Michael Berry (physicist)

Michael Berry in September 2014

Sir Michael Victor Berry (born March 14, 1941 in Surrey ) is a British mathematical physicist at the University of Bristol .

Live and act

Berry studied physics at the University of Exeter between 1959 and 1962 and later at the University of St Andrews . From 1965 Berry spent his career at the University of Bristol, where he was professor since 1979 . Since 1988 he worked there as a Royal Society Research Professor.

Among other things, Berry is known for the geometric phase (often also called the Berry phase ). This phenomenon was treated by Berry in 1983 in the context of quantum mechanics, but there were already various precursors, for example S. Pancharatnam described and observed the effect in 1956 in the context of classical optics. It is a phase factor that depends on the geometry of the phase space and can be observed through interference experiments and occurs when parameters relevant for the system are changed very slowly (more precisely: adiabatically ) in a closed path . The Aharonov-Bohm effect can also be interpreted as the Berry phase.

One of Berry's specialties is semiclassical physics (i.e. transitions to classical physics from quantum mechanics at high quantum numbers), applied to wave phenomena in quantum mechanics, quantum chaos and other areas such as optics. In connection with analogies with quantum chaos, he also examined the Riemann sche function .

Jonathan Keating is one of his PhD students .

honors and awards

In 1990 he was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society and the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society . Also in 1990 he received the Dirac Medal (IOP) and in 1995 the Dirac Medal (ICTP) . Berry has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1995, and in 1996 he was knighted as a Knight Bachelor . In 2005 he was awarded the Pólya Prize . In 2014 he was awarded the Lorentz Medal of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. In 2018 he is Morris Loeb Lecturer .

In October 2000, Berry was to use a magnet to bring a frog to float, together with Andre Geim from the Radboud University Nijmegen the Ig Nobel Prize awarded in the category Physics.

Honorary doctorates

Honorary Doctorate ( DSc ) from the University of Exeter , awarded in 1991 Honorary Professorship from Wuhan University , awarded in 1994 Honorary Doctorate from Trinity College Dublin , awarded in 1996 Honorary Doctorate from The Open University , awarded in 1997 Honorary Doctorate from the University of St Andrews , awarded in 1998 Honorary Doctorate from the University of Warwick , awarded in 1998 Honorary doctorate ( Dr. rer.nat.hc ) from Ulm University , awarded in 2001

Honorary doctorate from the Weizmann Institute for Science ( Rechovot ), awarded in 2003 Honorary doctorate from Technion ( Haifa ) awarded in 2006 Honorary Doctorate from the University of Glasgow , awarded in 2007 Honorary doctorates from the Universities of Metz and Nancy , awarded in 2009 Honorary doctorate from the Russian-Armenian University ( Yerevan ), awarded in 2012 Honorary Doctorate from the University of Hyderabad , awarded in 2013

Web links

• Homepage of Sir Michael Berry

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Michael Berry: Home page: Academic History - Academic curriculum vitae . University of Bristol website. Retrieved February 5, 2012.
2. ^ Diamagnetic Levitation. Radboud University Nijmegen website ( ru.nl ), accessed on May 19, 2016.
3. ^ Winners of the Ig ^® Nobel Prize. Ig Nobel Prize website ( improbable.com ), accessed May 19, 2016.
4. ↑ Previous honorary graduates. University of Exeter website ( exeter.ac.uk ), accessed May 19, 2016.
5. ↑ Honors and Awards. ( Memento of the original from July 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Website of the University of Ulm ( uni-ulm.de ), accessed on May 19, 2016.