Robert Zwanzig

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Robert Zwanzig
Born9 April 1928
Brooklyn, New York
DiedMay 15, 2014
Bethesda, Maryland
Academic background
Alma materCaltech
ThesisQuantum Hydrodynamics: a statistical mechanical theory of light scattering from simple non-polar fluids
Doctoral advisorJohn G. Kirkwood
Academic work
InstitutionsUniversity of Maryland

Robert Walter Zwanzig (born Brooklyn, New York, 9 April 1928[1] – died Bethesda, Maryland, May 15, 2014[2]) was an American theoretical physicist and chemist who made important contributions to the statistical mechanics of irreversible processes, protein folding, and the theory of liquids and gases.

Background

Zwanzig received his bachelor's degree from

Caltech. From 1988 onwards he was a researcher at the National Institutes of Health (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases) in Bethesda, Maryland
, where he was a Fogarty Scholar (1987–88) and later worked as a research scientist emeritus.

One of his early works from 1954 is often cited as the first use of

Leon van Hove. The projection operator formalism later found wide application and is now known as the Zwanzig-Mori formalism (also named after Hazime Mori, who published similar results in 1965[4]
).

An important result of the Zwanzig-Mori formalism, the

Nakajima-Zwanzig equation
, bears his name and reflects the important contributions of Sadao Nakajima made around the same time.

Together with Tsu-Wei Nee he derived a theory for the dielectric function and

protein folding problem among other things.[6][7]

Awards and honors

He received many awards, including

He was a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Chemical Society.

Selected bibliography

  • Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics, Oxford University Press 2001

References

  1. .
  2. .
  3. ^ Mori Transport, collective motion and brownian motion, Progr. Theor. Phys., Suppl., Band 33, 1965, S. 423-455
  4. .
  5. .
  6. .

External links