David Finkelstein

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David Ritz Finkelstein (born July 19, 1929 in New York City , † January 24, 2016 in Atlanta , Georgia ) was an American theoretical physicist .

Finkelstein studied from 1946 to 1949 (Bachelor) at City College in New York and then until his doctorate in 1953 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . From 1953 he was at the Stevens Institute of Technology, where he was assistant professor from 1956 and associate professor from 1958 to 1960. 1959/60 he was a Ford Foundation Fellow at CERN (where he worked on quaternionic quantum mechanics ). In 1959 he became an Associate Professor at Yeshiva University in New York City, where he became Professor of Physics in 1964. In 1976/7 he was Chairman of the Physics Department and in 1978/9 Dean of the Faculties of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. In 1980 he became a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology , where he was also director of the Physics Institute in 1979/80. In 1993 he was a visiting scientist at the Heisenberg Institute for Theoretical Physics in Munich and in 1989 at the Mathematical Institute in Oxford.

From 1977 to 2005 he was editor of the International Journal of Theoretical Physics.

Finkelstein dealt among other things with general relativity theory (Finkelstein coordinates, topological kink solutions of the gravitational field equations ) and the fundamentals of quantum mechanics and their union with the general theory of relativity via " Chronon " called fundamental space-time quanta, which are part of a Clifford -Algebra are. He also worked on quantum logic . In 1996 his book “Quantum relativity” was published by Springer. Finkelstein also dealt with ball lightning and luminous phenomena during earthquakes.

He was married and had four children.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary: Physicist David Finkelstein, 86. In: The Jewish Times, January 25, 2016 (English, accessed January 28, 2016).
  2. ^ Finkelstein, David Ritz - Author profile . INSPIRE-HEP . Retrieved July 18, 2019.
  3. ^ Finkelstein "Past-Future asymmetry in the gravitational field of a point particle", Physical Review, Volume 110, 1958, page 965, abstract , the article is also on his homepage
  4. ^ Finkelstein, Charles Misner "Some new conservation laws", Annals of Physics, Volume 6, 1959, p. 630
  5. ^ Finkelstein, Powell "Ball Lightning", American Scientist Volume 58, 1970, pages 262-279, dies. "Structure of Ball Lightning", in H. Landsberg, Advances in Geophysics Volume 13, 1969, pages 141-186
personal data
SURNAME Finkelstein, David
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Finkelstein, David Ritz (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American physicist
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH January 24, 2016
Place of death Atlanta , Georgia