He published groundbreaking papers on the nature of the early universe. And just last year, his prediction of the “ anyon” - a strange type of particle that only shows up in two-dimensional systems - was experimentally confirmed. He predicted the existence of a hypothetical particle called the axion, which today is a leading candidate for dark matter. His influence in the decades since has been profound. At the time it was done, Wilczek was just 21 years old. Wilczek and Gross went on to share the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for the work. It also turned out to underpin almost all subsequent research into the early universe. Their work revealed the strange alchemy at work inside the nucleus of an atom. In 1972, Frank Wilczek and his thesis adviser, David Gross, discovered the basic theory of the strong force - the final pillar of the Standard Model of particle physics.
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