The Man Who Invented the 26th Dimension
How a scientist you never heard of made String Theory possible.
Image credit: Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics, at http://aether.lbl.gov/bccp/dimensions.html.
When he died on September 7, 2012, theoretical physicist Claud W. Lovelace left behind a house filled with parakeets. With no family or close companions, the eccentric Rutgers professor loved to be surrounded by his colorful fine-feathered friends and listen to classical music as he contemplated the nuances of unified field theory. A loner not particularly close to his colleagues, members of the Physics and Astronomy department were astounded and delighted when he willed his entire fortune of $1.5 million to it. The funds were used to help establish endowed positions in practical fields of physics, a far cry from his own speculative work. He also willed his collection of more than 4000 classical CDs to Rutgers’ School of the Arts and donated his body to its Medical School.
While Lovelace’s death was little noted in the media—he certainly wasn’t well-known even among physicists outside of string theory—arguably one of his key findings about the high number of dimensions needed for string…
