Herbert Fröhlich - Hyland, G. J.

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Résumé :
This biography provides a stimulating and coherent blend of scientific and personal narratives describing the many achievements of the theoretical physicist Herbert Fr?hlich. For more than half a century, Fr?hlich was an internationally renowned and much respected figure who exerted a decisive influence, often as a ?man ahead of his time?, in fields as diverse as meson theory and biology. Although best known for his contributions to the theory of dielectrics and superconductivity, he worked in many other fields, his most important legacy being the pioneering introduction quantum field-theoretical methods into condensed matter physics in 1952, which revolutionised the subsequent development of the subject. Gerard Hyland has written an absorbing and informative account, in which Herbert Fr?hlich?s magnetic personality shines through.

Biographie:
Gerard Hyland?was born in Birkenhead, Merseyside, UK in 1942, entered the University of Liverpool in 1961 and was Fr?hlich's last doctoral student, 1965-68. He taught theoretical physics at the University of Warwick 1968-2001, was consultant to the EU on the thermophysics of nuclear fuels and high temperature superconductors, 1980-2001 and in 1997 was elected a member of the International Institute of Biophysics in Neuss-Holzheim, Germany. He maintained close contact with Fr?hlich, collaborating with him on a number of research topics and contributing to his two Festschrifts....

Sommaire:
Chronology.- Prologue.- Early life.- Entrance to university and early academic career in Germany.- From Germany to Russia ? via England.- From Russia to England, via Vienna.- Early days in Bristol ? from metals to dielectrics.- Sojourn in Holland.- From dielectrics to meson theory.- Internment.- Return to Bristol.- From Bristol to Liverpool.- Theory of Dielectrics.- Large polaron theory.- Superconductivity.- Statistical mechanics and the connection between micro and macrophysics.- From theoretical physics to biology.- Superconductivity revisited.- Return to Particle Physics.- Epilogue.