Dirk ter Haar

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Dirk ter Haar (born April 19, 1919 in Oosterwolde ; † September 3, 2002 in Drachten ) was a British-Dutch physicist.

Life

Dirk ter Haar studied physics at the University of Leiden , where he received his doctorate on the origins of the solar system under Hendrik Anthony Kramers in 1948 . In 1949 he became a professor at the University of St. Andrews and in 1950 he moved to England, where he was lecturer from 1956 , reader from 1959 and fellow and tutor from 1959 at Magdalen College, Oxford University. In 1986 he retired.

He was visiting scholar at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen and visiting professor at Purdue University and Indiana University .

Dirk ter Haar dealt with statistical mechanics, astrophysics, quantum mechanics, many-body theory , low-temperature and solid-state physics. He wrote various physics books, including a textbook on statistical mechanics and biographies by Lev Landau and Kramers, and translated physics books for Pergamon Press from Russian.

He was editor of Physics Letters A (and before that, since 1952, Physics Letters) and the Natural Philosophy series of Pergamon Press. Ter Haar had been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh since 1952 . He was a British citizen.

He had been married to Christine Janet Lound since 1947 and had two sons and a daughter Gail, who also became a physics professor (reader, medical ultrasound).

Anthony J. Leggett is one of his PhD students .

Fonts

  • Elements of Statistical Mechanics. London: Constable, 1954, 2nd edition New York: Rinehart and Winston 1966, 3rd edition Butterworth-Heinemann 1995
  • Introduction to the physics of many body systems, Interscience 1958
  • with H. Wergeland, Elements of Thermodynamics, Addison-Wesley, 1960
  • Elements of Thermostatics, 2nd edition, Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1966
  • Elements of Hamiltonian Mechanics, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1961, 1964
  • (Editor and Introduction): The Old Quantum Theory, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1967 (Reprint Volume)
  • with AGW Cameron: Historical review of theories of the origin of the solar system. In: R. Jastrow, AGW Cameron (editor): Origin of the Solar System, Academic Press, 1963, pp. 4-37.
  • On the Origin of the Solar System, Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 5, 1967, 267, online
  • Lectures on Selected Topics in Statistical Mechanics, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1977.
  • Master of Modern Physics. The Scientific Contributions of HA Kramers, Princeton University Press, 1998.
  • Men of Physics: LD Landau. Vol. 1, Low temperature and solid state physics, Pergamon Press 1965
  • Publisher: Problems in quantum mechanics, 3rd edition, London: Pion 1975

He was co-editor of collected works by Andrei Sakharov , Lew Landau and Pjotr ​​Leonidowitsch Kapiza in the English language.

literature

  • WE Parry (Ed.): Essays in theoretical Physics in honor of Dirk ter Haar , Pergamon Press 1984
  • Frederick K. Lamb, Anthony J. Leggett, Christopher J. Pethick: Obituary: Dirk ter Haar , Physics Today, February 2004, pp. 79-80

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dirk ter Haar in the Mathematics Genealogy Project (English)Template: MathGenealogyProject / Maintenance / id used
  2. ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed April 15, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Hair, Dirk ter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch-British physicist
DATE OF BIRTH April 19, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Oosterwolde
DATE OF DEATH September 3, 2002
Place of death Drachten