Mark at the blackboard. (Credit: Clara Murgui)
Mark B. Wise, Caltech’s John A. McCone Professor of High Energy Physics and a leading theoretical particle physicist, died July 10 at age 72.
Wise spent more than four decades at Caltech, where his work helped shape modern particle physics and where generations of students knew him as an unusually approachable professor with a dry sense of humor. His most celebrated scientific contribution was the development, with physicist Nathan Isgur, of heavy quark effective theory, which simplified calculations involving heavy quarks and remains widely used in the study of the strong nuclear force.
Earlier in his career, while a junior fellow at Harvard, Wise worked with John Preskill and Frank Wilczek to propose that axions, hypothetical particles introduced for other reasons in particle physics, could make up dark matter. The idea has become increasingly influential as experiments continue to search for axions. Wise also made significant contributions across particle physics and cosmology.
Born in Montreal in 1953, Wise described himself as a poor student early in life. In a 2021 oral history interview, he recalled becoming interested in science only after beginning to read science and science fiction in ninth grade, and credited several high school teachers with encouraging that interest. He later earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Toronto and a PhD from Stanford in 1980.
Wise joined the Caltech faculty in 1982 and became a full professor three years later. Colleagues remembered both his scientific range and his unusually deep knowledge of developments throughout the field. David Politzer, the Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics, recalled that Wise remained current on new papers and experiments throughout his career and combined that breadth with a rare ability to identify important problems.
Students also knew Wise for the humor he brought to the classroom. His remarks inspired the student-run account @MarkWiseSays, created in 2010 to record memorable lines from his lectures.
“For example, Mark might say: ‘If you really get depressed, I recommend diagonalizing a 2×2 matrix.’ For physics students, this is both funny and sage advice,” shared John Preskill, Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics. “Or he might say, ‘This calculation will knock your socks off.’ A cliché you might hear from anyone. But who besides Mark would then proceed to remove his shoes, rip off his socks, hurl them at the blackboard, put his shoes back on and resume lecturing?”
Maria Spiropulu, the Shang-Yi Ch’en Professor of Physics, recalled that Wise paid students a quarter for every correct answer in class, an “economy of encouragement” he maintained for years out of his own pocket. Students from Dabney House once honored him with a LEGO figure depicting Wise, coffee mug in hand, lecturing at a blackboard.
That accessibility extended beyond the classroom. Former students and colleagues knew Wise as a giving mentor who took care to give young researchers worthwhile problems and was, Spiropulu recalled, “endlessly generous with his time” throughout his Caltech career. Hirosi Ooguri, the Fred Kavli Professor of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics and the Kent and Joyce Kresa Leadership Division Chair, remembered Mark as “deeply committed to his students and postdoctoral scholars” and as a “kind and generous colleague whose counsel I always valued. I will miss him.”
Wise remained closely involved in the life of the Institute, serving for 16 years as principal investigator of Caltech’s high-energy physics program and sitting on the Department of Energy’s 2013 P5 panel, which helped set national priorities for particle physics.
“Mark was a titan of theoretical physics whose towering achievements were matched only by his unbounded humility, kindness, and generosity to all,” said Clifford Cheung, current McCone Professor of Theoretical Physics and director of the Leinweber Forum for Theoretical Physics. “He nurtured generations of scientists who would go on to shape our field.”
Wise was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received the American Physical Society’s J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Physics in 2001.
He is survived by his wife, Jackie; his sons Barry and Jonathan and their wives, Marissa and Diana; his grandchildren Leo, Alex, and Jacob; his sister, Jenna Hofbauer; and his brother, Mitchell Wise.
Messages left for Mark on the theory floor of Downs-Lauritsen. (Credit: Damian R. Wilson)