James Hartle
James B. Hartle | |
---|---|
Born | James Burkett Hartle August 17, 1939 |
Died | May 17, 2023 Zurich, Switzerland | (aged 83)
Alma mater | Princeton University California Institute of Technology |
Known for | Consistent histories |
Scientific career | |
Fields | General relativity Astrophysics Quantum mechanics |
Institutions | University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Fe Institute |
Doctoral advisor | Murray Gell-Mann |
James Burkett Hartle (August 17, 1939 – May 17, 2023) was an American
Early life
Hartle was born on August 17, 1939, in Baltimore to Anna Elizabeth Burkett and Charles James Hartle. He began as an engineering major upon entering Princeton, but switched to physics due to the influence of John Wheeler.
Hartle completed his AB at Princeton University in 1960 and his Ph.D. in particle physics under Murray Gell-Mann in 1964.[1]
Work
In collaboration with Gell-Mann and others, Hartle developed an alternative to the standard Copenhagen interpretation, more general and appropriate to quantum cosmology, based on consistent histories.
With Dieter Brill in 1964, he discovered the Brill–Hartle geon, an approximate solution realizing Wheeler's suggestion of a hypothetical phenomenon in which a gravitational wave packet is confined to a compact region of spacetime by the gravitational attraction of its own field energy.[2]
With
Working at the
Hartle's textbook on general relativity, Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity, was published in 2003.[4]
Hartle was a founder of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics and served as its director from 1995 to 1997.[5][6]
He was elected to the
Personal life
Hartle married Mary Jo Wheeler in 1984, the niece of John Wheeler.[1]
Hartle died in Zurich (Switzerland) on May 17, 2023, at the age of 83.[8][9]
References
- ^ a b c "Jim Hartle, 1939-2023". www.aps.org. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
- .
- PMID 9955908.
- ISBN 0-8053-8662-9.
- ^ "2009 Einstein Prize Recipient". www.aps.org. Retrieved August 21, 2023.
- ^ "In Memoriam: James Hartle | Santa Fe Institute". www.santafe.edu. June 2, 2023. Retrieved August 21, 2023.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved February 18, 2021.
- ^ "Jim Hartle Obituary". Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara. Retrieved May 31, 2023.
- ^ "In Memoriam: James Hartle | Santa Fe Institute". www.santafe.edu. June 2, 2023. Retrieved March 25, 2024.
External links
- James Hartle homepage
- Faculty profile
- "The Future of Gravity" – April 2000 online lecture (RealAudio plus slides)
- "Spacetime Quantum Mechanics" online RealAudio lecture
- "The Classical Behavior of Quantum Universes" online RealAudio lecture
- James Hartle at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- "The Quantum Universe: Essays on Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Cosmology, and Physics in General" book (World Scientific, 2021)