A CAREER IN THEORETICAL PHYSICS
Second Edition
by Philip W Anderson (Princeton University, USA)
P W Anderson was educated at Harvard, with a brief hiatus (1943–45) for war work. From 1949–1984 he was associated with the AT&T Bell Laboratories, but also held a number of temporary or part-time academic positions: 1953–54 Fulbright scholar, University of Tokyo; 1961–62 Overseas Fellow Churchill College Cambridge; 1967–75 “Visiting Professor”, Cambridge University; 1975–present Joseph Henry Professor, Princeton University. 1993–94 he spent a year as Eastman Professor, Balliol College, Oxford. In addition to the Nobel Prize, his honors include the National Medal of Sciences in 1982, the Heinemann prize of the Gottingen Academy and the Guthrie medal of the IOP, also memberships of academies including the Royal Society, the Japan Academy, the NAS and the American Philosophical Society. He has held the London, Regents' (UCSD), Loeb (Harvard), John and Abigail Van Vleck (Minn.) and Bethe distinguished lectureships.
This unique volume presents the scientific achievements of Nobel laureate Philip Anderson, spanning the many years of his career. In this new edition, the author has omitted some review papers as well as added over 15 of his research papers. As in the first edition, he provides an introduction to each paper by explaining the genesis of the papers or adding some personal history.
The book provides a comprehensive overview of the author's work which include significant discoveries and pioneering contributions, such as his work on the Anderson model of magnetic impurities and the concept of localization; the study of spin glasses, the fluctuating valence problem and superexchange; his prediction of the existence of superfluidity in He3; his involvement in the discovery of the Josephson effect; his discovery of the “Higgs” mechanism in elementary particle physics; and so on.
The new papers added to this edition include ”Pressure Broadening in the Microwave and Infrared Regions” — a condensation of most of the author's thesis; ”Ordering and Antiferromagnetism in Ferrites” — the best-known of the papers written by the author involving what are known as “frustrated” lattices; and ”Localized Magnetic States in Metals” — a paper mentioned in his Nobel Prize citation along with localization and superexchange; to name a few.
A Career in Theoretical Physics is an essential source of reference for physicists, chemists, materials scientists and historians of science. It is also suitable reading for graduate students.
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