Bruria Kaufman

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Bruria Kaufman

Bruria Kaufman (born August 21, 1918 in New York City , † January 7, 2010 in Israel ) was an Israeli theoretical physicist . She dealt with general relativity and statistical physics . She is best known for her work on the two-dimensional Ising model .

Kaufman came to Jerusalem from the USA in 1934. She studied physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and received her bachelor's degree in 1938. She received her PhD in 1948 from Columbia University in New York. From 1947 to 1955 she worked at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton , 1947/48 as an assistant to John von Neumann and 1950 to 1955 as an assistant to Albert Einstein . In the following years she worked at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University and from 1957 at the University of Pennsylvania , where she dealt with mathematical linguistics. In 1960 she returned to Israel, where she was professor of applied mathematics at the Weizmann Institute for Sciences in Rechovot (1960–1971) and at the University of Haifa (1972–1988). Bruria Kaufman was married to the linguist Zellig S. Harris , who died in 1992 . In 1996 she married the Nobel Prize winner Willis E. Lamb . Bruria Kaufman was a member of the Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek . In 1993 she was visiting scholar at the University of Arizona and Columbia University.

She worked on the expansion of the exact solution of the Ising model, which Lars Onsager succeeded in 1944, partly with Onsager himself. She achieved significant simplifications of Onsager's solution by using the spinor analysis familiar to physicists at the time from relativistic quantum theory (Onsager used in his original Work elliptic functions and quaternions ). In their calculation of the correlation functions of the Ising model with Onsager, they used Toeplitz matrices . As Einstein's mathematical assistant in the 1950s, she dealt with general relativity and the expansion attempts examined by Einstein at the time. In Israel she worked with Harry Lipkin , among others, with the Mössbauer effect , with unitary symmetries in the harmonic oscillator, group-theoretical treatment of the special functions of mathematical physics.

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References

  1. ^ Crystal Statistics. II. Partition Function Evaluated by Spinor Analysis,, Physical Review Vol. 76, 1949, p. 1232, with Onsager: Crystal Statistics. III. Short-Range Order in a Binary Ising Lattice,, ibid, p. 1244
  2. ↑ with Einstein: Algebraic Properties of the Field in the Relativistic Theory of the Asymmetric Field , Annals of Mathematics, Vol. 59, 1954, pp. 230–244, with Einstein A New Form of the General Relativistic Field Equations, Annals of Mathematics, Vol. 62 1955, pp. 128–138, with Einstein Sur l'etat actuelle de la theorie generale de la gravitation , Louis de Broglie Festschrift, Paris 1953, pp. 321–336, Kaufman Mathematical Structure of the Non-symmetric Field Theory , Proceedings of the 50th Anniversary Conference on Relativity, Bern 1955, Helvetica Physica Acta IV, Supplementum, 1956, pp. 227-238
  3. ↑ with Lipkin: Momentum Transfer to Atoms Bound in a Crystal, Annals of Physics, Vol. 18, 1962, pp. 249-309
  4. ↑ with CCNoack Unitary Symmetry of Oscillators and the Talmi Transformation, Journal of Mathematical Physics, Vol. 6, 1965, pp. 142–152
  5. ^ Special Functions of Mathematical Physics from the Viewpoint of Lie Algebra, Journal of Mathematical Physics, Vol. 7, 1966, pp. 447-457
personal data
SURNAME Kaufman, Bruria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION theoretical physicist
DATE OF BIRTH August 21, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH January 7, 2010
Place of death Israel