Related papers: Kenneth Wilson in Moscow
A look back at Kenneth Wilson's contributions to theoretical physics, with some reminiscences of the professor I encountered at Cornell during the 1980s.
This is the transcript of the after-dinner talk I gave at the close of the 16 Nov 2013 symposium "Celebrating the Science of Kenneth Geddes Wilson" [1] at Cornell University (see Fig. 1 for the poster). The video of my talk is on-line [2],…
Reminiscences about I. M. Gel'fand on the 100th anniversary of his birth, and about mathematical life in Moscow in the former Soviet Union.
A personal and subjective recollection, concerning mainly Wilson's lectures delivered over the spring of 1972 at Princeton University (summary of a talk at Cornell University on November 16, 2013 at the occasion of the memorial Kenneth G.…
I had the marvelous good fortune to be Ken Wilson's graduate student at the Physics Department, Cornell University, from 1972 to 1976. In this article, I present some recollections of how this came about, my interactions with Ken, and…
Studies on extraterrestrial civilisations in Russia date back to the end of the 19th century. The modern period of SETI studies began in the USSR in the early 1960s. The first edition of the I.S. Shklovsky's book {\it Universe, Life,…
Wilson was a physicist who changed both the substance and style of theoretical science.
An extended text of the talk given at the conference ``2001: A Spacetime Odyssey'', to be published in the Proceedings of the Inaugural Conference of the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 21-25 May…
Kenneth G. Wilson made deep and insightful contributions to statistical physics, particle physics, and related fields. He was also a helpful and thoughtful human being.
This work briefly surveys unconventional research in Russia from the end of the 19th until the beginning of the 21th centuries in areas related to generation and detection of a 'high-penetrating' emission of non-biological origin. The…
Ken Wilson is remembered.
A recollection of special moments spent with Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich and with the scientists of Soviet Union and abroad.
Professor M. C. Polivanov and I met only a few times, during my infrequent visits to the-then Soviet Union in the 1970's and 1980's. His hospitality at the Moscow Steclov Institute made the trips a pleasure, while the scientific environment…
We discuss some mistakes and curiosities concerned with the celebrated First International Topological Conference in Moscow, 1935.
The essay is an attempt to re-create the wonderful scientific atmosphere that emerged after the basic BCS ideas first arrived in Russia in 1957. It summarizes the most significant contributions to the microscopic theory of superconductivity…
A pedagogical introduction to Wilson loops, lattice gauge theory and the 1/N-expansion of QCD is presented. The three introductory lectures were given at the 37th ITEP Winter School of Physics, Moscow, February 9-16, 2009.
While the migration of scientists from the Soviet Union to the West occurred at a modest pace during the 1970s and 1980s, the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 and the ensuing economic and social hardships precipitated a massive exodus that…
I offer some personal reminiscences from the period of 1976-1983, when I was a M. Sc. and then a Ph.D. student in Vitaly L. Ginzburg's High Temperature Superconductivity group at the P.N. Lebedev Institute in Moscow
Ideological considerations have always influenced science, but rarely as directly and massively as in the Soviet Union during the early Cold War period. Cosmology was among the sciences that became heavily politicized and forced to conform…
I review the scientific and technical history of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), discuss the impact of the political involvement, and speculate on the nature of a successful detection and its potential social and…