Michael E. Fisher

Michael Ellis Fisher (born September 3, 1931 in Fyzabad ) is a British theoretical physicist . He has made groundbreaking contributions to statistical physics , especially to the theory of critical phenomena and phase transitions . These have been awarded numerous prizes, including the Wolf Prize for Physics (1980; together with Kenneth Wilson and Leo Kadanoff ), the Boltzmann Medal of the IUPAP (1983) and the Lars Onsager Prize of the APS (1995) .

Live and act

Fisher was born in what was then the British colony of Trinidad . He studied at King's College, University of London , where he received his bachelor's degree in 1951 and his doctorate in 1957. In 1958 he was a lecturer there, in 1962 a reader and in 1965 a professor. In 1963/64 he was a visiting scientist at the Rockefeller Institute. In 1966 he accepted an offer from Cornell University in America for a professorship in chemistry and mathematics. From 1973 he was Horace White Professor of Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics and from 1975 to 1978 head of the Faculty of Chemistry. Since 1987 he has been a professor at the University of Maryland , initially Wilson H. Elkins Professor and from 1993 Distinguished University Professor and Regents Professor.

Michael Fisher is married to Sorrel Castillejo. Two of her sons became professors in theoretical physics, Daniel S. Fisher at Harvard University and Matthew PA Fisher at the University of California, Santa Barbara .

Honors

Fisher is a Fellow of the Royal Society (1971), an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1986) and a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (1983). In 1971 he received the Irving Langmuir Prize of the American Physical Society and in 1983 the NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing . In 1979 he was admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1993 to the American Philosophical Society .

In 1980 Fisher - alongside Leo Kadanoff and Kenneth Wilson - was awarded the Wolf Prize for Physics:

“Professor Michael E. Fisher has been an extraordinarily productive scientist, and one still at the height of his powers and creativity. Fisher's major contributions have been in equilibrium statistical mechanics, and have spanned the full range of that subject. He was mainly responsible for bringing together, and teaching a common language to chemists and physicists working on various problems of phase transitions. "

“Professor Michael Fisher is an extremely productive scientist at his peak. He made his essential contributions to thermal equilibrium properties in statistical physics , in their full breadth. It is his merit to have standardized the extensive field of phase transitions in chemistry and physics . "

- Wolf Prize 1980

In 1983 he received the Boltzmann Medal of the International Union for Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP):

“It is not possible in the short time available to do justice to flood of papers with which Michael Fisher has been associated. Some of these have initiated new areas of research; for example the exact susceptibility of the two-dimensional Ising model , correlation in the three-dimensional Ising model and critical scattering, renormalization of critical exponents resulting from hidden variables, finite size scaling, the droplet model, partial differential approximants, the ANNNI model . Others, review articles, have become classics to which successive generations of graduate students and other researchers in the field have turned for guidance; for example the Boulder lectures on critical phenomena, the 1964 Journal of Mathematical Physics review of correlation in fluids and magnets , the oft-quoted 1967 review in Reports on Progress in Physics, and the 1973 Reviews of Modern Physics review of renormalization group. Each and every of one of his papers contains new information of significance, and his collaborators will all verify that nothing is allowed to appear in print without Michael Fisher personally assuring himself that it measures up to his high standards. "

“In view of the shortage of time, it is not possible to adequately appreciate all of Michael Fisher's scientific contributions. Some of them have opened up new research areas, for example the exact calculation of the susceptibility of the two-dimensional Ising model , the analysis of correlations and scatter functions in the three-dimensional Ising model, the renormalization of critical exponents as a result of hidden parameters, finite-size scale theory , the droplet Model , partial differential approximates and the ANNNI model . Fisher's review articles have become classics for generations of students: including his Boulder lectures on critical phenomena, his review article on correlations in liquids and magnets in the Journal of Mathematical Physics from 1964, his often cited article from 1967 in the Reports on Progress in Physics and his review of the renormalization group in the Reviews of Modern Physics . Each of his scientific publications contains something new and important, and all of his collaborators will confirm that a paper was only submitted for publication after Michael Fisher had thoroughly convinced himself that it met his high scientific standards. "

- Cyril Domb : Excerpt from the laudatory speech for the award

In 1995, Fisher was awarded the Lars Onsager Prize :

"For his numerous and seminal contributions to statistical mechanics, including but not restricted to the theory of phase transitions and critical phenomena, scaling laws, critical exponents, finite size effects, and the application of the renormalization group to many of the above problems."

"For his numerous and groundbreaking contributions to statistical mechanics , including, but not limited to, the theory of phase transitions and critical phenomena, particularly the laws of scale, critical exponents , finite-size effects, and the application of renormalization group theory to many of the above problems."

- Lars Onsager Prize 1995

In 2005 Fisher received the Royal Medal for his fundamental contributions in many areas of statistical physics and in 2009 the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences , together with Richard N. Zare .

Web links

• Homepage of Michael E. Fisher
• Wolf Prize 1980
• Boltzmann Medal 1983
• Lars Onsager Prize 1995
• Biography at the APS

Individual evidence

1. ^ Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Michael Ellis Fisher. Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed August 6, 2018 .