The pope...

...of string theory.

I came upon these lecture series the other night. A set of them are three lectures by professor David Gross, from UCSB. Here is a transcript of the introduction of the introducer of David Gross:

To introduce David Gross tonight we are lucky to have in the audience another living legend of our time, professor Edward Witten of the Institute of Advanced Studies, the world's leader string theorist; often viewed as an intellectual leader in the tradition of Albert Einstein. Prof. Witten has received many top honors including the Dirac Medal, the Einstein Medal, the Fields Medal, several honorific doctorates and three years ago a National Medal of Science. Please welcome prof. Edward Witten.

Then Ed goes on to mention some facts about David and everything goes on. I have not being able to listen to the whole set of talks. But I got really annoyed by the introduction to Ed Witten.

I am not jealous of Ed. Well, maybe a bit. Of course! He might very well be one of the best string theorist. But the person says "leader string theorist". I think this is not fair. Maybe I do not know Witten's entire contribution to physics (and mathematics), but still. I believe that the main goal was to introduce professor Gross, who was the speaker of the night, the main attraction. Why would you want to start mentioning details about Ed Witten?

I guess Princeton is really happy they have Ed.