ASU Physics Professor Frank Wilczek Wins 2022 Templeton Prize

TEMPE, AZ —Frank Wilczek, a distinguished professor in Arizona State's Department of Physics and a Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist, was announced as the winner of the 2022 Templeton Prize on Wednesday.

The prize, named for philanthropist Sir John Templeton, honors individuals whose exemplary lifetime achievements harness the power of science to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind's place and purpose within it, according to the Templeton Prize organization.

The prize, which is valued at more than $1.3 million, was first handed out in 1973 to St. Teresa of Kolkata, often known as Mother Teresa. Other winners include the Dalai Lama (2012), Archbishop Desmond Tutu (2013) and Jane Goodall, who won the 2021 prize.

According to the Templeton Prize organization, the 70-year-old Wilczek was selected in part because his boundary-pushing investigations into the fundamental laws of nature have transformed our understanding of the forces that govern our universe.

Wilczek's achievements in physics include: establishing the theoretical description of one of the four fundamental forces in nature and proposing a leading explanation for dark matter. Wilczek won the Nobel Prize in 2004 for his early-career work establishing the fundamental theory of the strong nuclear force.

"(Wilczek) is one of those rare and wonderful individuals who bring together a keen, creative intellect and an appreciation for transcendent beauty," said Heather Templeton Dill, president of the John Templeton Foundation, which sponsors the prize. "Like Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, he is a natural philosopher who unites a curiosity about the behavior of nature with a playful and profound philosophical mind."

Since winning the Nobel Prize, Wilczek has continued to pioneer new concepts in physics, naming and developing the theories of anyons, time crystals and axions, each of which now defines major fields of inquiry, according to the Templeton Prize organization.

Wilczek also is an in-demand public speaker and he has written several books including: "The Lightness of Being" (2008), "A Beautiful Question" (2015) and "Fundamentals "(2021).

"The intent of the Templeton Prize is noble and timely, and something the world needs, which is to bring attention to the possibility of new approaches to the problems or situations or challenges that people have traditionally accessed through religion, and many people still do," said Wilczek, in a video statement for the Templeton Prize.

Wilczek continued: "The central miracle of physics to me is the fact that by playing with equations, drawing diagrams, doing calculations and working within the world of mental concepts and manipulations, you are actually describing the real world. If you were looking for trying to understand what God is by understanding God's work, that's it."

Wilczek is the second ASU faculty member to win the Templeton Prize, joining Paul Davies, ASU Regent Professor in the Department of Physics, who received the honor in 1995. ASU now is one of the few institutions in the world to have more than one Templeton Prize winner.

In addition to being a distinguished professor at ASU, Wilczek currently is the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at MIT, founding director of the T. D. Lee Institute and chief scientist at Wilczek Quantum Center at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and a professor at Stockholm University.

"Professor Wilczek is a true renaissance man with broad interests, and this prize is recognition of that," said Patricia Rankin, ASU Department of Physics chair. "He is committed both to advancing the field and to working with young students to bring them into the field."