Physics:Doing A Festschrift For Thomas Erber Edited by Porter Wear Johnson GC(2251)_PhysicsBookCvr10.indd 1 9/15/10 10:33 AM Doing Physics: A Festschrift for Tom Erber Edited by Porter Wear Johnson Illinois Institute of Technology IIT Press Doing Physics: A Festschrift For Thomas Erber edited by Porter Wear Johnson Published by: IIT Press 3300 S. Federal St., 301MB Chicago, IL 60616 Copyright °c 2010 IIT Press All rights reserved. No part of this book, including interior design, cover design, and icons, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photo- copying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 1-61597-000-2 Series Editor: Technical Editor: Sudhakar Nair Julia Chase Editorial Board David Arditi Roya Ayman Krishna Erramilli Porter Wear Johnson Harry Francis Mallgrave Mickie Piatt Katherine Riley Keiicho Sato Vincent Turitto Geo®rey Williamson Doing Physics: A Festschrift for Tom Erber Preface \Au¼ertenÄ wir oben, da¼ die Geschichte des Menschen den Menschen darstelle, so lÄa¼tsich hier auch wohl behaupten, da¼ die Geschichte der Wissenschaft die Wissenschaft selbst sei." Goethe, Zur Farbenlehre: Vorwort (1808) It is widely asserted that the great physicists who grasped the full unity of physics are all dead, having been replaced in this age of specialization by sci- entists who have a deep understanding only for issues of rather limited scope. Indeed, it is di±cult to refute such a viewpoint today, at the end of the ¯rst decade of the twenty-¯rst century. The unifying principles of the quantum the- ory and relativity are part of the ethos of physics, but fragmented development in various disjointed areas has characterized the past several decades of progress. Therefore, it has been a refreshing experience to interact with Tom Erber, who has sought to ¯nd unity by working in many areas | basic and applied, experimental and theoretical, practical and fanciful. Tom has published about one hundred articles in refereed journals over a period of about ¯ve decades. While that number is respectable but not extraordinary, the diversity of arenas in which he has made important contributions is quite striking. Here is a litany of ¯elds that have been signi¯cantly influenced by his work: ² classical electrodynamics (radiation reaction, Cerenkov radiation) ² quantum electrodynamics (photoelectric e®ect, Compton scattering syn- chrotron radiation, vacuum polarization) ² random processes (randomness in quantum mechanics) ² cooperative systems (hysteresis) v vi ² structural stability (fatigue) ² magnetism (flux compression, micromagnetics, piezomagnetism) Thomas Erber has been my colleague at Illinois Institute of Technology for more than four decades. I have enjoyed his enthusiasm, his fresh and original ap- proach to substantive issues, and his frequently heretical but always thoughtful assessments of current trends in physics. In addition, he has been a \cheer- leader" to me and to quite a few other colleagues in o®ering timely advice, suggesting new approaches, and proposing extensions of published work. He gave me one particularly cogent piece of advice, to avoid what he called “elsewhere physics” in written and oral presentations. Namely, be sure to ex- plain ideas, principles, conclusions, and speculations as clearly as possible, and never, never, never to state outright or imply indirectly that a particular result has been explained “elsewhere”. Instead, the avid listener or reader deserves to hear the \big picture", as well as the \detailed conclusions" in any scienti¯c presentations. Students fondly remember Tom Erber's lectures as being lucid, coherent, and elegant. He spoke clearly, and he almost never used written notes for reference. He took particular delight in pronouncing the names of physicists properly in the native language, and encouraging students to do the same. His faculty colleagues have long admired the chalkboards that he left behind after these lectures | with very clear writing, and almost \camera ready" copy on the boards. In fact, his lectures were almost theatrical performances, and surely this is a reflection of Tom's and his wife Audrey's lifelong involvement in amateur theater. In advanced courses in mechanics, electrodynamics, and statistical mechan- ics, Tom frequently introduced modern topics in which he had been doing re- search. He often got students involved in these projects, providing them with their ¯rst introduction to the excitement of being engaged in basic research. As a reflection of the breadth of Tom's interests in physics, this Festschrift in his honor contains articles by former students, colleagues at IIT, collaborators, and friends, which deal with a disparate variety of topics. These contributions are separated into categories, as follows: vii Category I: Physics Students of Tom Erber at IIT Bryan Field Quantum Cryptography Dave Gavelek Well Now Professor Erber Bruce Harmon Magnetism Erber Alles Chris Merrill A few memories of Prof Erber Richard Olenick Two and Three-Dimensional Hysteresis in a Simple Magnetic Cooperative System5mm Category II: Current IIT Colleagues Liam Co®ey The Surface Coulomb Problem: Energy Minima and Hausdor® Metrics Sid Guralnick et al., A Mechanical Model for Simulating Fatigue Failure in Metals Porter Johnson et al. Energy Conservation: Science or Ideology? Sud Nair The Tao Solution for the Stefan Problem Harold Spector A Brief History of IIT Physics Category III: Former IIT Colleagues Robert Warnock Electromagnetic Whispering Gallery Modes Harold Weinstock Hysteresis in Iron, Nickel and STMs Dave White GEM and the K¤(892) Category IV: Other Collaborators and Friends Walter Dittrich The Heisenberg-Euler Lagrangian as an Example of an E®ective Field Theory Michael E. Fisher For Professor Thomas Erber in Recognition of his 80TH Birthday Tony Leggett Majorana Fermions in Fermi Superfluids: A Pedagogical Note Adrian Melissinos \Running" Gravitational Constant? Peter Milonni Quantum Fields in a Dielectric: Langevin and Exact Diagonalization Approaches Kim Milton et al. Exact Casimir Energies at Nonzero Temperature Randall Peters A Contribution to the Tom Erber Festschrift Seth Putterman Are the Navier Stokes Equations of Hydrodynamics an example of a GÄodelTheorem in Physics? viii Fritz Rohrlich The Completion of the Classical Dynamics of Charges Jon Rosner The Mystery of Parity The ¯nal article, by Tom Erber himself, is entitled \Eigenschrift: The End of the Classical Theories of Radiation Reaction". This article represents a survey of work done on this topic over his career, as well as prospects for future research. Tom de¯nitely sees the big picture in science, and many who have known him or have worked with him have been infused with his zest for exploration. It has been an honor and a privilege to have initiated this project and even to have carried through the laborious technical details that have inevitably been involved in its creation. I have learned more than I ever wanted to know about layout, ¯le conversion, and enforcing compability in the various versions of WordR and LaTeXR that are extant in the world. Still, it is important to me as well as to others to tell his story and to honor his career. Good luck, Tom. Porter Wear Johnson Chicago Illinois USA Email: [email protected] Website: http://mypages.iit.edu/~johnsonpo/ Contents 1 Quantum Cryptography 1 1.1 Introduction . 1 1.2 Conventional Cryptography . 2 1.2.1 Conventional Computing . 5 1.3 Quantum Key Distribution . 6 1.4 Conclusion . 8 2 Well Now Professor Erber 11 2.1 Peeling the Onion . 13 2.2 First with the Least or Next with the Best . 14 2.3 A Good Experiment . 15 2.4 You Have to Live Long Enough . 16 2.5 Locked in a Closet . 17 2.6 Good and Bad Things About Everyplace . 19 2.7 The Sincerest Form of Flattery . 21 3 Magnetism Erber Alles 23 4 A Few Memories of Prof Erber 27 5 Two and Three-Dimensional Hysteresis: Simple Magnetic Cooperative System 31 5.1 Introduction . 31 5.2 Two-Dimensional Hysteresis: Spacing and External Field . 32 5.3 Three-Dimensional Hysteresis: Spacing, External Field, Rotation . 36 5.4 Discussion . 41 ix x 5.5 Tribute to Professor Thomas Erber . 42 6 The Surface Coulomb Problem: Energy Minima and Hausdor® Metrics 45 6.1 The Surface Coulomb Problem . 46 6.2 Results . 46 6.3 Hausdor® Metrics for the Surface Coulomb Problem . 49 6.4 Saddle Point Heights on the Energy Landscape . 51 7 A Mechanical Model for Simulating Fatigue Failure in Metals 53 7.1 Introduction . 54 7.2 Description of the Model . 59 7.3 Basic Formulation . 60 7.4 Simulation of Hysteresis Loss vs. Number of Stress Cycles . 65 7.5 Determination of Model Parameters . 68 7.6 Special Cases . 68 7.7 Example . 69 7.8 Sensitivity of Results to Variation in Material Properties . 72 7.9 Summary and Conclusions . 73 8 Energy Conservation: Science or Ideology? 77 8.1 Introduction . 77 8.2 Zeno Balls . 78 8.3 Relativistic Collisions . 82 8.4 Classical Statistical Mechanics . 83 8.5 Quantum Statistical Mechanics . 88 9 The Tao Solution for the Stefan Problem: An Alternate Derivation 93 9.1 Introduction . 94 9.2 Formulation . 95 9.3 Conclusion . 100 10 A Brief History of IIT Physics 103 xi 11 Electromagnetic Whispering Gallery Modes 109 11.1 Coherent Synchrotron Radiation (CSR) . 110 11.2 E®ects of a Closed Vacuum Chamber . 112 11.3 Possible Observation of Whispering Gallery Modes . 119 11.4 Reminiscence of IIT at Mid-century . 128 12 Hysteresis in Iron, Nickel and STMs 133 13 GEM and the K¤(892) 139 13.1 Introduction . 140 13.2 Application of GEM . 141 13.3 Discussion of Results . 143 13.4 Concluding Remarks . 144 14 The Heisenberg-Euler Lagrangian: an Example of an E®ective Field Theory 147 14.1 Introduction . 147 14.2 Hans Euler's Ph.D. Thesis: Scattering of Light by Light .