John Blatt

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John Markus Blatt (born November 23, 1921 in Vienna , † March 16, 1990 in Haifa ) was an American theoretical nuclear physicist.

life and work

Blatt was the son of a successful doctor in Vienna. In 1938 the family had to flee as Jews from the National Socialists to the USA. Blatt studied physics at the University of Cincinnati (bachelor's degree in 1942) and received his doctorate in 1946 at both Cornell University and Princeton University . Then he was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Victor Weisskopf , where their joint textbook on theoretical nuclear physics was written. From 1948 he was at the University of Illinois , where the Illiac computer was being built. Blatt was involved and was a pioneer in the use of computers in theoretical nuclear physics during this period. During the McCarthy era he was dissatisfied with the political climate in the USA and went to Australia to study at the University of Sydney in 1953. There he turned to the theory of superconductivity and wrote introductory physics textbooks. His energetic and argumentative personality led to conflict at the university, so that in 1959 he became Professor of Applied Mathematics at the newly established University of New South Wales , where he remained until his retirement. During this time he dealt with the core physical three-body problem, statistical mechanics and applied mathematics such as the theory of optimal control. He brought a number of important mathematicians to the university, such as George Szekeres, and ensured that computer science teaching was expanded and that students were trained on computers at an early stage. He later turned to mathematical economics.

He was married twice and was an accomplished amateur pianist. In retirement he went to Haifa. There, too, he remained scientifically active and taught at the University of Haifa. He had four children, two of whom became computer scientists.

Fonts

  • with Weisskopf Theoretical Nuclear Physics , Wiley 1952, reprint at Dover 1991
    • German edition: Theoretische Kernphysik , Leipzig, Teubner 1959
  • Theory of Superconductivity , Academic Press 1964
  • with Lawrence Biedenharn Angular distribution of scattering and reaction cross sections , Rev. Mod. Phys., Volume 24, 1952, pp. 258-272
  • with Biedenharn, ME Rose Some properties of Racah and associated coefficients , Rev. Mod. Phys., Volume 24, 1952, pp. 249-257
  • Introduction to FORTRAN IV programming, using the watfor compiler , Pacific Palisades, Goodyear Publ, 1968, 1971
  • Basic FORTRAN IV programming (version IBM 360) , Sydney 1969
  • Dynamic economic systems: a post-Keynesian approach , Armonk, New York, ME Sharpe 1983
  • with Ian Boyd Investment confidence and business cycles , Springer 1988
  • with Stuart Thomas Butler A modern introduction to physics , Sydney, Horwitz-Grahame 1960, 1965
    • Volume 1 Mechanics of particles ,
    • Volume 2 Kinetic theory of matter and mechanics of solids

literature

  • Frank J. Blatt, Obituary in Physics Today, January 1992

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. There were a total of 6 volumes, Volume 3 Sound and Wave motion by Butler, Volume 4 Electricity and Magnetism by MM Winn, Volume 5 Atomic Physics by Butler and Harry Messel and Volume 6 Light and Optics by Butler and Messel