Murray Gell-Mann (born 15.09.1929) is an American theoretical physicist and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1960). He was born in New York. He graduated from Yale University (1948) and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1951). In 1952 — 54 he worked at the University of Chicago, and from 1954 at the California Institute of Technology (professor from 1956). His work has concerned quantum field theory, nuclear physics and the physics of elementary particles (the symmetries of weak and strong interactions, dispersion relations). In 1953 he introduced the concept of strangeness — a new quantum number that is one of the basic characteristics of an elementary particle — and discovered the law of conservation of strangeness (independently of K. Nishijima), and he developed the isospin formalism. Within his own scheme for the classification of particles he predicted new particles — the sigma-zero hyperon and the xi-zero hyperon. In 1953, together with M. Goldberger, he gave one of the formulations of the formal theory of scattering and the method of dispersion relations in quantum field theory, and in 1954, with F. Low, the renormalisation group method. In 1955 he developed the theory of neutral K-mesons, predicting in it the K01 and K02 mesons. He put forward (1957) the model of “global symmetry”. Together with R. Feynman (independently of R. Marshak and E. Sudarshan) he developed (1958) the theory of weak interaction. In 1961 he proposed the vector dominance model and, independently of Y. Ne'eman, a systematics of elementary particles, bringing them together into separate supermultiplets (the Gell-Mann — Ne'eman symmetry scheme). With the help of this systematics he predicted a new elementary particle — the omega-minus hyperon — and its properties (in 1964 the particle was detected experimentally). In 1962 he proposed the method of current algebra. He is the author (independently of G. Zweig) of the quark hypothesis (1964). Independently of others he put forward the hypothesis of gluons (1973). In 1969 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his achievements and discoveries connected with the classification of elementary particles and their interactions. The D. Heineman Prize (1959), the E. Lawrence (1966) and B. Franklin (1967) Medals and others.