Frank Wilczek

Wilczek shared the 2004 Nobel for asymptotic freedom, which he worked out as a graduate student in 1973: the force binding quarks weakens as they get closer, the reverse of every other force, and the reason quarks act like free particles inside a proton. Fundamentals sets out ten ideas he thinks a person needs in order to understand the physical world. He predicted the axion and named it after a brand of detergent. He teaches at MIT and writes about beauty in physical law without a trace of embarrassment about it.