The 1977 Nobel Prize in physics that Philip Warren Anderson shared with Nevill Francis Mott and John Van Vleck was given not so much for one specific discovery but for his contributions over a number of years to the study of magnetism and disordered states. In fact, Anderson's interests have extended well beyond those areas and have included work on the broadening of line spectra, electron tunneling, and superconductivity.

Philip Warren Anderson was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on December 13, 1923, but he grew up in Urbana, Illinois. Anderson's father, Harry Warren Anderson, was a professor of plant pathology at the University of Illinois; his mother, the former Elsie Osborne, was the daughter of a professor of mathematics. Anderson graduated from University High School in Urbana in 1940 and was then awarded a scholarship to Harvard University. He graduated from Harvard with a B.S., summa cum laude, in 1943.

World War II...