Tait Institute of Math Phys

1
Tait Institute of Math Phys

• Peter Guthrie Tait
• 1831 1901
• Chair of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh
• Hamilton's Quaternions
• Theory of Knots with Maxwell Thomson
• Trajectory of Golf Balls

2
Max Born (1882-1970)

• Nobel Prize 1954
• Statistical interpretation of
• quantum theory
• Tait Professor at
• Edinburgh University
• Unfortunate Scandal
• Implicated in the Klaus Füchs
• spying case Füchs was an associate of Born
  in Edinburgh
• Born was totally exonerated according to his
  secretary Ray Chester who still lives in
  Pennicuik outside Edinb.

3
Nicholas Kemmer (1911-1998)

• Tait Professor of Mathematical Physics at
  Edinburgh
• ETH (Zurich) An associate of Wolfgang Pauli
• Kemmer Equations Pions (Yukawa)
• Helped me enormously in my effort to come to UK
  to do scientific research.

4
Wolfgang Pauli (1898-1988)

• Nobel Prize 1945
• Exclusion Principle
• Kemmer made interesting comments
• 137 bus in London had a special significance
• Erdeli Maths Professor in Edinburgh had a
  tremendous capacity for mental computing (like
  Indian Mathematician Ramanujan an associate of
  Hardy)

5
Peter Higgs

• Gauge Theory of Broken Symmetries
• Higgs Boson(s)
• 60s Reader at Tait Institute of Math. Physics
• Gave our Quantum Field Theory Lectures
• Now Emeritus Professor at Edinburgh

6
Academics at Tait Institute in 60s

• Lecturers
• David Candlin (Computer liason with RHEL)
• Lance Vick
• Trevor Priest (now Senior Lecturer Exeter Univ)
• Peter Osborne (now retired)
• Ken Bowler (now Professor)
• Research Fellows
• Mladen Martinis (now Professor at Zagrev)
• Razmi (Pakistan)
• ......

7
Research Students

• Diploma in theTheory of Elementary Particle
• Ananda Amatya (Nepal) (Ph. D)
• Klaus Büchner (Germany, now Prof. at Munich)
• Geoffrey Henderson (Northern Ireland) (Ph. D)
• Irshadullah Khan (Pakistan) (Ph. D)
• Melvin Roberts (Wales)
• Norman White (Scotland) (Ph. D)
• Continuing Students
• Alan Richie
• .........

8
Research Students

• Hans Grimmer (now Professor at Zurich)
• Alasdair Broadfoot (now at Napier Univ)
• Dikran Tcharakian (Armenian)
• David Wallace (Tait Professor now
  Vice-Chancellor at Leicester University)
• Alexander Newlands (research under Prof. Euan
  Squires of Durham University)
• Komy ? (Egypt)
• ......

9
Research Interests

• Symmetry Groups for Particles
• Lie Algebra, Unitary groups
• Quantum Field Theory
• Spontaneous break down of symmetries
• S-Matrix Theory
• Complex angular momentum, Regge Poles
• Phase Analysis of Hadron Interactions
• Dispersion Relations Current Algebras

10
Sophus Lie (1842-1899)

• Lie Groups
• Continuous groups of transformations (symmetry
  groups)
• Howard Georgi, "Lie Algebras in Particle
  Physics", Second Edition, 1999
• Sophus Class Library for Solving PDEs (Partial
  Differential Equations)

11
Paul Dirac (1902-1984)

• Nobel Prize 1933
• Anti-particles
• Saw him in 1967 at Cambridge
• Dirac Equation
• Positron

12
Stephen Hawkins

• Was Introduced to Stephen By Bruno Renner at
  Cambridge in 1967
• I owe much to Bruno for helping me in my research
  in Particle Physics. Sadly Bruno died in a
  climbing accident in 1973

13
Hans Bethe (1906-)

• Nobel Prize 1967
• Nuclear energy in stars
• Attended his lecture in 1969 at ICTP, Trieste

14
Murray Gell-Mann (1929-)

• Nobel Prize 1969
• Classification of Particles and their
  interactions
• Attended his seminar in 1967 at ICTP, Trieste
• SU(3) matrices
• Quarks

15
Sheldon Glashow (1932-)

• Nobel Prize 1979
• Unified theory of Weak and Electromagnetic
  interactions of elementary particles
• Attended Lectures by him (and Sidney Coleman) at
  Erice 1966 Summer School
• SU(2)xU(1)
• QCD

16
Abdus Salam (1926-1996)

• Nobel Prize 1979
• Unified theory of Weak and Electromagnetic
  interactions of elementary particles
• Met in ICTP Trieste in 1967 1969
• Helped me to return to Europe. (I held a three
  month long visiting research fellowship at ICTP
  in 1969)

17
Stephen Weinberg (1933-)

• Nobel Prize 1979
• Unified theory of Weak and Electromagnetic
  interactions of elementary particles
• Attended a seminar by him at ICTP, Trieste, 1967
• Peter Higgs rated his research papers very highly