Maverick mathematician : the life and science of J.E. Moyal / Ann Moyal.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Moyal, Ann, 1926-2019, author.

Series:

Open Access e-Books

Knowledge Unlatched

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Moyal, J. E. (José Enrique), 1910-1998.

Moyal, J. E.

Dirac, P. A. M. (Paul Adrien Maurice), 1902-1984--Correspondence.

Dirac, P. A. M.

Mathematicians--Australia--Biography.

Mathematicians.

Aerospace engineers--Australia--Biography.

Aerospace engineers.

Quantum theory--Mathematics.

Quantum theory.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (vi, 212 pages) : illustrations, maps, portraits; digital file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Canberra, ACT : ANU E Press, [2006].

System Details:

text file

Summary:

J.E. Moyal has been pronounced 'one of Australia's most remarkable thinkers'. Yet, he was, essentially, a scientific maverick. Educated in a modest high school in Tel Aviv, he took himself to France to train as an engineer, statistician and mathematician and escaped to England as France fell. It was from outside academia that he entered into communication with the 'high priest' of British theoretical physics, P.A.M. Dirac, challenging him with the idea of a statistical basis of quantum mechanics. Their correspondence forms the core of this book and opens up an important and hitherto unknown chapter for physicists, mathematicians and historians of science. Moyal's classic paper, 'A statistical basis for quantum mechanics', also reproduced here in full, has come to underlie an explosion of research and to underpin an array of major technological developments. Joe Moyal emerges in this small biography as a witty and intrepid character, a scuba diver and wine connoisseur, a generous teacher and researcher, and a man whose academic life-spanning France, Ireland, Britain, the USA and Australia-intersected with some of the leading scientists of the 20th century.

Contents:

Chapter 1. Boyhood

Chapter 2. The making of a scientific maverick

Chapter 3. Battle with a legend

Chapter 4. The widening circle

Chapter 5. Antipodean winds

Chapter 6. Argonne National Laboratory

Chapter 7. Macquarie University

Chapter 8. The reflective years

Appendix I. Publications of J. E. Moyal

Appendix II. P. A. M. Dirac - J. E. Moyal: correspondence, 1944-1946. Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science, Canberra, MS 45/3/

Appendix III. Quantum mechanics as a statistical theory by J. E. Moyal.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

CC BY-NC-ND

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed May 11 , 2017).

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

9781920942595

1920942599

OCLC:

1441720066

Publisher Number:

10.26530/OAPEN_459368