Tom Lubensky

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Tom C. Lubensky (born May 7, 1943 in Kansas City , Missouri ) is an American theoretical solid-state physicist .

Lubensky studied at Caltech with a bachelor's degree in 1964 and at Harvard University with a master's degree in physics in 1965 and a doctorate in 1969. He was a post-doctoral student at the University of Paris-Süd in Orsay and in 1970/71 at Brown University . In 1971 he became an assistant professor and in 1980 professor at the University of Pennsylvania . In 1981/82 he was visiting professor at the University of Paris VI and from 1990 to 1995 he was a consultant to Exxon Research.

He researched various soft matter such as liquid crystals , quasicrystals and complex liquids, the properties of their phases including elastic and hydrodynamic theory, topological defect structure, (broken) symmetries and thermodynamic fluctuations, which he investigated with the renormalization group . Among other things, he predicted the twist-grain boundary phase (TGB) in liquid crystals, as an analogue to the vortex lattice in type 2 superconductors according to Abrikosow , with helical defects (repeated twisting of the layer structure of the smectic phase) taking on the role of the magnetic flux tubes.

In 2004 he received the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize for decisive contributions to theoretical solid-state physics including the prediction and elucidation of the properties of new, partially ordered phases of complex materials. Lubensky is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (1985), the National Academy of Sciences (2002), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2000) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2008). In 1975 he was a Sloan Research Fellow and 1981/82 Guggenheim Fellow .

He has been married since 1968 and has a son and a daughter.

Fonts

  • with Paul Chaikin Principles of Condensed Matter Physics , Cambridge University Press 1995

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
  2. ^ Official website for the Buckley Prize
personal data
SURNAME Lubensky, Tom
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lubensky, Tom C.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American physicist
DATE OF BIRTH May 7, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Kansas City , Missouri