John Hubbard (physicist)
John Hubbard (born October 27, 1931 in London , † November 27, 1980 in San Jose , California ) was a British physicist who dealt with theoretical solid-state physics and many-particle physics .
He studied physics at Imperial College London with a bachelor's degree in 1955 and a doctorate (Ph.D.) in 1958 with Stanley Raimes . His dissertation dealt with the description of collective excitations in the many-electron problem in metals and plasmas. He had been in the theory group of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) in Harwell (England) since 1955 , at that time under the direction of Brian Flowers (later Walter Marshall ). In 1961 he took over the leadership of the solid state theory group there. He stayed in Harwell until 1976. He then worked at the IBM Research Laboratory in San Jose, California (and at Brown University ) from 1976 to 1980 .
Most of his research fell into the field of the theory of magnetism . Because of the Hubbard model of strongly correlated electrons named after him, he is still one of the most cited researchers in theoretical solid-state physics. Ryogo Kubo and Takeo Izuyama in Japan and Martin Gutzwiller found similar models around the same time , but Hubbard's treatment was groundbreaking for later research. The Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation in path integrals and distribution functions of statistical mechanics was introduced by him and Ruslan Stratonowitsch in the late 1950s. Most recently he worked in San Jose on problems of the magnetism of iron and nickel and one-dimensional conductors as well as critical phenomena (universality of phase transitions).
He was described as very reserved and unworldly, which qualities may have contributed to the fact that his achievements during his lifetime were inadequately recognized by memberships (he was not a Fellow of the Royal Society) and awards. For example, his dissertation contained a fundamental advance in the treatment of many-electron systems with Feynman diagrams . When Hubbard came to Harwell, his boss, Brian Flowers, asked him where this was published, and when he received the answer that Hubbard had renounced it because others had come to similar conclusions, he insisted on it being published immediately. The fact that he preferred to work in seclusion was one of the reasons why he left Harwell after reorganizing the research facility in 1976.
Web links
- Biography of AL Kuzemsky, 2006.
- TM Rice: Commemoration of J. Hubbard. In: Disordered Systems and Localization. Lecture Notes in Physics, 149: 1–2, Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 1981 ( PDF , doi: 10.1007 / BFb0012538 )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Published in a series of works from 1963 in the Proc. Roy. Soc .: Electron Correlations in Narrow Energy Bands , Part I to VI, Proc.Roy.Soc. A 276, 1963, 238, A 277, 1964, 237, A 281, 1964, 41, A 285, 1965, 542, A 296, 1966, 82, 100
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hubbard, John |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British physicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 27, 1931 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 27, 1980 |
| Place of death | San Jose , California |