DOCSLIB.ORG

In Memoriam: Freeman Dyson (1923–2020) George E

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

In Memoriam: Freeman Dyson (1923–2020) George E. Andrews, Jürg Fröhlich, and Andrew V. Sills 1. A Brief Biography 1.1. Personal background. Freeman John Dyson was born in Crowthorne, Berkshire, in the United Kingdom, on December 15, 1923. His father was the musician and composer Sir George Dyson; his mother, Mildred Lucy, n´eeAtkey, was a lawyer who later became a social worker. Freeman had an older sister, Alice, who said that, as a boy, he was constantly calculating and was always surrounded by encyclopedias. According to his own testimony, Free- man became interested in mathematics and astronomy around age six. At the age of twelve, he won the first place in a scholar- ship examination to Winchester College, where his father was the Director of Music; one of the early manifestations of Freeman’s extraordinary talent. Dyson described his ed- ucation at Winchester as follows: the official curriculum at the College was more or less limited to imparting basic skills in languages and in mathematics; everything else was in the responsibility of the students. In the company of some of his fellow students, he thus tried to absorb what- ever he found interesting, wherever he could find it. That included, for example, basic Russian that he needed in or- der to be able to understand Vinogradov’s Introduction to Figure 1. the Theory of Numbers. George E. Andrews is Evan Pugh Professor of Mathematics at the Pennsylvania In 1941, Dyson won a scholarship to Trinity College in State University. His email address is [email protected]. Cambridge. He studied physics with Paul Dirac and Sir Jürg Fröhlich is a professor emeritus of theoretical physics at the Institute for The- Arthur Eddington and mathematics with G. H. Hardy, J. E. oretical Physics, ETH Zurich. His email address is [email protected]. Littlewood, and Abram Besikovich, the latter apparently Andrew V. Sills is a professor of mathematics at Georgia Southern University. having the strongest influence on his early development His email address is [email protected]. and scientific style. Dyson’s knowledge of Russian came Communicated by Notices Associate Editor William McCallum. in handy, as Besikovich preferred to converse with Dyson For permission to reprint this article, please contact: in Russian. Dyson published several excellent papers on [email protected]. problems in number theory, analysis, and algebraic topol- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1090/noti2323 ogy. Politically, he considered himself to be a socialist. 1140 NOTICES OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY VOLUME 68, NUMBER 7 During the war, at the age of nineteen, Dyson was as- at the Institute for Advanced Study. I loved Cor- signed to the Royal Air Force’s Bomber Command, where nell and I loved Hans Bethe, but I hated the Ph.D. he developed methods for calculating the optimal density system to which my students were tied. The Insti- of bombers in formations to hit German targets. In 1945, tute suited my style of work much better. The life- he was awarded a BA in mathematics. He became a fel- cycle of the Institute is one year long, with a fresh low of Trinity College (1946–1949), where he occupied a crowd of visiting members arriving each Septem- room just below the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Af- ber. The annual cycle is well matched to my short ter having read Heitler’s Quantum Theory of Radiation and attention-span. .. With some regret but more re- the Smyth Report on the Manhattan Project, Dyson con- lief, I left Cornell in June 1953 and took up my cluded that “Physics would be a major stream of scientific new position in Princeton in September. I was de- progress, during the next twenty five years,” and he decided lighted to have a position in which I would never to trade mathematics for theoretical physics. again be responsible for a Ph.D. For the rest of my In 1947, Dyson won a Commonwealth Fund Fellow- life I have been fighting ineffectually against the ship and applied to become a graduate student of Hans ever-tightening grip of the Ph.D. system on young Bethe at Cornell University. It may be surprising that people wishing to pursue careers in science. I am he decided to leave Cambridge, where Eddington, Kem- eternally grateful to Cornell for accepting me as a mer, and Dirac taught, and move to America. Dyson professor in 1951 without a Ph.D. Unfortunately, wrote [Dys07, Chapter 1]: the liberality with which Cornell treated me did not extend to my students. Scientists come in two varieties, hedgehogs and foxes. I borrow this terminology from Isaiah Dyson had married Verena Huber-Dyson in 1950. They Berlin, who borrowed it from the ancient Greek had two children (Esther and George), but the marriage poet Archilochus.... [F]oxes know many tricks, ended in divorce in 1958. In 1957, Dyson became a citizen hedgehogs only one. Foxes are broad, while of the United States. In 1958, he married Imme Jung, and hedgehogs are deep. Foxes are interested in ev- together they had four children (Dorothy, Mia, Rebecca, erything and move easily from one problem to and Emily). Dyson was a family man, and he seemed to another. Hedgehogs are only interested in a few greatly enjoy the company of his own six as well as other problems that they consider fundamental, and children. stick with the same problems for years or decades. 1.2. Some of Dyson’s key contributions to theoretical [...] Some periods in the history of science are physics. At the time Dyson started his career in physics, good times for hedgehogs, while other periods are quantum field theory was in a messy state. Dirac and good times for foxes. The beginning of the twen- Werner Heisenberg thought that, in a revolution similar tieth century was good for hedgehogs. [...] [I]n to the one that gave birth to quantum mechanics, relativis- the middle of the century, the foundations were tic quantum field theory (RQFT1) would eventually be su- firm and the universe was wide open for foxesto perseded by a mathematically meaningful theory unifying explore. quantum theory with relativity theory. Dyson concluded Obviously, Freeman Dyson was the archetypal “fox,” and that what was necessary was to clarify the intricacies of the the period in physics when he started to do research and existing formalism of RQFT and to then use it to do con- scored his first great successes was exactly right for foxes. crete calculations explaining new experimental data. In He was so much a fox that he never got around to getting Cambridge, Dyson had learned some quantum field the- his doctoral degree. Of course, he did not need to. He ory from his friend Nicholas Kemmer and from a book by was offered a professorship at Cornell University in 1951, Gregor Wentzel. Dyson wrote [Dys96, p. 12]: to work with Hans Bethe essentially as a replacement for It was my luck that I arrived with this gift from Eu- Richard Feynman, who had left for Caltech a year earlier. rope just at the moment when the new precise ex- Dyson wrote about the time he spent at Cornell [Dys96, periments of Lamb and others [...] required quan- p. 18]: tum field theory for their correct interpretation. I enjoyed teaching students in class-room courses, When I used quantum field theory to calculate an and I enjoyed talking to them individually about science, but I did not enjoy being responsible for 1One referee pointed out that many would prefer the abbreviation “QFT” over dragging them through the three-year treadmill of “RQFT” since although nonrelativistic quantum field theories do exist, the rela- Ph.D. thesis research. From this unhappy situa- tivistic variety is the standard, and certainly the kind on which Dirac, Feynman, tion, I was rescued by the offer of a Professorship and Dyson focused. AUGUST 2021 NOTICES OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY 1141 experimental number, the Lamb shift [.. .], Bethe group, an important paradigm developed primarily by Wil- was impressed. son, who greatly generalized ideas of Stückelberg and Pe- Dyson’s principal contribution to quantum field the- termann and of Gell-Mann and Low. Dyson generously ory was, however, to unify the approaches to quantum shared his understanding of quantum field theory with electrodynamics (QED), the quantum theory of electrons, Bethe and Feynman, and explained the latter’s ideas to positrons, and photons, that had been proposed by Feyn- people preferring Schwinger’s over Feynman’s approach to man, Julian Schwinger, and Shin’ichirˉoTomonaga, a lit- RQFT, such as J. Robert Oppenheimer, who had become tle earlier. This unification work was facilitated by a cross- the director of the Institute for Advanced Study. country road trip, from Ithaca, New York, to Albuquerque, Since Dyson was a “fox,” it is unimaginable that he New Mexico, that Dyson took with Feynman in June 1948, would work in the same field for more than a year orsoat joyfully recounted by Dyson in Chapter 6 of [Dys79]. After a time. Indeed, right after his initial successes with QED parting company with Feynman in Albuquerque, Dyson (and with meson theory), he moved on to work on prob- rode a sequence of Greyhound buses to Ann Arbor, Michi- lems in statistical mechanics and solid-state physics. gan, where he attended a series of lectures by Schwinger, Dyson’s ideas and results in statistical mechanics and and had many conversations with him over a five-week condensed matter physics, among them his proof, with period. From Ann Arbor, he took a Greyhound bus to Andrew Lenard, of “Stability of Matter,” inspired a tremen- California, where he spent ten days.
Recommended publications
  • Preliminary Acknowledgments

    Preliminary Acknowledgments

    PRELIMINARY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The central thesis of I Am You—that we are all the same person—is apt to strike many readers as obviously false or even absurd. How could you be me and Hitler and Gandhi and Jesus and Buddha and Greta Garbo and everybody else in the past, present and future? In this book I explain how this is possible. Moreover, I show that this is the best explanation of who we are for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it provides the metaphysical foundations for global ethics. Variations on this theme have been voiced periodically throughout the ages, from the Upanishads in the Far East, Averroës in the Middle East, down to Josiah Royce in the North East (and West). More recently, a number of prominent 20th century physicists held this view, among them Erwin Schrödinger, to whom it came late, Fred Hoyle, who arrived at it in middle life, and Freeman Dyson, to whom it came very early as it did to me. In my youth I had two different types of experiences, both of which led to the same inexorable conclusion. Since, in hindsight, I would now classify one of them as “mystical,” I will here speak only of the other—which is so similar to the experience Freeman Dyson describes that I have conveniently decided to let the physicist describe it for “both” of “us”: Enlightenment came to me suddenly and unexpectedly one afternoon in March when I was walking up to the school notice board to see whether my name was on the list for tomorrow’s football game.
  • Richard Phillips Feynman Physicist and Teacher Extraordinary

    Richard Phillips Feynman Physicist and Teacher Extraordinary

    ARTICLE-IN-A-BOX Richard Phillips Feynman Physicist and Teacher Extraordinary The first three decades of the twentieth century have been among the most momentous in the history of physics. The first saw the appearance of special relativity and the birth of quantum theory; the second the creation of general relativity. And in the third, quantum mechanics proper was discovered. These developments shaped the progress of fundamental physics for the rest of the century and beyond. While the two relativity theories were largely the creation of Albert Einstein, the quantum revolution took much more time and involved about a dozen of the most creative minds of a couple of generations. Of all those who contributed to the consolidation and extension of the quantum ideas in later decades – now from the USA as much as from Europe and elsewhere – it is generally agreed that Richard Phillips Feynman was the most gifted, brilliant and intuitive genius out of many extremely gifted physicists. Here are descriptions of him by leading physicists of his own, and older as well as younger generations: “He is a second Dirac, only this time more human.” – Eugene Wigner …Feynman was not an ordinary genius but a magician, that is one “who does things that nobody else could ever do and that seem completely unexpected.” – Hans Bethe “… an honest man, the outstanding intuitionist of our age and a prime example of what may lie in store for anyone who dares to follow the beat of a different drum..” – Julian Schwinger “… the most original mind of his generation.” – Freeman Dyson Richard Feynman was born on 11 May 1918 in Far Rockaway near New York to Jewish parents Lucille Phillips and Melville Feynman.
  • Disturbing the Memory

    Disturbing the Memory

    1 1 February 1984 DISTURBING THE MEMORY E. T. Jaynes, St. John's College, Cambridge CB2 1TP,U.K. This is a collection of some weird thoughts, inspired by reading "Disturbing the Universe" by Freeman Dyson 1979, which I found in a b o okstore in Cambridge. He reminisces ab out the history of theoretical physics in the p erio d 1946{1950, particularly interesting to me b ecause as a graduate student at just that time, I knew almost every p erson he mentions. From the rst part of Dyson's b o ok we can learn ab out some incidents of this imp ortant p erio d in the development of theoretical physics, in which the present writer happ ened to b e a close and interested onlo oker but, regrettably, not a participant. Dyson's account lled in several gaps in myown knowledge, and in so doing disturb ed my memory into realizing that I in turn maybein a p osition to ll in some gaps in Dyson's account. Perhaps it would have b een b etter had I merely added myown reminiscences to Dyson's and left it at that. But like Dyson in the last part of his b o ok, I found it more fun to build a structure of conjectures on the rather lo ose framework of facts at hand. So the following is o ered only as a conjecture ab out how things mighthave b een; i.e. it ts all the facts known to me, and seems highly plausible from some vague impressions that I have retained over the years.
  • 1 Introduction

    1 Introduction

    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by CERN Document Server 1 TWENTY FIVE YEARS OF ASYMPTOTIC FREEDOM David J. Gross Institute For Theoretical Physics, UCSB Santa Barbara, California, USA e-mail: [email protected] Abstract th On the o ccasion of the 25 anniversary of Asymptotic Freedom, celebrated at the QCD Euorconference 98 on Quantum Chro dynamics, Montp ellier, July 1998, I describ ed the discovery of Asymptotic Freedom and the emergence of QCD. 1 INTRODUCTION Science progresses in a much more muddled fashion than is often pictured in history b o oks. This is esp ecially true of theoretical physics, partly b ecause history is written by the victorious. Con- sequently, historians of science often ignore the many alternate paths that p eople wandered down, the many false clues they followed, the many misconceptions they had. These alternate p oints of view are less clearly develop ed than the nal theories, harder to understand and easier to forget, esp ecially as these are viewed years later, when it all really do es make sense. Thus reading history one rarely gets the feeling of the true nature of scienti c development, in which the element of farce is as great as the element of triumph. The emergence of QCD is a wonderful example of the evolution from farce to triumph. During a very short p erio d, a transition o ccurred from exp erimental discovery and theoretical confusion to theoretical triumph and exp erimental con rmation. In trying to relate this story, one must be wary of the danger of the p ersonal bias that o ccurs as one lo oks back in time.
  • Former Fellows Biographical Index Part

    Former Fellows Biographical Index Part

    Former Fellows of The Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783 – 2002 Biographical Index Part Two ISBN 0 902198 84 X Published July 2006 © The Royal Society of Edinburgh 22-26 George Street, Edinburgh, EH2 2PQ BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF FORMER FELLOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 1783 – 2002 PART II K-Z C D Waterston and A Macmillan Shearer This is a print-out of the biographical index of over 4000 former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh as held on the Society’s computer system in October 2005. It lists former Fellows from the foundation of the Society in 1783 to October 2002. Most are deceased Fellows up to and including the list given in the RSE Directory 2003 (Session 2002-3) but some former Fellows who left the Society by resignation or were removed from the roll are still living. HISTORY OF THE PROJECT Information on the Fellowship has been kept by the Society in many ways – unpublished sources include Council and Committee Minutes, Card Indices, and correspondence; published sources such as Transactions, Proceedings, Year Books, Billets, Candidates Lists, etc. All have been examined by the compilers, who have found the Minutes, particularly Committee Minutes, to be of variable quality, and it is to be regretted that the Society’s holdings of published billets and candidates lists are incomplete. The late Professor Neil Campbell prepared from these sources a loose-leaf list of some 1500 Ordinary Fellows elected during the Society’s first hundred years. He listed name and forenames, title where applicable and national honours, profession or discipline, position held, some information on membership of the other societies, dates of birth, election to the Society and death or resignation from the Society and reference to a printed biography.
  • Color Screening in Quantum Chromodynamics Arxiv

    Color Screening in Quantum Chromodynamics Arxiv

    Color Screening in Quantum Chromodynamics Alexei Bazavov, Johannes H. Weber Department of Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA October 6, 2020 Abstract We review lattice studies of the color screening in the quark-gluon plasma. We put the phenomena related to the color screening into the context of similar aspects of other physical systems (electromag- netic plasma or cold nuclear matter). We discuss the onset of the color screening and its signature and significance in the QCD transi- tion region, and elucidate at which temperature and to which extent the weak-coupling picture based on hard thermal loop expansion, po- tential nonrelativistic QCD, or dimensionally-reduced QCD quantita- tively captures the key properties of the color screening. We discuss the different regimes pertaining to the color screening and thermal arXiv:2010.01873v1 [hep-lat] 5 Oct 2020 dissociation of the static quarks in depth for various spatial correla- tion functions that are studied on the lattice, and clarify the status of their asymptotic screening masses. We finally discuss the screening correlation functions of dynamical mesons with a wide range of flavor and spin content, and how they conform with expectations for low- and high-temperature behavior. 1 Contents 1 Introduction3 2 Field theoretical foundations7 2.1 Partition function and Lagrangian . .7 2.2 Finite temperature field theory . 11 2.3 Lattice regularization . 14 2.4 Renormalization and weak coupling . 17 2.5 Light quarks . 19 2.6 Heavy quarks . 21 2.7 Implementation of QCD on the lattice .
  • Lew Kowarski

    Lew Kowarski

    Lew Kowarski 1907-1979 Avant-propos ~~~'\ John B. Adams Les textes publies dans le present document sont ceux directeur de son Departement des sciences naturelles. des allocutions prononcees !ors d'une reunion a la me­ Denis de Rougemont, comme Lew Kowarski, a done pris moire de Lew Kowarski, qui s'est tenue au CERN a une grande part a la creation du CERN et s'est trouve en Geneve le 20 decembre 1979. contact avec Kowarski, tant a ce moment-la que pendant Ces allocutions couvrent les differentes phases de la vie Jes annees ou ce dernier a travaille au CERN. Leurs rela­ et de !'oeuvre de Lew Kowarski, et chaque orateur s'est tions se resserrerent encore apres que Kowarski eut pris sa trouve en association etroite avec lui a differentes epoques retraite. de sa carriere. Jean Mussard a egalement concouru a la creation du Jules Gueron a rencontre Kowarski avant la seconde CERN car, a l'epoque ou !'UNESCO entreprenait d'ela­ guerre mondiale alors qu'il travaillait au laboratoire de borer le projet d'un Laboratoire europeen de physique Joliot a Paris. Ensemble, ils entrerent a «Tube Alloys», nucleaire, ii etait directeur adjoint de la Division pour la nom de code pour le projet d'energie nucleaire en Angle­ cooperation scientifique internationale a l'UNESCO et terre, et se rendirent au Canada quand ce projet y fut Pierre Auger le chargea de cette elaboration. C'est ainsi transfere en 1943. Apres la guerre, tous deux devinrent qu'il entra en contact avec Lew Kowarski et ii resta en directeurs au CEA, en France, puis leurs itineraires se rapport etroit avec lui jusqu'au deces de celui-ci.
  • Iasinstitute for Advanced Study

    Iasinstitute for Advanced Study

    IAInsti tSute for Advanced Study Faculty and Members 2012–2013 Contents Mission and History . 2 School of Historical Studies . 4 School of Mathematics . 21 School of Natural Sciences . 45 School of Social Science . 62 Program in Interdisciplinary Studies . 72 Director’s Visitors . 74 Artist-in-Residence Program . 75 Trustees and Officers of the Board and of the Corporation . 76 Administration . 78 Past Directors and Faculty . 80 Inde x . 81 Information contained herein is current as of September 24, 2012. Mission and History The Institute for Advanced Study is one of the world’s leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. The Institute exists to encourage and support fundamental research in the sciences and human - ities—the original, often speculative thinking that produces advances in knowledge that change the way we understand the world. It provides for the mentoring of scholars by Faculty, and it offers all who work there the freedom to undertake research that will make significant contributions in any of the broad range of fields in the sciences and humanities studied at the Institute. Y R Founded in 1930 by Louis Bamberger and his sister Caroline Bamberger O Fuld, the Institute was established through the vision of founding T S Director Abraham Flexner. Past Faculty have included Albert Einstein, I H who arrived in 1933 and remained at the Institute until his death in 1955, and other distinguished scientists and scholars such as Kurt Gödel, George F. D N Kennan, Erwin Panofsky, Homer A. Thompson, John von Neumann, and A Hermann Weyl. N O Abraham Flexner was succeeded as Director in 1939 by Frank Aydelotte, I S followed by J.
  • David Olive: His Life and Work

    David Olive: His Life and Work

    David Olive his life and work Edward Corrigan Department of Mathematics, University of York, YO10 5DD, UK Peter Goddard Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA St John's College, Cambridge, CB2 1TP, UK Abstract David Olive, who died in Barton, Cambridgeshire, on 7 November 2012, aged 75, was a theoretical physicist who made seminal contributions to the development of string theory and to our understanding of the structure of quantum field theory. In early work on S-matrix theory, he helped to provide the conceptual framework within which string theory was initially formulated. His work, with Gliozzi and Scherk, on supersymmetry in string theory made possible the whole idea of superstrings, now understood as the natural framework for string theory. Olive's pioneering insights about the duality between electric and magnetic objects in gauge theories were way ahead of their time; it took two decades before his bold and courageous duality conjectures began to be understood. Although somewhat quiet and reserved, he took delight in the company of others, generously sharing his emerging understanding of new ideas with students and colleagues. He was widely influential, not only through the depth and vision of his original work, but also because the clarity, simplicity and elegance of his expositions of new and difficult ideas and theories provided routes into emerging areas of research, both for students and for the theoretical physics community more generally. arXiv:2009.05849v1 [physics.hist-ph] 12 Sep 2020 [A version of section I Biography is to be published in the Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society.] I Biography Childhood David Olive was born on 16 April, 1937, somewhat prematurely, in a nursing home in Staines, near the family home in Scotts Avenue, Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey.
  • Spring 2019 Fine Letters

    Spring 2019 Fine Letters

    Spring 2019 • Issue 8 Department of MATHEMATICS Princeton University From the Chair Professor Allan Sly Receives MacArthur Fellowship Congratulations to Sly works on an area of probability retical computer science, where a key the Class of 2019 theory with applications from the goal often is to understand whether and all the finishing physics of magnetic materials to it is likely or unlikely that a large set graduate students. computer science and information of randomly imposed constraints on a Congratulations theory. His work investigates thresh- system can be satisfied. Sly has shown to the members of olds at which complex networks mathematically how such systems of- class of 2018 and suddenly change from having one ten reach a threshold at which solving new Ph. D.s who set of properties to another. Such a particular problem shifts from likely are reading Fine Letters for the first questions originally arose in phys- or unlikely. Sly has used a party invi- time as alumni. As we all know, the ics, where scientists observed such tation list as an analogy for the work: Math major is a great foundation for shifts in the magnetism of certain As you add interpersonal conflicts a diverse range of endeavors. This metal alloys. Sly provided a rigorous among a group of potential guests, it is exemplified by seventeen '18's who mathematical proof of the shift and can suddenly become effectively im- have gone to industry and seventeen a framework for identifying when possible to create a workable party. to grad school; ten to advanced study such shifts occur.
  • Laudatio for Michael Aizenman NAW 5/4 Nr

    Laudatio for Michael Aizenman NAW 5/4 Nr

    Aernout van Enter, Frank den Hollander Laudatio for Michael Aizenman NAW 5/4 nr. 2 juni 2003 107 Aernout van Enter Frank den Hollander Instituut voor theoretische natuurkunde Eurandom Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Technische Universiteit Eindhoven Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen Postbus 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven [email protected] [email protected] Laudatio Laudatio for Michael Aizenman Eens per drie jaar reikt het Wiskundig Ge- Michael is the author of seventy-five research or ‘down’) or as particles (‘occupied’ or ‘emp- nootschap in opdracht van de Koninklijke Ne- papers in journals of mathematics, physics ty’). Their finite-volume conditional distribu- derlandse Academie van Wetenschappen de and mathematical physics. He has collaborat- tions (i.e., the probabilities of events inside a Brouwermedaille uit aan een internationaal ed with many co-authors on a broad range of finite volume given the state outside) are pre- toonaangevend onderzoeker. Hij wordt uit- topics. Much of his work is inspired by proba- scribed by a nearest-neighbor interaction that genodigd om een voordracht te geven op het bility theory and statistical physics, both clas- tends to ‘align spins’ or ‘glue together parti- Nederlands Mathematisch Congres, waar na sical and quantum. In his papers he typically cles’ and that contains the temperature as a afloop de laureaat de Brouwermedaille wordt ‘rides several horses at the same time’, in the parameter. At low temperature and in two uitgereikt. In 2002 werd de medaille toege- sense that cross-fertilization between differ- or more dimensions, there exists more than kend aan Michael Aizenman voor zijn bijdra- ent areas in physics and mathematics is at one infinite-volume probability measure hav- ge aan de mathematische fysica.
  • A Life in Statistical Mechanics Part 1: from Chedar in Taceva to Yeshiva University in New York

    A Life in Statistical Mechanics Part 1: from Chedar in Taceva to Yeshiva University in New York

    Eur. Phys. J. H 42, 1–21 (2017) DOI: 10.1140/epjh/e2017-80006-9 THE EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL H Oral history interview A life in statistical mechanics Part 1: From Chedar in Taceva to Yeshiva University in New York Joel L. Lebowitz1,a and Luisa Bonolis2,b 1 Departments of Mathematics and Physics, Rutgers, The State University, 110 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA 2 Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmannstrasse 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany Received 10 February 2017 / Accepted 10 February 2017 Published online 4 April 2017 c The Author(s) 2017. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract. This is the first part of an oral history interview on the life- long involvement of Joel Lebowitz in the development of statistical mechanics. Here the covered topics include the formative years, which overlapped the tragic period of Nazi power and World War II in Eu- rope, the emigration to the United States in 1946 and the schooling there. It also includes the beginnings and early scientific works with Peter Bergmann, Oliver Penrose and many others. The second part will appear in a forthcoming issue of Eur. Phys. J. H. 1 From war ravaged Europe to New York L. B. Let’s start from the very beginning. Where were you born? J. L. I was born in Taceva, a small town in the Carpathian mountains, in an area which was at that time part of Czechoslovakia, on the border of Romania and about a hundred kilometers from Poland. That was in 1930, and the town then had a population of about ten thousand people, a small town, but fairly advanced.