Mário Schenberg

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Mário Schenberg
Schönberg-Chandrasekhar limit
Urca process
Scientific career
FieldsTheoretical physics
Doctoral studentsJosé Leite Lopes
Notes
Brazilian physicist of the 'heroic era' (1900–1945), together with
Cesar Lattes, Jayme Tiomno, and Joaquim da Costa Ribeiro
.

Mário Schenberg (born Mayer Schönberg [var. Mário Schönberg, Mario Schonberg, Mário Schoenberg]; 2 July 1914 – 10 November 1990) was a Brazilian

electrical engineer, physicist, art critic
and writer.

Early life

Schenberg was born in

Russian Jews of German origin.[clarification needed
] From early on he showed remarkable ability for mathematics, enchanting himself with geometry, which had a strong influence on his works. He took the primary and secondary courses in Recife. Because of his family's financial limitations, he was not able to study in Europe. He then entered the Faculty of Engineering of Recife in 1931.

Scientific work

The Urca process

Widely regarded as one of Brazil's most important theoretical physicists, Schenberg is best remembered for his contributions to astrophysics, particularly the theory of nuclear processes in the formation of supernova stars. He provided the inspiration for the name of the so-called Urca process, a cycle of nuclear reactions in which a nucleus loses energy by absorbing an electron and then re-emitting a beta particle plus a neutrino-antineutrino pair, leading to the loss of internal supporting pressure and consequent collapse and explosion in the form of a supernova. George Gamow (1904–1968) was inspired to name the process Urca after the name of a casino in Rio de Janeiro, when Schenberg remarked to him that "the energy disappears in the nucleus of the supernova as quickly as the money disappeared at that roulette table".

Schönberg–Chandrasekhar limit

Together with Indian physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910–1995), he discovered and published in 1942 the so-called Schönberg–Chandrasekhar limit, which is the maximum mass of the core of a star that can support the overlying layers against gravitational collapse, once the core hydrogen is exhausted.

Quantum physics and geometric algebra

In the University of São Paulo had Schönberg interacted closely with David Bohm during the final years of Bohm's exile in Brazil,[1] and, in 1954, Schönberg demonstrated a link among the quantized motion of the Madelung fluid and the trajectories of the de Broglie–Bohm theory.[2]

He wrote a series of publications of 1957/1958 on

Birkbeck College where Bohm had become professor of physics in the meantime. Schönberg's ideas have also been cited in connection with algebraic approaches to describe relativistic phase space.[6]

His work has been cited, together with that of Marcel Riesz, for its importance to Clifford algebras and mathematical physics in the proceedings of a workshop held in France in 1989 which had been dedicated to these two mathematicians.[7]

Politics and life

Schenberg was a member of the Brazilian Communist Party[8][9] and professor of the University of São Paulo.

Articles

His articles include:

  • M. Schönberg: Quantum kinematics and geometry, Il Nuovo Cimento (1955–1965), vol. 6, Supplement 1, pp. 356–380, 1957,
    doi:10.1007/BF02724793 (preview
    )
  • M. Schönberg, S. Chandrasekhar: On the Evolution of the Main-Sequence Stars, Astrophysical Journal, vol. 96, no. p. 161 ff., 1942, fulltext

Legacy

References

  1. ^
    Olival Freire
    on January 11, 2008, Oral History Transcript, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics
  2. S2CID 123655548. (abstract
    )
  3. ^ a b F. A. M. Frescura, B. J. Hiley: Algebras, quantum theory and pre-space, p. 3–4 (published in Revista Brasileira de Fisica, Volume Especial, Julho 1984, Os 70 anos de Mario Schonberg, pp. 49–86)
  4. ^ M. Schönberg, Quantum mechanics and geometry, An. Acad. Brasil. Cien., 30, pp. 1–20, 1958. Cited after: F. A. M. Frescura, B. J. Hiley: Algebras, quantum theory and pre-space, p. 3–4 (published in Revista Brasileira de Fisica, Volume Especial, Julho 1984, Os 70 anos de Mario Schonberg, pp. 49–86)
  5. ^ B. J. Hiley: A note on the role of idempotents in the extended Heisenberg algebra, "Implications", Scientific Aspects of ANPA 22, pp. 107–121, Cambridge, UK, 2001.
  6. doi:10.1023/A:1018869505031 (abstract
    ), therein p. 201
  7. ISBN 0-7923-1623-1, Foreword
    (in French language)
  8. ISBN 9780230339613
    .
  9. ISSN 0103-4014
    . Retrieved 7 December 2015.
Preceded by President of the
Brazilian Society of Physics

1979–1981 		Succeeded by
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