Edwin Thompson Jaynes

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Edwin Thompson Jaynes, ca.1960

Edwin Thompson Jaynes (born July 5, 1922 in Waterloo , Iowa , † April 30, 1998 in St. Louis , Missouri ) was an American physicist. He was Professor of Physics at Washington University in St. Louis , Missouri, USA .

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Jaynes grew up in Parkersburg, Iowa . He graduated from the University of Iowa with a bachelor's degree in 1952 and then worked on microwave theory at the Sperry Gyroscope Company and as an officer in the US Navy at the Naval Research Laboratories in Washington DC After the war, he continued his studies at the University of California, Berkeley and worked in the group that built the first linear accelerator for electrons. In 1947 he moved to Princeton University , where he received his Ph.D. in 1950 with a thesis on ferroelectricity with Eugene Wigner at Princeton University. received his doctorate. He then spent ten years at Stanford University in the microwave laboratory and from 1960 he was a professor at the University of Washington in St. Louis. In 1992 he retired after a heart attack. Among other things, he was visiting scholar at the University of Wyoming and Cambridge University (St. John's College).

He has published a large number of Bayesian statistics and probability theory, and he used information theory to interpret statistical mechanics. He introduced the maximum entropy method (MEM) into physics, which is why it is also known as the Jaynes principle , which he is considered to have founded. He was particularly interested in the probabilistic expansion of Aristotle's logic .

Jaynes extended the methods of Bayesian inference , whereby he himself said that these extensions already resulted from the work of Josiah Willard Gibbs . Another influence on him was the work of Harold Jeffreys .

In addition, he dealt with applications of classical electrodynamics, beginning with his work on microwaves (radar) in World War II, with quantum optics and semi-classical radiation theory. In 1963, Jaynes and Fred Cummings developed a model with which the interaction of an atom with a light field can be described purely quantum mechanically. This model has achieved great importance as the Jaynes-Cummings model in quantum optics.

His last book Probability Theory: The Logic of Science was published posthumously in 2003 based on an unfinished draft. In it he brought together current findings on Bayesian probability and statistical inference and compared them with other methods.

Publications

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  1. ↑ Günter Vojta, Matthias Vojta: Principle of maximum entropy (Chapter 7.1.2). In: Dies .: Pocket book of statistical physics . Teubner Verlag, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-519-00227-2 .

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personal data
SURNAME Jaynes, Edwin Thompson
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American physicist and statistician
DATE OF BIRTH July 5, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Waterloo , Iowa
DATE OF DEATH April 30, 1998
Place of death St. Louis , Missouri