Phonon soft modes and para- to ferroelectric phase transitions

In this special issue of Physica A in memory of Professor Dietrich Stauffer, I first recall my impression on him while being his postdoc for a year at HLRZ. In the following scientific part, I discuss the theory of soft phonons with quartic nonlinear interactions. This is applied to the cubic crystal BaTiO$_3$ for phase transition from para- to ferroelectric phase.