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

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Moyal, Ann, 1926-2019, author.

Moyal, J. E., author.

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.

Physical Description:

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

Other Title:

Life and science of J.E. Moyal

Place of Publication:

Canberra, ATC : ANU E Press, 2006.

System Details:

text file PDF

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:

Acknowledgements

Preface

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

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on e-publication, viewed on April 01, 2019.

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

1920942990

Access Restriction:

Open Access Unrestricted online access