I’ll share what to me was one of the most impressive aspects of Weinberg’s work. I’ve seen him described as a battle tank — not the fastest to get moving, but b

I’ll share what to me was one of the most impressive aspects of Weinberg’s work. I’ve seen him described as a battle tank — not the fastest to get moving, but basically unstoppable once he does. As I was digging into the literature during my research, I noticed an interesting pattern to his work over the decades. There would erupt a “hot” area in applying quantum field theory, and have lots of back and forth and papers making claims, correcting each other, and being corrected. And then a few months/years later would come a Weinberg paper, handling the matter so systematically & thoroughly that there likely won’t be any more low-hanging fruit in the area! The whole thing was really impressive given that he worked largely by himself (most of his papers are single-author), and had among the highest average citation count I’ve seen for a theoretical physicist. There is a reason his quantum field theory textbook series is highly respected — he wrought the field piece by piece with his own hands. Finally, he was an extremely articulate writer, and I have a huge soft spot for his “Dreams of a final theory” — especially his comments on the relationship between theory & experiment, and the scientific method more generally. I really wish more people read that and got influenced by its depth and nuance.