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Philip Warren Anderson
Born December 13, 1923 (age 89)
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
Nationality United States
Fields Physics
Institutions Bell Laboratories
Princeton University
Cambridge University
Alma mater Harvard University
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
Doctoral advisor John Hasbrouck van Vleck
Notable awards Nobel Prize in Physics (1977)

Philip Warren Anderson (born December 13, 1923) is an American physicist and Nobel laureate. Anderson has made contributions to the theories of localization, antiferromagnetism, symmetry breaking, high-temperature superconductivity and to the philosophy of science through his writings on emergent phenomena.[1]

Biography

Anderson was born in Indianapolis, Indiana and grew up in Urbana, Illinois. He graduated from University Laboratory High School in Urbana in 1940. Afterwards, he went to Harvard University for undergraduate and graduate work, with a wartime stint at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in-between. In graduate school he studied under John Hasbrouck van Vleck.

From 1949 to 1984 he was employed by Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, where he worked on a wide variety of problems in condensed matter physics. During this period he discovered the concept of localization, the idea that extended states can be localized by the presence of disorder in a system; the Anderson Hamiltonian, which describes electrons in a transition metal; the "Higgs" mechanism for generating mass in elementary particles; and the pseudospin approach to the BCS theory of superconductivity. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1963.[2]

From 1967 to 1975, Anderson was a professor of theoretical physics at Cambridge University. In 1977 Anderson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his investigations into the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems, which allowed for the development of electronic switching and memory devices in computers. Co-researchers Sir Nevill Francis Mott and John van Vleck shared the award with him. In 1982, he was awarded the National Medal of Science. He retired from Bell Labs in 1984 and is currently Joseph Henry Professor of Physics at Princeton University.

Anderson's writings include Concepts of Solids, Basic Notions of Condensed Matter Physics and The Theory of Superconductivity in the High-Tc Cuprates. Anderson currently serves on the board of advisors of Scientists and Engineers for America, an organization focused on promoting sound science in American government. He is a certified first degree-master of the Chinese board game Go.

Anderson has also made important conceptual contributions to the philosophy of science through his explication of emergent phenomena. In 1972 he wrote a now highly-cited article called "More is Different" in which he emphasized the limitations of reductionism and the existence of hierarchical levels of science, each of which requires its own fundamental principles for advancement.[3]

A 2006 statistical analysis of scientific research papers by José Soler, comparing number of references in a paper to the number of citations, declared Anderson to be the "most creative" amongst ten most cited physicists in the world, very slightly above Edward Witten.[4]

Anderson is an atheist[5] and was one of 21 Nobel Laureates who signed the Humanist Manifesto.[6]

References

Notes

1. ^ Horgan, J. (1994) Profile: Philip W. Anderson – Gruff Guru of Condensed Matter Physics, Scientific American 271(5), 34-35.
2. ^ "Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter A". American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 18 April 2011.
3. ^ Anderson, P.W. (1972). "More is Different". Science 177 (4047): 393–396. Bibcode:1972Sci...177..393A. doi:10.1126/science.177.4047.393. PMID 17796623.
4. ^ A Rational Indicator of Scientiﬁc Creativity, José M. Soler, 2006.
5. ^ Philip W. Anderson (2011). "Imaginary Friend, Who Art in Heaven". More and Different: Notes from a Thoughtful Curmudgeon. World Scientific. p. 177. ISBN 9789814350129. "We atheists can, as he does, argue that, with the modern revolution in attitudes toward homosexuals, we have become the only group that may not reveal itself in normal social discourse."
6. ^ "Notable Signers". Humanism and Its Aspirations. American Humanist Association. Retrieved September 15, 2012.

Sources

• Anderson, P.W. (1997). THE Theory of Superconductivity in High-$T_{\rm c}$ Cuprates. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-04365-5.
• Anderson, P.W. (1997). Basic Notions of Condensed Matter Physics. Reading: Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-32830-5.
• Anderson, P.W. (1998). Concepts in Solids: Lectures on the Theory of Solids. Singapore: World Scientific. ISBN 981-02-3231-4.
• Bernstein, Jeremy (1987). Three degrees above zero: Bell Laboratories in the information age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-32983-3.
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