Prof. Stanislav Smirnov, Fields Medalist 2010, (Université de Genève & St. Petersburg State Univ.) recently gave the Statutory Public Lecture of the School of Theoretical Physics. The lecture was held in Trinity College on Monday 17th June and was entitled”The Ising Model of a Ferromagnet from 1920 to date”.
Abstract
The Ising model is an archetypical model of order-disorder phase transition: though simple to formulate, it exhibits a complex behaviour, much alike to real-world phenomena in solid-state physics, ferromagnetism, chemistry, biology, computer science. In 1920 the physicist Wilhelm Lenz proposed to model ferromagnetic materials by a lattice of plus-minus spins with interacting neighbors. His student Ernst Ising solved the model in dimension one, four years later. The one-dimensional behavior turned out to be trivial, with no phase transition when the interaction strength changes, and for a decade people searched for other possible models. However, a ferromagnetic phase transition was established by Rudolg Peierls in higher dimensions, and in 1944 Lars Onsager famously calculated the free energy for the Ising model in two dimensions. Since then the Ising model became widely studied, as it exhibits complicated phase transition behaviour, yet allows a very detailed analysis in dimension two. We will give a historical introduction to the model, and then describe some recent results. Home page of Prof. Stanislav Smirnov
Poster
l-r: Professor Arthur Jaffe (Chairman of Governing Board of the School of Theoretical Physics), Professor Stanislav Smirnov, Dr Vincent Cunnane (Chairman of Council), Professor Luke Drury (Director of the School of Cosmic Physics), Mr. Cecil Keaveney (Registrar), Professor Werner Nahm (Director of the School of Theoretical Physics).
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Last Updated: 22nd March 2016 by mary
2013-06-17 – School of Theoretical Physics Statutory Public Lecture 2013
Prof. Stanislav Smirnov, Fields Medalist 2010, (Université de Genève & St. Petersburg State Univ.) recently gave the Statutory Public Lecture of the School of Theoretical Physics. The lecture was held in Trinity College on Monday 17th June and was entitled”The Ising Model of a Ferromagnet from 1920 to date”.
Press Release
Abstract
The Ising model is an archetypical model of order-disorder phase transition: though simple to formulate, it exhibits a complex behaviour, much alike to real-world phenomena in solid-state physics, ferromagnetism, chemistry, biology, computer science. In 1920 the physicist Wilhelm Lenz proposed to model ferromagnetic materials by a lattice of plus-minus spins with interacting neighbors. His student Ernst Ising solved the model in dimension one, four years later. The one-dimensional behavior turned out to be trivial, with no phase transition when the interaction strength changes, and for a decade people searched for other possible models. However, a ferromagnetic phase transition was established by Rudolg Peierls in higher dimensions, and in 1944 Lars Onsager famously calculated the free energy for the Ising model in two dimensions. Since then the Ising model became widely studied, as it exhibits complicated phase transition behaviour, yet allows a very detailed analysis in dimension two. We will give a historical introduction to the model, and then describe some recent results. Home page of Prof. Stanislav Smirnov
Poster
l-r: Professor Arthur Jaffe (Chairman of Governing Board of the School of Theoretical Physics), Professor Stanislav Smirnov, Dr Vincent Cunnane (Chairman of Council), Professor Luke Drury (Director of the School of Cosmic Physics), Mr. Cecil Keaveney (Registrar), Professor Werner Nahm (Director of the School of Theoretical Physics).
Category: School of Theoretical Physics News & Events
Big thank you to @MartinaPQuinn of @helloalicepr for moderating the discussion, and of course to our panel @NeasaMcG @CormacORafferty and @laoneill111
@CormacORafferty "to cut yourself off from fundamental research means you could miss out on some of the biggest ideas"
@laoneill "it's our job as researchers to keep reminding governments how important basic research is" "For Dev basic research being carried out in Ireland was a badge of pride"
@NeasaMcG Schrödinger's work in causality was not well received by the religious authorities at the time At the same time DIAS did have Catholic priests working on research projects in the early days, so there was not the conflict you might think between science and religion
@laoneill111 Schrödinger was very popular in social circles in Dublin, a bit of a renaissance man
@CormacORafferty Schrödinger was gifted at explaining difficult concepts
@CormacORafferty on how unsuccessful work, in Schrödinger's case, unified field theory, is just as important part of science. And no one has managed to crack it yet! And not forgetting the cat
@laoneill111 how Schrödinger's book inspired scientists to change fields and result in the finding of the double helix.
@NeasaMcG explaining how DIAS came about and how Schrödinger was attracted to Ireland #DIASdiscovers
Panel Discussion getting underway! @laoneill111 @CormacORafferty @NeasaMcG @MartinaPQuinn
We're half way through the documentary... Join us for the rest and the fascinating discussion to follow DM for link
@Stella15882 @NeasaMcG @HistFest @lukeoneil47 @CormacORafferty @MartinaPQuinn Stella, send me an email. I'll get a link to you communications@dias.ie
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Culture Night 2020 Booking Links! - Virtual Tour of DIAS Dunsink Observatory: eventbrite.ie/e/118043576515 - Earthquakes and other Geohazards: eventbrite.ie/e/earthquakes-… - Taifeadaí Cartlainne ó Scoil an Léinn Cheiltigh: eventbrite.ie/e/taifeadai-ca… Join us from 5pm! #CultureNight2020
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Meet some of our panelists for tomorrows discussion on the impact and legacy of the work carried out by Erwin Schroedinger during his time in Ireland as our first Director of Theoretical Physics Grab a free ticket here: eventbrite.ie/e/115984908985