Watch: A Conversation with UCSB's Dr. David Gross, the Smartest Man in the World
The university's foremost Nobel winner scores a $3 million award for a lifetime of ground-breaking physics work, as Newsmakers unearths a vintage interview that seeks to download his gigantic brain.
Mega-kudos to David Gross, UCSB professor and Nobel Prize-winning physicist, for picking up yet another prestigious award, this one a $3 million grant presented at the “Oscars of Science.”
Our old friend Shelley Leachman, Editorial Director of The Current in the university’s news department, has the scoop:
“The Breakthrough Prize Foundation today announced physicist David J. Gross, of UC Santa Barbara’s Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, among the winners of the 2026 Breakthrough Prizes, honoring scientists whose discoveries are significantly driving growth of human knowledge.
“The Breakthrough Prizes – popularly known as the “Oscars® of Science” – were created to celebrate the wonders of our scientific age…
“Gross, cited “for a lifetime of groundbreaking contributions to theoretical physics, from the strong force to string theory, and for tireless advocacy for basic science worldwide, was awarded the 2026 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. “
A walk down memory lane. Back when mastodons roamed the earth, UCSB employed a future Newsmaker to “oversee” the student-run Daily Nexus, an oxymoron of a job if there ever was one, a gig which left ample free time in the workday to explore the wonders of the university.
At one point, your correspondent teamed up with UCTV to check out the marvel that is the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, where we homed in on Professor Gross, who recently had won the 2004 Nobel Prize for his work on “the strong force”; this work included the solution to the “last great remaining problem” of the Standard Model of particle physics and, oh yeah, a pioneering explanation of how the atomic nucleus works.
“Coming to Santa Barbara as a (Kavli) scholar,” one physicist who studied at the institute famously recalled, “is like joining a brotherhood in a place of worship to physicists that is as Jerusalem as to the Jews or as Mecca is to Muslims with David Gross as custodian of the holy shrine.”
Compelled by the chance to chat with the guy who knows as much as anyone on the planet about…everything…this reporter scored a sit-down with the great man, an ad hoc journalistic experiment to determine if a total science moron could gain a slight glimpse of comprehension of Gross’s personal and professional grasp of the most fundamental ideas that explain the universe.
The result, which you can view via YouTube below, or by clicking through this link, was an intriguing and engaging conversation, recently unearthed in a dusty old Newsmakers archive, in which the Smartest Man in the World patiently, cheerfully, and delightfully expounds upon the nature of reality to a luddite caveman equipped with endless dumb questions.
We hope you enjoy it.
Image: David Gross accepts the 2026 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in Santa Monica, April 18, 2026 (UC Santa Barbara News).