Ernst Carl Gerlach Stueckelberg (February 1, 1905,
BaselBasel is Switzerland's third most populous city . With 830000 inhabitants in the tri-national metropolitan area , Basel is Switzerland's second-largest urban area....
- September 4, 1984, Basel) was a Swiss
mathematicianA mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and/or research is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with particular problems related to logic, space, transformations, numbers and more general ideas which encompass these concepts...
and
physicistA physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
.
In 1926 Stueckelberg got his Ph. D. at
MunichMunich is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. It is located on the River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg...
under
Arnold SommerfeldArnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld was a German theoretical physicist who pioneered developments in atomic and quantum physics, and also educated and groomed a large number of students for the new era of theoretical physics...
. He qualified as a university lecturer together with Konrad Bleuler under supervision from
Gregor WentzelGregor Wentzel was a German physicist known for development of quantum mechanics...
at the
University of ZürichThe University of Zurich , located in the city of Zurich, is the largest university in Switzerland, with over 24,000 students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of theology, law, medicine and a new faculty of philosophy...
.
In 1934 he devised a fully covariant
perturbation theory for quantum fields.
Ernst Carl Gerlach Stueckelberg (February 1, 1905,
BaselBasel is Switzerland's third most populous city . With 830000 inhabitants in the tri-national metropolitan area , Basel is Switzerland's second-largest urban area....
- September 4, 1984, Basel) was a Swiss
mathematicianA mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and/or research is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with particular problems related to logic, space, transformations, numbers and more general ideas which encompass these concepts...
and
physicistA physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
.
In 1926 Stueckelberg got his Ph. D. at
MunichMunich is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. It is located on the River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg...
under
Arnold SommerfeldArnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld was a German theoretical physicist who pioneered developments in atomic and quantum physics, and also educated and groomed a large number of students for the new era of theoretical physics...
. He qualified as a university lecturer together with Konrad Bleuler under supervision from
Gregor WentzelGregor Wentzel was a German physicist known for development of quantum mechanics...
at the
University of ZürichThe University of Zurich , located in the city of Zurich, is the largest university in Switzerland, with over 24,000 students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of theology, law, medicine and a new faculty of philosophy...
.
In 1934 he devised a fully covariant
perturbation theory for quantum fields. To quote this paper, "The approach proposed by Stueckelberg was far more powerful, but was not adopted by others at the time". Now, despite its benefits, this approach has been all but forgotten. However, besides being explicitly covariant, Stueckelberg's methods avoid vacuum bubbles. See also
here.
Independently from
Hideki Yukawané , was a Japanese theoretical physicist and the first Japanese Nobel laureate.-Biography:Yukawa was born in Tokyo, Japan. In 1929, after receiving his degree from Kyoto Imperial University, he stayed on as a lecturer for four years. After graduation, he was interested in theoretical physics,...
, he gave vector boson exchange as the theoretical explanation of the strong nuclear force in 1935.
In 1938 he recognized that massive electrodynamics contains a hidden scalar, and formulated an affine version of what would become known as the Abelian
Higgs mechanismIn the standard model of particle physics, the Higgs mechanism is a theoretical framework which explains how the masses of the W and Z bosons arise as a result of electroweak symmetry breaking....
.
He proposed the law of conservation of
baryon numberIn particle physics, the baryon number is an approximate conserved quantum number of a system. It is defined as:whereWhy one third? According to the laws of strong interaction there cannot be any bare color charge, i.e. the total color charge of a particle has to be zero ,...
.
The evolution parameter theory he presented in 1941 and 1942 is the basis for recent work in
relativistic dynamicsRelativistic dynamics refers to a combination of relativistic and quantum concepts to describe the relationships between the motion and properties of a relativistic system and the forces acting on the system...
.
In 1942 he proposed the interpretation of the
positronThe positron or antielectron is the antiparticle or the antimatter counterpart of the electron. The positron has an electric charge of +1, a spin of , and the same mass as an electron. When a low-energy positron collides with a low-energy electron, annihilation occurs, resulting in the production...
as a negative energy electron traveling backward in time.
In 1943 he came up with a
renormalizationIn quantum field theory, the statistical mechanics of fields, and the theory of self-similar geometric structures, renormalization refers to a collection of techniques used to take a continuum limit....
program to attack the problems of infinities in
quantum electrodynamicsQuantum electrodynamics is a relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics. QED was developed by a number of physicists, beginning in the late 1920s. It basically describes how light and matter interact. More specifically it deals with the interactions between electrons, positrons and photons...
(QED), but his paper was rejected by the
Physical ReviewPhysical Review is an American scientific journal, publishing research on all aspects of physics. It is published by the American Physical Society .- History :...
.
In 1953 he and Andre Petermann discovered the
renormalization groupIn theoretical physics, renormalization group refers to a mathematical apparatus that allows one to investigate the changes of a physical system as one views it at different distance scales. In particle physics it reflects the changes in the underlying force laws as one varies the energy scale at...
.
In 1976 he was awarded the
Max Planck medalThe Max Planck medal is an award for extraordinary achievements in theoretical physics. It is awarded annually by the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft , the world's largest organization of physicists.- List of recipients :...
.
Although his work was mostly well respected, later work that was only superficially different and only marginally more advanced would win the
Nobel prizeThe Nobel Prize is a Sweden-based international monetary prize. The award was established by the 1895 will and estate of Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901...
for others.
See also
- Timeline of quantum mechanics, molecular physics, atomic physics, nuclear physics, and particle physics
- Propagator
In quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, the propagator gives the probability amplitude for a particle to travel from one place to another in a given time, or to travel with a certain energy and momentum. Propagators are used to represent the contribution of virtual particles on the internal...
- Relativistic dynamics
Relativistic dynamics refers to a combination of relativistic and quantum concepts to describe the relationships between the motion and properties of a relativistic system and the forces acting on the system...
- Stueckelberg action
- Stueckelberg-Feynman interpretation
Corresponding to most kinds of particles, there is an associated antiparticle with the same mass and opposite electric charge. For example, the antiparticle of the electron is the positively charged antielectron, or positron, which is produced naturally in certain types of radioactive decay.The...
External links
- http://www.valdostamuseum.org/hamsmith/ecgstcklbrg.html