Christopher Isham

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Christopher Isham , also cited as Chris J. Isham or C. J. Isham, (born April 28, 1944 ) is a British theoretical physicist who studies mathematical physics, especially quantum gravity and the fundamentals of quantum mechanics.

Life

Isham was initially an electronics engineer, but then studied theoretical physics at Imperial College , where he received his doctorate under Paul Taunton Matthews in 1969. As a post-doctoral student, he spent a year with Abdus Salam at the ICTP in Trieste . In 1970 he became a lecturer at Imperial College and in 1973 a reader in applied mathematics at King's College London . In 1976 he was back at Imperial College as a reader and in 1982 as a professor of theoretical physics. Today he is Professor Emeritus there.

He has been one of the leading scientists in quantum gravity for several decades, into which he introduced new mathematical concepts, such as a group-theoretical approach to quantization. His methods were later used in the development of loop quantum gravity by Abhay Vasant Ashtekar and others. He also addressed the problem of time in quantum gravity. He wrote early work on quantum field theory in curved spacetime (where he introduced the concept of twisted quantum fields ) such as anti-de-sitter space and conformal anomalies .

In the basics of quantum mechanics, he made contributions to the Decoherent Histories approach (by Murray Gell-Mann , James Hartle , Robert Griffiths , Roland Omnès and others) with a temporal quantum logic (HPO formalism, History Projection Operator) developed by him.

He is a staunch Christian and deals with the relationship between science and religion as well as with philosophy, where he is influenced by C. G. Jung .

In the 2000s he also used category theoretical concepts ( topos theory) in the formulation of fundamental physical theories and quantum gravity.

In 2011 he received the Dirac Medal from the Institute of Physics .

Fonts

  • with Roger Penrose , Dennis Sciama (eds.): Quantum gravity- an Oxford Symposium . Clarendon Press, 1975
  • with Penrose, Sciama (Ed.): Quantum gravity 2nd A second Oxford Symposium . Oxford University Press, 1981
  • Lectures on Quantum Theory. Mathematical and Structural Foundations . World Scientific / Imperial College Press, 1995, 2001
  • Quantum Gravity . In: Paul Davies : The new physics . Cambridge University Press, 1989
  • Structural Issues in Quantum Gravity . GR 14 plenary lecture, 1995, arxiv : gr-qc / 9510063
  • with Butterfield: The emergence of time in quantum gravity . In: Butterfield (Ed.): The origin of time . 1999, arxiv : gr-qc / 9901024
  • with Butterfield: Spacetime and the philosophical challenge of quantum gravity . In: Callender, Huggett Physics meets philosophy at the Planck scale . Cambridge University Press, 2000, arxiv : gr-qc / 9903072
  • with Penrose (Ed.): Quantum concepts of space and time . Oxford University Press, 1986
  • Topological and global aspects of quantum theory . In: Bryce DeWitt, Raymond Stora (Eds.): Relativity, Groups and Topology 2 . North Holland, 1984 (Les Houches Lectures 1983)
  • Modern differential geometry for physicists . 2nd Edition. World Scientific, 1999
  • Prima facies questions in quantum gravity . In: Jürgen Ehlers , H. Friedrich (Ed.): Canonical Gravity: from classical to quantum . In: Lecturenotes in Physics , Volume 434, 1994, pp. 1-21, arxiv : gr-qc / 9310031
  • Canonical quantum gravity and the problem of time . In: Ibort, Rodriguez (Ed.): Integrable systems, quantum groups and quantum field theory . Kluwer, 1993, pp. 157-287 arxiv : gr-qc / 9210011

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Date of birth from Who's Who of British Scientists , Volume 8.Simon Books, 1981
  2. ^ Isham: Topological and global aspects of quantum theory . In: Relativity, Groups and Topology II . 1984, see literature
  3. ↑ Isham: Twisted quantum fields in a curved spacetime . In: Proc. Roy. Soc. A, Vol. 362, 1978, pp. 383-404
  4. ^ Avis, Isham, Storey: Quantum field theory in anti-DeSitter space-time , Physical Review D, Volume 18, 1978, p. 3565
  5. ↑ Michael Duff , Stanley Deser , Isham: Non local conformal anomalies . In: Nucl. Phys. B, Vol. 111, 1976, p. 45
  6. ↑ Isham: Quantum logic and the histories approach to Quantum Theory . In: J. Math. Phys. , Volume 35, 1994, pp. 2157-2185, arxiv : gr-qc / 9308006
  7. ^ Doering, Isham: What is a thing? Topos theory in the foundations of physics . 2008, arxiv : 0803.0417
personal data
SURNAME Isham, Christopher
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Isham, Chris
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British physicist
DATE OF BIRTH April 28, 1944