|publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology|date=1951|degree=Thesis|first=Murray|last=Gell-Mann|hdl=1721.1/12195|access-date=June 6, 2020|archive-date=January 28, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230128220413/https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/12195|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Guardian_obit" /><ref name="mathgene" />

Subsequently, Gell-Mann was a postdoctoral fellow at the [[Institute for Advanced Study]] at Princeton in 1951,<ref name="tnyt"/> and a visiting research professor at the [[University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign]] from 1952 to 1953.<ref>in 1954, there, working with [[Francis E. Low]], he discovered the [[renormalization group]] equation of QED.</ref>  He was a visiting associate professor at [[Columbia University]] and an associate professor at the [[University of Chicago]] in 1954–1955, before moving to the [[California Institute of Technology]], where he taught from 1955 until he retired in 1993.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://oralhistories.library.caltech.edu/228/ |title=Interview with Murray Gell-Mann [Oral History] |website=Caltech Institute Archives |access-date=May 25, 2019 |archive-date=February 21, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240221011410/https://oralhistories.library.caltech.edu/228/ |url-status=live }}</ref> He was on sabbatical at the ''[[Collège de France]]'' for the academic year 1958–1959.<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Inference|volume=4|issue=4|date=July 2019|title=In Memoriam. Murray Gell-Mann|author=Glashow, Sheldon Lee|doi=10.37282/991819.19.42|s2cid=241304235|url=https://inference-review.com/article/in-memoriam-murray-gell-mann|access-date=November 8, 2023|archive-date=February 3, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240203174027/https://inference-review.com/article/in-memoriam-murray-gell-mann|url-status=live}}</ref>

Gell-Mann married J.&nbsp;Margaret Dow in 1955; they had a daughter and a son. Margaret died in 1981, and in 1992 he married [[Marcia Southwick]], whose son became his stepson.<ref name="tnyt"/>

In 2011, Gell-Mann attended an event on [[Jeffrey Epstein]]'s private island, [[Little Saint James, U.S. Virgin Islands|Little Saint James]], known as the "Mindshift Conference", hosted by Epstein and [[Al Seckel]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jeffrey Epstein to Host Mindshift Conference |url=http://www.jeffreyepsteinscience.com/ |access-date=June 1, 2024 |archive-date=November 11, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20101111012357/http://www.jeffreyepsteinscience.com/ |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Masters |first=Kim |date=2019-09-18 |title=The Strange Saga of Jeffrey Epstein's Link to a Child Star Turned Cryptocurrency Mogul |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/strange-saga-jeffrey-epstein-s-link-brock-pierce-1240462/ |access-date=2024-07-12 |website=The Hollywood Reporter |language=en-US}}</ref>

Gell-Mann's extensive interests outside of physics included [[archaeology]], [[numismatics]], [[birdwatching]] and [[linguistics]].<ref name="nobelprize" /><ref name="SantaFePasses"/> Along with [[Sergei Starostin|S.&nbsp;A. Starostin]], he established the [[Evolution of Human Languages]] project<ref>{{Cite book | last1=Peregrine | first1=Peter Neal | author-link1=Peter N. Peregrine | title=Ancient Human Migrations: A Multidisciplinary Approach |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-AQNAQAAMAAJ |year=2009 |publisher=[[The University of Utah Press]] |isbn=978-0-87480-942-8 |page=ix |quote=Sergei Starostin and I established the Evolution of Human Languages project}}</ref> at the [[Santa Fe Institute]]. As a [[Humanism|humanist]] and an [[Agnosticism|agnostic]], Gell-Mann was a Humanist Laureate in the [[International Academy of Humanism]].<ref>[http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=iah&page=index The International Academy of Humanism] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080424101318/http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=iah&page=index |date=April 24, 2008 }} at the website of the Council for Secular Humanism. Retrieved October 18, 2007. Some of this information is also at the [http://www.iheu.org/american-humanist-association-building-momentum International Humanist and Ethical Union] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120418195201/http://www.iheu.org/american-humanist-association-building-momentum |date=April 18, 2012 }} website</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=The Language God Talks: On Science and Religion |year=2010 |publisher=[[Hachette Book Group|Hachette Digital]], Inc. |isbn=9780316096751 |author=Herman Wouk |quote=Feynman, Gell-Mann, Weinberg, and their peers accept Newton's incomparable stature and shrug off his piety, on the kindly thought that the old man got into the game too early. ...&nbsp;As for Gell-Mann, he seems to see nothing to discuss in this entire God business, and in the index to ''The Quark and the Jaguar'' God goes unmentioned. Life he called a "complex adaptive system", which produces interesting phenomena such as the jaguar and Murray Gell-Mann, who discovered the quark. Gell-Mann is a Nobel-class tackler of problems, but for him the existence of God is not one of them.|author-link=Herman Wouk }}</ref> Novelist [[Cormac McCarthy]] saw Gell-Mann as a polymath who "knew more things about more things than anyone I've ever met...losing Murray is like losing the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Frazier |first1=Kendrick |author-link1=Kendrick Frazier |title=In Memory of Murray Gell-Mann, Who Gave Us Quarks and Ordered the Subatomic World |journal=[[Skeptical Inquirer]] |date=2019 |volume=43 |issue=5 |page=10}}</ref>

Gell-Mann died on May 24, 2019, at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.<ref name="tnyt" /><ref name="SantaFePasses">{{Cite press release |first=Jenna |last=Marshall |title=Murray Gell-Mann passes away at 89 |url=https://santafe.edu/news-center/news/murray-gell-mann-passes-away-89 |work=[[Santa Fe Institute]] |date=May 24, 2019 |access-date=May 24, 2019 |archive-date=November 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231102034700/https://santafe.edu/news-center/news/murray-gell-mann-passes-away-89 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="guardian_obit2">{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jun/02/murray-gell-mann-obituary|title=Murray Gell-Mann obituary|last=Dombey|first=Norman|date=2019-06-02|work=The Guardian|access-date=2019-06-06|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077|archive-date=May 23, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240523052504/https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jun/02/murray-gell-mann-obituary|url-status=live}}</ref>