He
started primary school at Paris, Jeanne d’Arc Primary School and there, he won
the admiration of her teachers. Beginning from the third grade, he continued to
his education life at Galatasaray High School at Istanbul and he also drew the
attention of his teachers.
He decided to study physics in high school
years. After graduating from Galatasaray High School by ranking first at school
in 1940; he started to study at Istanbul University, Faculty of Science. He
finished Physics-Mathematics department in 1944 with first place degree. He
passed an examination of the Ministry of National Education and became entitled
to register to England Imperial College. He carried out his doctorate under the
advice of Prof. H. Jones between 1945 and 50. He worked on the application of
Quaternions to field theory in 1950 and this became a focus point of research
that will last for his entire life. During these years, he published two
important articles named “An
Unidimentional Statistical System” and “On the Binary Wave Equations”. Between the years
of 1951-57, he was assigned to the Department of Applied Mathematics at Istanbul
University with the support of the Distinguished Professor Cahit Arf as an
assistant. In 1953, he became an associate professor with his thesis on “Classical
and Wave Mechanics of Spinning Electrons”.
In
1952, he married Suha Pamir who was also research assistant in Istanbul
University and their first and only son Yusuf was born in 1954. Between 1957
and 61, he moved to USA with her family to research in Brookhaven National
Accelerator Laboratory in USA with the scholarship of the Atom Energy
Commission. During those years, he carried out studies together with professors
of physics in Brookhaven National Accelerator Laboratory, Princeton Institute
for Prospective Studies and Columbia University.
In
the 1960s, Gürsey, thanks to his discovery of “Chiral Antisymmetry”
rule; he made an important contribution to the space and time symmetry studies.
At the result of his co-researches with M. Günaydin between 1974 and 76, they
proved that the “octonion” algebra of a combined E6 group was related with the
color dynamics. He became popular in the science world with his article
focusing on the relation of charge independence with the Baryon conservation
and the Pauli Transformation. In the letter sent by Wolfgang Pauli to the
famous Russian physicist Landau, he mentioned the article of Gürsey and stated
that he was planning to benefit from this symmetry on his own spinor models in
his research which is carried out with Heisenberg on spinor models. When Gürsey
requested a reference from W. Pauli to continue his researches at the Princeton
Institute; Pauli responded saying that: “I
don’t think on I should recommend you to them, contrary, I think if I can ever recommend
Princeton Institute to you.”
As
the result of the insisting of Prof. Erdal İnönü, he returned from USA to
Turkey in 1961, he founded Theoretical Physics Department of Middle East
Technical University (METU) and worked there as the professor until 1974. During
this time, he managed to evoke many studies in theoretical physics in Turkey. He
organized many conferences and invited many important physicists from Princeton
and Yale Universities to METU.
The
institute founded with the name of Erdal İnönü in 1983 and affiliated to
Boğaziçi University and Turkey Scientific and Technological Research Council (TÜBİTAK)
continued its activities with the name
of “Feza Gürsey Institute of Science”.
The institute is located in the Kandilli
Campus of Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. It hosts the researchers who work on
mathematics and theoretical physics.
Upon
the request of the Theoretical Physics Department of Yale University; he accepted
to be the guest professorship offer of the Yale University between the years of
1965-74. However, he didn’t leave his position in METU. He continued his
researches on non linear chiral models, conformal symmetry and general
relativity. In 1974, he became the full-time professor of Yale University’s Physics
Department and had to quit his position in METU.
He
worked in Yale University from 1971 to 1991 till he was retired. Due to his
contributions to the elementary physics particles; he was deemed worthy of
Oppenheimer Award together with Sheldon Glashow on 19th January 1977.
He has also awards like; The Science Award by TUBITAK in 1969, Einstein Medal
in 1979; Guest Professor and College de France Medal in 1981, the Outstanding
Scientist Award by Turkish-American Scientists and Engineers Society in 1989, Galatasaray
Foundation’s Medal in 1990. His name was given to the first science center of Turkey,
which was established in Ankara in 1993. His
most important work is “Symmetries in
Particle Physics (New York, 1984).
After he was retired in 1991; Prof. Gürsey returned to Turkey and accepted the invitation of Boğaziçi University’s Physics Department. That same year, he got prostate cancer and died in Yale University’s Hospital on 13th April 1992. His funeral was brought to Turkey and was buried in the family graveyard in Anadoluhisarı, İstanbul.