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P. W. Anderson (1923–2020)


Affiliations
1 Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai 600 113, India
2 Physicists Without Ascription, Chennai 600 017, India
3 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Florida State University, Gainesville, Florida, United States
4 Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru 560 012, India
 

P. W. Anderson, an epochal figure in Physics, passed away on 29 March 2020, at the age of 96, at Princeton, NJ, USA. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1977 (which he shared with N. F. Mott and J. H. van Vleck ‘for their fundamental theoretical investigations of the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems’). Anderson was named the most creative living physicist in a statistical survey in 2006. His foundational contributions, perhaps more than those of anyone else, transformed the field of condensed matter physics from obscurity to prominence. Even the name ‘Condensed matter physics’ is due to him1 .
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  • Anderson and Volker Heine renamed their group in Cambridge, originally called ‘solid state theory’, as ‘theory of condensed matter’ in 1967. This is the current name for the field, which is concerned with the ‘condensed’ phases that appear whenever the number of constituents in a system is extremely large and the interactions between the constituents are strong.

  • Anderson, P. W., Nature, 2005, 437, 625.

  • Anderson, P. W. and Itoh, N., Nature, 1975, 256, 25; Anderson, P. W., Alpar, M. A., Pines, D. and Shaham, J., Phil. Mag., 1982, A45, 227.

  • Anderson, P. W., Science, 1972, 177, 393.

  • Anderson, P. W., Basic Notions of Condensed Matter Physics, Benjamin, London, 1984.

  • John Horgan, Sci. Am., 1994, 271, 34.

  • Anderson, P. W., A Career in Theoretical Physics, World Scientific, Singapore, 2004, 2nd edn.


Abstract Views: 480

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  • P. W. Anderson (1923–2020)

Abstract Views: 480  |  PDF Views: 149

Authors

G. Baskaran
Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai 600 113, India
V. N. Muthukumar
Physicists Without Ascription, Chennai 600 017, India
K. A. Muttalib
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Florida State University, Gainesville, Florida, United States
T. V. Ramakrishnan
Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru 560 012, India

Abstract


P. W. Anderson, an epochal figure in Physics, passed away on 29 March 2020, at the age of 96, at Princeton, NJ, USA. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1977 (which he shared with N. F. Mott and J. H. van Vleck ‘for their fundamental theoretical investigations of the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems’). Anderson was named the most creative living physicist in a statistical survey in 2006. His foundational contributions, perhaps more than those of anyone else, transformed the field of condensed matter physics from obscurity to prominence. Even the name ‘Condensed matter physics’ is due to him1 .

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv118%2Fi10%2F1624-1627