Felix Villars

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Felix Marc Hermann Villars (born January 6, 1921 in Biel , † April 27, 2002 in Belmont (Massachusetts) ) was a Swiss theoretical physicist . He was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is best known for the Pauli-Villars regularization of quantum field theory with Wolfgang Pauli .

Life

Villars served as a meteorologist in the Swiss Army during World War II and graduated from ETH Zurich in 1945 with a degree in physics and mathematics . In 1946 he received his doctorate under Gregor Wentzel ( A contribution to the Deuteron problem ) and was a “house theorist” at Paul Scherrer's institute . With Wolfgang Pauli he developed a method to isolate divergences in quantum electrodynamics ( regularization ), published in 1949. In the same year he went with Pauli to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and then in 1950 to MIT, where he became professor in 1959. Also in 1959 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

At MIT he studied geophysical problems (scattering of radio waves in atmospheric turbulence with Victor Weisskopf and the effect of the earth's magnetic field on the ionosphere with Herman Feshbach ) and then with mathematical problems in biology. He was instrumental in founding the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (a collaboration between MIT and Harvard University ).

He was married to Jacqueline Dubois since 1949.

Fonts

  • with Pauli: On the invariant regularization in quantum field theory, Reviews of Modern Physics, Volume 21, 1949, 434 (Pauli-Villars regularization)
  • Regularization and non-singular interactions in quantum field theory, in M. Fierz, V. Weisskopf Theoretical physics in the twentieth century. A memorial volume to Wolfgang Pauli , Wiley Interscience 1960, 78-106
  • with George B. Benedek: Physics with Illustrative Examples from Medicine and Biology, Springer Verlag, 3 volumes, 2nd edition 2000, 2006

literature

  • George Benedek, John W. Negele , Obituary: Felix Marc Hermann Villars, Physics Today, Volume 56, March 2003, p. 103

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Pauli was the second speaker after he returned from the USA in 1946
  2. ↑ Felix Villars in the Mathematics Genealogy Project (English)Template: MathGenealogyProject / Maintenance / id used
personal data
SURNAME Villars, Felix
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Villars, Felix Marc Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss physicist
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Biel
DATE OF DEATH April 27, 2002
Place of death Belmont, Massachusetts