Theodore H. Berlin

Theodore H. Berlin (8 May 1917, New York City – 16 November 1962, Baltimore) was an American theoretical physicist.^[1]

Education and career

Berlin graduated in 1939 with B.S. in

During World War II, while still a graduate student, Dr. Berlin worked on the development of the Proximity fuze. His academic work was concerned with the electronic structure of molecules, and his thesis was on the quantization and electric interaction in diatomic molecules.^[1]

He was a research physicist from 1944 to 1946 at the

In 1961 he joined the Rockefeller Institute where he worked with

George E. Uhlenbeck and Mark Kac in developing a school of physics and mathematics. While at Michigan he had studied under Prof. Uhlenbeck, and at the time of his death the two were collaborating on a book on statistical physics.^[5]

At the beginning of his career, Berlin did research on physical chemistry (quantum theory of molecules). He is known for his work with Kac on the spherical model, a generalization of the Ising model of statistical mechanics, which was developed as a mathematical model for ferromagnetism.^[7] In contrast to the Ising model, the spherical model's spin variable on the lattice can assume continuous values (with the restriction that the sum of the squares of the spins is equal to the number of lattice positions). The spherical model can be solved exactly in the presence of an external field and shares that property of exact solvability with very few models of ferromagnetism.^[8]

Personal life

In 1944 Berlin married Patricia May Cleary. They had sons Geoffrey N., Dennis A., Michael K., and Alexander L.^[1] A daughter died in infancy.

References