Anthony Zee

Anthony Zee (, born 7 June 1945) (Zee comes from /ʑi23/, the Shanghainese pronunciation of 徐) is a Chinese-American physicist, writer, and a professor at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics and the physics department of the University of California, Santa Barbara. His popular publications include Fearful Symmetry: The Search for Beauty in Modern Physics and An Old Man's Toy: Gravity at Work and Play in Einstein's Universe. His textbooks include Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell, Einstein Gravity in a Nutshell, and Group Theory in a Nutshell for Physicists. He is also the author of Swallowing Clouds: A Plafyul Journey Through Chinese Language, Culture and Cuisine.

Early life and education Zee was born in Kunming, China, in 1945, but his family fled to Hong Kong when he was four years old. His father was a self-taught businessman, and after a few years in Hong Kong, during a slump in business, decided to move the family again, this time to Brazil. After graduating from Princeton, Zee obtained his PhD from Harvard University, where he focused on the use of group theory in physics, supervised by Sidney Coleman. At UCSB, Zee teaches courses on both general relativity and quantum field theory. The culmination of his teaching is his highly regarded and widely praised "trilogy" of graduate level textbooks: Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell, Einstein Gravity in a Nutshell, and Group Theory in a Nutshell for Physicists. He is also the author of several books for general readers about physics and Chinese culture.

Research

Zee specializes in theoretical physics; research interests include high energy physics, field theory, cosmology, biophysics, condensed matter physics, and mathematical physics. He has authored or co-authored more than 200 scientific publications and several books on particle physics, condensed matter physics, anomalies in physics, random matrix theory, superconductivity, the quantum Hall effect, and other topics in theoretical physics and evolutionary biology, as well as their various interrelations.

Evolutionary biology In winter 2001, Johns Hopkins University Press published an article by Zee titled "On Fat Deposits around the Mammary Glands in the Females of Homo Sapiens" in the New Literary History. (See also mate value.) This article was published after Ralph Louis Cohen invited Zee to write an article of his choice in the literary magazine. 2013. Einstein Gravity in a Nutshell. Princeton University Press. 2016. Group Theory in a Nutshell for Physicists. Princeton University Press. 2020. General readers: 1989. An Old Man's Toy, Oxford University Press. 1990. Swallowing Clouds, University of Washington Press. 2007. Fearful Symmetry: The Search for Beauty in Modern Physics, 2nd ed. Princeton University Press. Foreword by Roger Penrose. . 1986 1st ed. published by Macmillan; 2016 paperback edition published by Princeton University Press 2018. 2023. 2025. Top Ten Ideas of Physics: Foundations for Understanding the Universe. Princeton University Press. 2025.

Awards and honors

Institute for Advanced Study Dyson Distinguished Visiting Professor Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship – 1973 Harvard Radcliffe Fellowship – 2006-2007 Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation Humboldt Research Award – 2011 Fellow of American Physical Society (APS) - 2014