A Mathematician Doing Physics: Mark Kac’s Work on the Modeling of Phase Transitions

Perspectives on Science 26 (2):185-212 (2018)
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Abstract

After World War II, quite a few mathematicians, including Mark Kac, John von Neumann, and Nobert Wiener, worked on the physical problem of phase transitions, i.e. changes in the state of matter caused by gradual changes of physical parameters such as the condensation of a gas to a liquid and the loss of magnetization of a ferromagnet above a certain temperature. The significance of these mathematicians was not so much that they brought mathematical rigor to the theoretical description of the phenomena,1 but that they applied their mathematical skills and tools to solve concrete mathematical problems encountered in the microscopic modeling of phase transitions. The present paper deals...

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10.1162/posc_a_00272

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History of the Lenz–Ising Model 1950–1965: from irrelevance to relevance.Martin Niss - 2008 - Archive for History of Exact Sciences 63 (3):243-287.

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