2012 Fundamental Physics Prize Winner Lectures at ICTP

A recently concluded school on superstring theory held at ICTP featured lectures by leading researchers in the field, including Juan Martin Maldacena, from the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, USA, a winner of the Fundamental Physics Prize in 2012 and a member of ICTP's Scientific Council. Maldacena, who was awarded ICTP's Dirac Medal in 2008, has a long association with the superstring school and ICTP; this year he lectured on "Black holes in quantum gravity".

"String theory is a long-term endeavour, and it is guided mostly by looking at the mathematical consistency of the theories," says Maldacena, adding that string theory continues to be of interest because it has applications across fields, "for example, through the gauge gravity duality to problems in condensed matter physics, in nuclear physics, in quark gluon plasma, and so on, and it can be used as a model to solve a variety of problems."

Maldacena first came to the ICTP school as a student in 1994. "It has always been of a very high quality, and it is a good place to hear about the latest developments in the field," he says.

Maldacena explains that schools such as the one on superstring theory are crucial to scientists from the developing world who want to keep  up to date with the latest concepts in the field. "ICTP is a place where people are doing first-rate physics and, like many other institutes, it is a place for scientific exchange. But what makes ICTP unique is that it supports scientists from the developing world. In that sense, ICTP has a huge positive impact," he says. "It certainly had an impact on my own career because my undergraduate advisor in Argentina was here at ICTP and learnt about string theory and the latest topics at that time and then came back to Argentina and taught these concepts to his students."

Maldacena is also on the steering committee of ICTP's South American Institute for Fundamental Research  in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  "I think it is great that ICTP is carrying out these initiatives and starting similar centres in other places. This will certainly make an important contribution to physics in that region [South America]."

While at ICTP, Maldacena also gave a colloquium talk on "Gauge theories, Strings and Gravity". The complete recording of the talk is available on ICTP's YouTube Channel . The recordings of his lectures are available on ICTP.tv.