Frank Wilczek, whose investigations into the fundamental laws of nature have transformed our understanding of the forces that govern our universe, has been announced as the recipient of the 2022 Templeton Prize.

Valued at more than $1.3 million, the annual prize was established by the late philanthropist Sir John Templeton and is awarded to honor those who harness the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe. Wilczek is a Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist and author whose achievements in physics include establishing the theoretical description of one of the four fundamental forces in nature and proposing a leading explanation for dark matter. According to the foundation, his lectures and writings have illuminated the philosophical implications of his ideas, and his work reveals a vision of a universe that he regards as embodying mathematical beauty at the scales of the magnificently large and unimaginably small: a universe inherently beautiful in all its parts. 

The Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wilczek received a PhD in physics at Princeton University in 1974, and won the Nobel Prize in 2004 for work establishing the fundamental theory of the strong nuclear force. In his most recent book, Fundamentals (2021), he presents a set of 10 distilled insights drawn from physics and harmonized with artistic and philosophical sources to illuminate characteristics of physical reality.

“Throughout Dr. Wilczek’s philosophical reflections, there is a spiritual quality to his ideas,” said Templeton Foundation president Heather Templeton Dill. “By uncovering a remarkable order in the natural world, Dr. Wilczek has come to appreciate different ways of thinking about reality, and through his written work, he has invited all of us to join him in the quest for understanding. When we come face to face with the beauty that Dr. Wilczek describes, we can’t help but wonder about humankind’s place and purpose in the universe.” 

“The central miracle of physics to me is the fact that by playing with equations, drawing diagrams, doing calculations, and working within the world of mental concepts and manipulations, you are actually describing the real world,” said Wilczek. “If you were looking for trying to understand what God is by understanding God’s work, that’s it.”

(Photo credit: Michael Clark)