Shang-keng Ma | |
---|---|
馬上庚 | |
Born | |
Died | November 24, 1983 | (aged 43)
Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physics |
Thesis | Correlations of Photons from a Thermal Source (1966) |
Doctoral advisor | Kenneth M. Watson |
Shang-keng Ma (September 24, 1940 – November 24, 1983) was a Chinese theoretical physicist, known for his work on the theory of critical phenomena and random systems. [2] He is known as the co-author with Bertrand Halperin and Pierre Hohenberg of a 1972 paper that "generalized the renormalization group theory to dynamical critical phenomena." [2] Ma is also known as the co-author with Yoseph Imry of a 1975 paper [2] and with Amnon Aharony and Imry of a 1976 paper that established the foundation of the random field Ising model (RFIM) [3]
He transferred in 1959 from the National Taiwan University to the University of California, Berkeley. There he graduated in 1962 with a bachelor's degree in science and in 1966 with a Ph.D. His Ph.D. thesis Correlations of Photons from a Thermal Source was supervised by Kenneth M. Watson. As a postdoc in 1966, Ma went to the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) to study with Keith Brueckner. Ma's outstanding ability earned him a faculty appointment at UCSD in less than a year. [2] He was at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) from September 1968 to June 1969 and in the autumn of 1970. [4] There he worked with Shau-Jin Chang on the infinite-energy limit of Feynman diagrams [2] [5] and with Roger Dashen on the S-matrix formulation of statistical mechanics. [2] [6] In 1971 he became a tenured faculty member of the UCSD physics department [7] and became a Sloan Research Fellow. [8]
He visited Cornell University in 1972 where he became involved in development of the renormalization theory of critical phenomena. Gradually, his interest shifted to statistical physics. [9]
In 1975, with Yoseph Imry, he published the seminal paper on the effect of a random magnetic field on ferro-magnetic order. Their model has come to be known as the random field Ising model. [2]
In 1976 Ma was a visiting scientist at Paris-Saclay University and published his paper Renormalization group by Monte Carlo methods, which introduced a technique which "has evolved into a powerful technology that is widely used today for the numerical study of critical phenomena." [2]
In 1981, Ma formulated the "coincidence counting" method for the calculation of entropy from the phase space trajectory. He felt strongly that such a dynamical formulation of entropy was crucial for understanding random and other systems exhibiting metastability. [2]
In the two academic years 1977–1978 and 1981–1982 he taught in Taiwan at Tsinghua University, where he wrote in Chinese an advanced text on statistical mechanics — the book, published in 1983, "eschews the traditional approach built on the Gibbs ensemble." World Scientific published an English translation in 1985. In 1986 World Scientific also published a memorial volume in honor of Ma. [10]
Upon his death he was survived by his widow and two children. [7]
Shang-keng Ma | |
---|---|
馬上庚 | |
Born | |
Died | November 24, 1983 | (aged 43)
Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physics |
Thesis | Correlations of Photons from a Thermal Source (1966) |
Doctoral advisor | Kenneth M. Watson |
Shang-keng Ma (September 24, 1940 – November 24, 1983) was a Chinese theoretical physicist, known for his work on the theory of critical phenomena and random systems. [2] He is known as the co-author with Bertrand Halperin and Pierre Hohenberg of a 1972 paper that "generalized the renormalization group theory to dynamical critical phenomena." [2] Ma is also known as the co-author with Yoseph Imry of a 1975 paper [2] and with Amnon Aharony and Imry of a 1976 paper that established the foundation of the random field Ising model (RFIM) [3]
He transferred in 1959 from the National Taiwan University to the University of California, Berkeley. There he graduated in 1962 with a bachelor's degree in science and in 1966 with a Ph.D. His Ph.D. thesis Correlations of Photons from a Thermal Source was supervised by Kenneth M. Watson. As a postdoc in 1966, Ma went to the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) to study with Keith Brueckner. Ma's outstanding ability earned him a faculty appointment at UCSD in less than a year. [2] He was at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) from September 1968 to June 1969 and in the autumn of 1970. [4] There he worked with Shau-Jin Chang on the infinite-energy limit of Feynman diagrams [2] [5] and with Roger Dashen on the S-matrix formulation of statistical mechanics. [2] [6] In 1971 he became a tenured faculty member of the UCSD physics department [7] and became a Sloan Research Fellow. [8]
He visited Cornell University in 1972 where he became involved in development of the renormalization theory of critical phenomena. Gradually, his interest shifted to statistical physics. [9]
In 1975, with Yoseph Imry, he published the seminal paper on the effect of a random magnetic field on ferro-magnetic order. Their model has come to be known as the random field Ising model. [2]
In 1976 Ma was a visiting scientist at Paris-Saclay University and published his paper Renormalization group by Monte Carlo methods, which introduced a technique which "has evolved into a powerful technology that is widely used today for the numerical study of critical phenomena." [2]
In 1981, Ma formulated the "coincidence counting" method for the calculation of entropy from the phase space trajectory. He felt strongly that such a dynamical formulation of entropy was crucial for understanding random and other systems exhibiting metastability. [2]
In the two academic years 1977–1978 and 1981–1982 he taught in Taiwan at Tsinghua University, where he wrote in Chinese an advanced text on statistical mechanics — the book, published in 1983, "eschews the traditional approach built on the Gibbs ensemble." World Scientific published an English translation in 1985. In 1986 World Scientific also published a memorial volume in honor of Ma. [10]
Upon his death he was survived by his widow and two children. [7]