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This special book is a compilation of essays on a remarkable but
little-known story that lasted over half a century of
world-renowned physicist, the late Sir Rudolf Peierls and his wife
Genia Kannegiser. Peierls collected a lot of prestigious awards in
his lifetime, and in the beginning of WW2, he and Otto Frisch were
responsible for the inception of the Anglo-American nuclear program
(1940). He was also one of the key contributors in the research at
Los Alamos during those turbulent times.Most previous books on
Peierls have focused on his scientific research, while the contents
for this volume sheds light on his private life in dramatic
circumstances. The extensive contributions were not only gathered
from the relatives of Genia, the couple's daughters, Landau's
students, and from Russian and English archives, but they also
include the unique perspectives of the author who is a professional
theoretical physicist and is also fluent in Russian, his native
language.So, this fascinating story of love, friendship and physics
between Rudolf and Genia is being told for the first time from a
surprisingly new angle through correspondence between Genia and
Rudolf, memoirs and other documents, interesting and informal
excerpts from Peierls' private 'diary' covering the years 1979-1994
that will take the reader on a journey through communism, world
war, the trials and tribulations of the loving couple with
distinctly very different personalities.
This special book is a compilation of essays on a remarkable but
little-known story that lasted over half a century of
world-renowned physicist, the late Sir Rudolf Peierls and his wife
Genia Kannegiser. Peierls collected a lot of prestigious awards in
his lifetime, and in the beginning of WW2, he and Otto Frisch were
responsible for the inception of the Anglo-American nuclear program
(1940). He was also one of the key contributors in the research at
Los Alamos during those turbulent times.Most previous books on
Peierls have focused on his scientific research, while the contents
for this volume sheds light on his private life in dramatic
circumstances. The extensive contributions were not only gathered
from the relatives of Genia, the couple's daughters, Landau's
students, and from Russian and English archives, but they also
include the unique perspectives of the author who is a professional
theoretical physicist and is also fluent in Russian, his native
language.So, this fascinating story of love, friendship and physics
between Rudolf and Genia is being told for the first time from a
surprisingly new angle through correspondence between Genia and
Rudolf, memoirs and other documents, interesting and informal
excerpts from Peierls' private 'diary' covering the years 1979-1994
that will take the reader on a journey through communism, world
war, the trials and tribulations of the loving couple with
distinctly very different personalities.
This book presents the first detailed biography of George Placzek -
an outstanding physicist, a participant in the Manhattan Project
who stood at the very inception of nuclear physics and the
subsequent development of the nuclear bomb in the course of the
WWII. In the 1930s, George Placzek was known as an adventurous
person with a sharp sense of humor, a tireless generator of novel
physics ideas which he generously shared with his colleagues. Born
in Brno (now Czech Republic) into a wealthy Jewish family, he lost
all his relatives to Holocaust, casting a tragic shadow on his
life.Placzek's scientific career began in the late 1920s when the
quantum revolution was almost over, but nuclear physics was still
at its infancy. He established personal and scientific relations
with the creators of quantum mechanics, such as Heisenberg in
Leipzig and Niels Bohr in Copenhagen. In Rome, he worked with
Fermi, and in Copenhagen he became a part of Bohr's nuclear physics
team which dominated nuclear theory at that time. The scope of
Placzek's pilgrimage around world physics centers in the 1930s was
unique among his colleagues. In January 1939, George Placzek
managed to emigrate from Europe to the US, and became a part of the
British Mission within the Manhattan Project. His physical insights
were instrumental in advancing from the basic discoveries on
nuclear chain reactions to the Trinity experiment, Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.This book is a unique compilation of a large number of
previously unknown and unpublished documents from private and
university archives, police reports, etc. Placzek's correspondence
with the leadership of the Hebrew University in 1934, the 1937 NKVD
interrogation files of Konrad Weisselberg, recollections of Ella
Andriesse as well as the Zurich Police report of 1956 detailing the
circumstances of Placzek's death in a Zurich hotel are illuminating
as they shed light on poorly known pages of his life.
This book presents the first detailed biography of George Placzek -
an outstanding physicist, a participant in the Manhattan Project
who stood at the very inception of nuclear physics and the
subsequent development of the nuclear bomb in the course of the
WWII. In the 1930s, George Placzek was known as an adventurous
person with a sharp sense of humor, a tireless generator of novel
physics ideas which he generously shared with his colleagues. Born
in Brno (now Czech Republic) into a wealthy Jewish family, he lost
all his relatives to Holocaust, casting a tragic shadow on his
life.Placzek's scientific career began in the late 1920s when the
quantum revolution was almost over, but nuclear physics was still
at its infancy. He established personal and scientific relations
with the creators of quantum mechanics, such as Heisenberg in
Leipzig and Niels Bohr in Copenhagen. In Rome, he worked with
Fermi, and in Copenhagen he became a part of Bohr's nuclear physics
team which dominated nuclear theory at that time. The scope of
Placzek's pilgrimage around world physics centers in the 1930s was
unique among his colleagues. In January 1939, George Placzek
managed to emigrate from Europe to the US, and became a part of the
British Mission within the Manhattan Project. His physical insights
were instrumental in advancing from the basic discoveries on
nuclear chain reactions to the Trinity experiment, Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.This book is a unique compilation of a large number of
previously unknown and unpublished documents from private and
university archives, police reports, etc. Placzek's correspondence
with the leadership of the Hebrew University in 1934, the 1937 NKVD
interrogation files of Konrad Weisselberg, recollections of Ella
Andriesse as well as the Zurich Police report of 1956 detailing the
circumstances of Placzek's death in a Zurich hotel are illuminating
as they shed light on poorly known pages of his life.
This captivating book is a story of the friendship between a genius
physicist Wolfgang Pauli and Charlotte Houtermans whose career in
physics was not as glamorous. They met in the late 1920s in
Germany, at the very onset of the quantum era and personally knew
all the major players in the emergent quantum world that was very
much part of central Europe: Germany, Austria, Hungary, Denmark and
Switzerland. And Charlotte was a student at Goettingen that was
right at the heart.Caught between two evils - Soviet Communism and
German National Socialism - she would have probably perished if it
were not for the brotherhood of physicists: Niels Bohr, Wolfgang
Pauli, Albert Einstein, James Franck, Max Born, Robert Oppenheimer
and many other noted scientists who tried to save friends and
colleagues (either leftist sympathizers or Jews) who were in mortal
danger of being entrapped in a simmering pre-WWII Europe.Using
newly discovered documents from the Houtermans family archive:
twenty three Pauli's letters to Charlotte Houtermans, her
correspondence with other great physicists, Charlotte's diaries,
interviews with her children, almost all documents presented in
this book are published for the first time.
This captivating book is a story of the friendship between a genius
physicist Wolfgang Pauli and Charlotte Houtermans whose career in
physics was not as glamorous. They met in the late 1920s in
Germany, at the very onset of the quantum era and personally knew
all the major players in the emergent quantum world that was very
much part of central Europe: Germany, Austria, Hungary, Denmark and
Switzerland. And Charlotte was a student at Goettingen that was
right at the heart.Caught between two evils - Soviet Communism and
German National Socialism - she would have probably perished if it
were not for the brotherhood of physicists: Niels Bohr, Wolfgang
Pauli, Albert Einstein, James Franck, Max Born, Robert Oppenheimer
and many other noted scientists who tried to save friends and
colleagues (either leftist sympathizers or Jews) who were in mortal
danger of being entrapped in a simmering pre-WWII Europe.Using
newly discovered documents from the Houtermans family archive:
twenty three Pauli's letters to Charlotte Houtermans, her
correspondence with other great physicists, Charlotte's diaries,
interviews with her children, almost all documents presented in
this book are published for the first time.
This book tells captivating stories of misadventures of two
renowned theoretical physicists in the Soviet Union. The first part
is devoted to Friedrich (Fritz) Houtermans, an outstanding
Dutch-Austrian-German physicist who was the first to suggest that
the source of stars' energy is thermonuclear fusion, and also made
a number of other important contributions to cosmochemistry and
geochemistry. In 1935, Houtermans, a German communist, in an
attempt to save his life from Hilter's Gestapo, fled to the Soviet
Union. He took up an appointment at the Kharkov Physico-Technical
Institute, working there for two years with the Russian physicist
Valentin P Fomin. In the Great Purge of 1937, Houtermans was
arrested in December by the NKVD (Soviet Secret Police, KGB's
predecessor). He was tortured, and confessed to being a Trotskyist
plotter and German spy, out of fear of threats against his wife
Charlotte. However, Charlotte had already escaped from the Soviet
Union to Denmark, after which she went to England and finally the
USA. As a result of the Hilter-Stalin Pact of 1939, Houtermans was
turned over to the Gestapo in May 1940 and imprisoned in Berlin.The
second part consists of two essays that narrate the life story of
Yuri Golfand, one of the codiscoverers of supersymmetry, a major
discovery in theoretical physics in the 20th century. In 1973, just
two years after the publication of his seminal paper, he was fired
from the Lebedev Physics Institute in Moscow. Because of his Jewish
origin he could find no job. Under such circumstances, he applied
for an exit visa to Israel, but his application was denied. Yuri
Golfand became a refusnik and joined the Human rights movement,
along with two other prominent physicists, Andrei Sakharov and Yuri
Orlov. To earn his living, he had to do manual work, repeatedly
being intimidated by KGB. Only 18 years later, shortly before the
demise of the Soviet Union, did he obtain permission to leave the
country, emigrating to Israel in 1990.These personal life stories
of two outstanding theorists are interwined with the tragedies of
the 20th century and make for compelling reading.
This invaluable collection of memoirs and reviews on scientific
activities of the most prominent theoretical physicists belonging
to the Landau School - Landau, Migdal, Zeldovich, Smorodinsky,
Ter-Martirosyan, Kirzhnits, Gribov, Larkin and Anselm - are being
published in English for the first time.The main goal is to
acquaint readers with the life and work of outstanding Soviet
physicists who, to a large extent, shaped theoretical physics in
the 1950s-70s. Many intriguing details have remained unknown beyond
the "Iron Curtain" which was dismantled only with the fall of the
USSR.
This textbook grew out of lecture notes the author used in
delivering a quantum field theory (QFT) course for students (both
in high energy physics and condensed matter) who already had an
initial exposure to the subject.It begins with the path integral
method of quantization presented in a systematic and clear-cut
manner. Perturbation theory is generalized beyond tree level, to
include radiative corrections (loops). Renormalization procedures
and the Wilsonian renormalization group (RG flow) are discussed,
asymptotic freedom of non-Abelian gauge theories is derived, and
some applications in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) are considered,
with a brief digression into the Standard Model (SM). The SM case
requires a study of the spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetry, a
phenomenon which would be more appropriate to call 'Higgsing of the
gauge bosons.' Other regimes attainable in gauge theories are
explained as well. In the condensed matter part, the Heisenberg and
Ising model are discussed. The present textbook differs from many
others in that it is relatively concise and, at the same time,
teaches students to carry out actual calculations which they may
encounter in QFT-related applications.
This book tells captivating stories of misadventures of two
renowned theoretical physicists in the Soviet Union. The first part
is devoted to Friedrich (Fritz) Houtermans, an outstanding
Dutch-Austrian-German physicist who was the first to suggest that
the source of stars' energy is thermonuclear fusion, and also made
a number of other important contributions to cosmochemistry and
geochemistry. In 1935, Houtermans, a German communist, in an
attempt to save his life from Hilter's Gestapo, fled to the Soviet
Union. He took up an appointment at the Kharkov Physico-Technical
Institute, working there for two years with the Russian physicist
Valentin P Fomin. In the Great Purge of 1937, Houtermans was
arrested in December by the NKVD (Soviet Secret Police, KGB's
predecessor). He was tortured, and confessed to being a Trotskyist
plotter and German spy, out of fear of threats against his wife
Charlotte. However, Charlotte had already escaped from the Soviet
Union to Denmark, after which she went to England and finally the
USA. As a result of the Hilter-Stalin Pact of 1939, Houtermans was
turned over to the Gestapo in May 1940 and imprisoned in Berlin.The
second part consists of two essays that narrate the life story of
Yuri Golfand, one of the codiscoverers of supersymmetry, a major
discovery in theoretical physics in the 20th century. In 1973, just
two years after the publication of his seminal paper, he was fired
from the Lebedev Physics Institute in Moscow. Because of his Jewish
origin he could find no job. Under such circumstances, he applied
for an exit visa to Israel, but his application was denied. Yuri
Golfand became a refusnik and joined the Human rights movement,
along with two other prominent physicists, Andrei Sakharov and Yuri
Orlov. To earn his living, he had to do manual work, repeatedly
being intimidated by KGB. Only 18 years later, shortly before the
demise of the Soviet Union, did he obtain permission to leave the
country, emigrating to Israel in 1990.These personal life stories
of two outstanding theorists are interwined with the tragedies of
the 20th century and make for compelling reading.
This invaluable collection of memoirs and reviews on scientific
activities of the most prominent theoretical physicists belonging
to the Landau School - Landau, Migdal, Zeldovich, Smorodinsky,
Ter-Martirosyan, Kirzhnits, Gribov, Larkin and Anselm - are being
published in English for the first time.The main goal is to
acquaint readers with the life and work of outstanding Soviet
physicists who, to a large extent, shaped theoretical physics in
the 1950s-70s. Many intriguing details have remained unknown beyond
the "Iron Curtain" which was dismantled only with the fall of the
USSR.
This book consists of reviews covering all aspects of quantum
chromodynamics as we know it today. The articles have been written
by recognized experts in this field, in honor of the 75th birthday
of Professor Boris Ioffe. Combining features of a handbook and a
textbook, this is the most comprehensive source of information on
the present status of QCD. It is intended for students as well as
physicists - both theorists and experimentalists.Each review is
self-contained and pedagogically structured, providing the general
formulation of the problem, telling where it stands with respect to
other issues and why it is interesting and important, presenting
the history of the subject, qualitative insights, and so on. The
first part of the book is historical in nature. It includes, among
other articles, Boris Ioffe's and Yuri Orlov's memoirs on high
energy physics in the 1950's, a note by B V Geshkenbein on Ioffe's
career in particle physics, and an essay on the discovery of
asymptotic freedom written by David Gross.
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