Talk:Ernst Stueckelberg

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I'm of the opinion, he is genuinely written "Stueckelberg", not "Stückelberg", despite being this rather uncommon. It would be nice if someone can unearth a reference deciding this issue. --Pjacobi 11:06, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)
 * The proper spelling seems to be "Stückelberg", as you would expect from a German sounding name. For instance see the following article from CERN Courier, or the following list of publications .Erkcan 09:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Stückelberg may be more correct, but in most of his scientific papers, the spelling Stueckelberg is used. Likebox's edit of October 10, 2007 indicates that he/she knows something that I do not. Stueckelberg's covariant perturbation theory has, as far as I know, not been adopted at all. If it is just that it has not been universally adopted, would he/she care to provide references? Cgoakley 00:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

"Although his work was highly respected, later work which was only superficially different and only marginally more advanced would win the Nobel prize for others" is the kind of comment that should never appear in Wikipedia. Like other readers I am not interested in the opinions of non-notable contributors, I am interested in facts. If Likebox wants people to believe this, then he/she would do much better just to present the evidence and then let readers decide for themselves! Cgoakley 12:44, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Stueckelberg's covariant P.T. has not been adopted by anyone, as far as I know, so I have removed the statement suggesting just that it has not been "universally" adopted. Also, the comment that Stueckelberg should have received the Nobel prize instead of Feynman, et al is a point of view and as such, does not belong in Wikipedia. Cgoakley (talk) 08:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I wrote that. There was no suggestion that Stuckelberg should have recieved the nobel prize, and especially there was no suggestion that it should have been instead of Feynman. Feynman deserved all the recognition he got. Feynman formulated the path integral, the diagrams, and the first covariant regulator. What more do you want? And that's just what he won for. He also did decoherence, polaron, liquid helium, V-A theory, ghosts, partons, quantum computing, and the 2+1 gauge vacuum, not to mention unpublished stuff like background field.


 * The statement that was erased was not a slight on anybody. It was a statement of fact: Stuckelberg did not recieve any prizes or recognition, other than a position and a belated Max Planck medal. This despite the fact that he invented the renormalization group, despite the intermediate bosons, despite covariant perturbation theory, and despite the first Abelian Higgs mechanism, in 1957, remember this is same year as BCS, before Anderson, before Brout. His lack of recognition is a notable and sad fact. It is important to note that the immensity of his accomplishments were overshadowed, without belittling other great physicists.Likebox (talk) 20:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Inventing the renormalization group is nothing to be proud of. But if you want to put something about Stueckelberg being passed over recognition-wise, go right ahead. But, even if it is hearsay please cite your sources. Cgoakley (talk) 21:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I just read the rest of the comments. First: Stuckelberg's covariant perturbation theory today is a done in several places, including one recent quantum field theory textbook. The method does not have a name anymore--- it's expanding the equations of motion in a power-series in e after a fourier transform. It was used in the 70's by statistical physicists, I worked it out too (badly) at some point, and so does everybody, it's a standard method. It's Feynman diagrams from an equations of motion point of view.


 * As far as the renormalization group--- the Nobel comittee has so far awarded two prizes for renormalization group work: Kenneth Wilson in 1980 and Gross Politzer and Wilczek just recently. Gell-Mann and Low formulated it in the modern way, but Stueckelberg and Peterman came up with the idea, and it is the greatest mathematical tool ever created by physics.Likebox (talk) 07:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Likebox - "one recent quantum field theory textbook" is not good enough. Which textbook? Where? I would like to know as I spent a lot of time on this. Cgoakley (talk) 11:25, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

An anonymous editor from Canada with a Videotron IP address (96.22.153.11) has deleted my comment about Stückelberg's covariant perturbation theory with no explanation. Unless an explanation is forthcoming, I will treat this as vandalism and reinstate the comment shortly. Cgoakley (talk) 10:39, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Revision work
Having access to the Lacki et al biographical book, I'm now starting a major rewrite of this article. Any help greatly appreciatedRobma (talk) 09:16, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

The article says "his work not being widely recognized until the mid-1990s". I don't think it's widely recognized even now, but it was recognized as much as it ever was in the 1970s. I remember attending a lecture given by Victor Weisskopf at CERN in the 1970s. At the end, just before Weisskopf took questions, an elderly man got up from the audience and hobbled (assisted by a walking-stick) to the front. Many people in the audience seemed to think he was just some random weirdo (CERN had no security then, anyone could walk into the site), and some less-polite members of the audience sniggered; but Weisskopf greeted the old man warmly, shook his hand, and exchanged a few words with him before he hobbled out of the room. Weisskopf then explained to the audience that it was Stueckelberg. He briefly mentioned Stueckelberg's contributions to QED - which he regarded as equal to (and earlier than) Feynman's - and concluded with the simple statement "I would give him the Nobel Prize". Most physicists in CERN, which after all was the biggest physics lab in the world at the time, were at Weisskopf's lecture. Sayitclearly (talk) 19:44, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

CG Oakley
I have no idea why this person is getting to dominate this particular wikipedia entry. Who is this guy? His website is clear hint of something dodgy -- Renormalisation is a serious issue plaguing QFT that mathematical physicist would be seriously interested in. Yet, this man claims to have an equivalent of a braindead method to solve this problem. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and it is even silly insinuating that the entirety of the QFT community failed to try the equivalent of "10-20-30" solution. Instead, I hear more of the "oppressed victim" trying to spread the word, which is why his links are spread over the page. 220.255.2.232 (talk) 17:36, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Someone (can't remember who) wrote that being attacked by anonymous people on the internet is a bit like being assaulted by dwarfs in the dark. I concur. The article is about Stueckelberg, not me. Showing that at least one person (me) followed up on Stueckelberg's 1934 ideas, even if unintentionally, is worth mentioning as it helps demonstrate the value of those ideas. This accounts for just one link to my work which is the only self-promotion, or whatever you want to call it, here. Talk pages OTOH are more free format and interest in discussions is not necessarily just because I am looking for attention. Deal with it. Cgoakley (talk) 19:42, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

The idea of mesons "rediscovered by Hideki Yukawa"
Yukawa came up with the idea of mesons in 1934; see his profile on nobelprize.org. So he certainly did not "rediscover" this idea after Stueckelberg abandoned it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.52.117.72 (talk) 04:13, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Indeed, in 1937 Stueckelberg wrote: "Diferent observers believe that they have found evidence for the existence of charged particles whose mass amounts probably to about fifty times the electron mass. The writer wishes to call attention to an explanation of the nuclear forces, given as early as 1934, by Yukava, which predicts particles of this sort." E.C.G. Stueckelberg, On the Existence of Heavy Electrons,, Phys. Rev. 52, 41 (1937) - Published 1 July 1937. He pointed out that he "independently of Yukawa arrived at the same conclusion".-Agor153 (talk) 09:39, 22 July 2018 (UTC)