Talk:Philip W. Anderson

A news item involving Philip W. Anderson was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 30 March 2020.

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Death

I understand that there is a tweet by William Bialek saying that Professor Anderson passed away on March, 29th 2020. However, I think we should wait to have a better source for this. --CristianCantoro (talk) 10:18, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've been contacted by the editor of Physics World about this (that is what led me to correct an error in the article), but it is not clear that he has a reliable source either. --Brian Josephson (talk) 11:14, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Would think that Princeton is putting a notice together today if it is true, which I assume it is at this point if Dr. Bialek posted on it. - Indefensible (talk) 17:49, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just added an obituary from the Santa Fe Institute. - Indefensible (talk) 17:55, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Anderson's Go rating

The article says 'He was a certified first-degree master of the Chinese board game Go'. This is I believe technically known as 'first Dan' (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_ranks_and_ratings), though I thought he was higher than that. Should that be included in the article?--Brian Josephson (talk) 18:56, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

According to Santa Fe he claimed that he was among the top 5 players in Japan, so it does sound like he was pretty high on the Go rankings. - Indefensible (talk) 19:29, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It would be absolutely astonishing if he were ranked so high. It sounds like he was joking. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Davidbofinger (talk • contribs) 00:07, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Added a sentence about it in the article. Thanks for mentioning that detail Dr. Josephson, very interesting! - Indefensible (talk) 19:39, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

American Academy of Arts and Sciences Membership

Hello! This is very "small potatoes," but I noticed Anderson's membership to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is listed twice.MAHosieAPS (talk) 13:32, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Naming of 'condensed matter physics' incorrect

I believe the line "Anderson is also responsible for naming the field of physics that is now known as condensed matter physics." is incorrect.

E.g. quote, from What’s in a Name Change? by Joseph D Martin: "Common lore holds that Anderson and Volker Heine coined ‘‘condensed matter’’ in 1967 while Anderson was a visitor in Cambridge and they changed the name of the solid state theory group at the Cavendish Laboratory to ‘‘theory of condensed matter.’’ Earlier occurrences of the term, in particular in the Springer journal title, belie this simple origin story, but the adoption of the term by a major UK research unit no doubt raised its profile in the Anglophone world." Casparvitch (talk) 03:50, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]