Philip Anderson

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Born in 1923 in Indianapolis, Anderson studied physics at Harvard and went on to hold positions at Bell Labs, Cambridge and Princeton. His contributions to physics are wide-ranging and important. He has worked on theories of symmetry breaking, localization of electrons, magnetism and superconductivity. He was also the author in 1972 of the influential essay "More is different," which argued that the particle physicist's attempt to explain the workings of nature in terms of ever-more fundamental particles and forces, fails to account for superconductivity and other phenomena that emerge from the interactions of particles with each other. The photo shows Anderson in 1977, the year he was awarded the Nobel physics prize.