Talk:Ernst Stueckelberg

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I'm of the opinion, he is genuinely written "Stueckelberg", not "Stückelberg", despite being this rather uncommon. It would be nice if someone can unearth a reference deciding this issue. --Pjacobi 11:06, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

The proper spelling seems to be "Stückelberg", as you would expect from a German sounding name. For instance see the following article from CERN Courier [1], or the following list of publications [2].Erkcan 09:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Stückelberg may be more correct, but in most of his scientific papers, the spelling Stueckelberg is used. Likebox's edit of October 10, 2007 indicates that he/she knows something that I do not. Stueckelberg's covariant perturbation theory has, as far as I know, not been adopted at all. If it is just that it has not been universally adopted, would he/she care to provide references? Cgoakley 00:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

"Although his work was highly respected, later work which was only superficially different and only marginally more advanced would win the Nobel prize for others" is the kind of comment that should never appear in Wikipedia. Like other readers I am not interested in the opinions of non-notable contributors, I am interested in facts. If Likebox wants people to believe this, then he/she would do much better just to present the evidence and then let readers decide for themselves! Cgoakley 12:44, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Stueckelberg's covariant P.T. has not been adopted by anyone, as far as I know, so I have removed the statement suggesting just that it has not been "universally" adopted. Also, the comment that Stueckelberg should have received the Nobel prize instead of Feynman, et al is a point of view and as such, does not belong in Wikipedia. Cgoakley (talk) 08:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I wrote that. There was no suggestion that Stuckelberg should have recieved the nobel prize, and especially there was no suggestion that it should have been instead of Feynman. Feynman deserved all the recognition he got. Feynman formulated the path integral, the diagrams, and the first covariant regulator. What more do you want? And that's just what he won for. He also did decoherence, polaron, liquid helium, V-A theory, ghosts, partons, quantum computing, and the 2+1 gauge vacuum, not to mention unpublished stuff like background field.

The statement that was erased was not a slight on anybody. It was a statement of fact: Stuckelberg did not recieve any prizes or recognition, other than a position and a belated Max Planck medal. This despite the fact that he invented the renormalization group, despite the intermediate bosons, despite covariant perturbation theory, and despite the first Abelian Higgs mechanism, in 1957, remember this is same year as BCS, before Anderson, before Brout. His lack of recognition is a notable and sad fact. It is important to note that the immensity of his accomplishments were overshadowed, without belittling other great physicists.Likebox (talk) 20:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Inventing the renormalization group is nothing to be proud of. But if you want to put something about Stueckelberg being passed over recognition-wise, go right ahead. But, even if it is hearsay please cite your sources. Cgoakley (talk) 21:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I just read the rest of the comments. First: Stuckelberg's covariant perturbation theory today is a done in several places, including one recent quantum field theory textbook. The method does not have a name anymore--- it's expanding the equations of motion in a power-series in e after a fourier transform. It was used in the 70's by statistical physicists, I worked it out too (badly) at some point, and so does everybody, it's a standard method. It's Feynman diagrams from an equations of motion point of view.

As far as the renormalization group--- the Nobel comittee has so far awarded two prizes for renormalization group work: Kenneth Wilson in 1980 and Gross Politzer and Wilczek just recently. Gell-Mann and Low formulated it in the modern way, but Stueckelberg and Peterman came up with the idea, and it is the greatest mathematical tool ever created by physics.Likebox (talk) 07:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Likebox - "one recent quantum field theory textbook" is not good enough. Which textbook? Where? I would like to know as I spent a lot of time on this. Cgoakley (talk) 11:25, 5 February 2008 (UTC)