Myron Mathisson
Myron Mathisson | |
|---|---|
| Born | Myron Mathisson December 4, 1897 |
| Died | September 13, 1940 (aged 42) |
| Citizenship | Poland, France, United Kingdom |
| Known for | Mathisson–Papapetrou equations, Mathisson–Papapetrou–Dixon equations |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Theoretical Physics General relativity Hebrew Translator Engineer |
| Institutions | University of Warsaw |
Myron Mathisson (1897–1940) was a theoretical physicist of Polish and Jewish descent. He is known for his work in general relativity, for developing a new method to analyze the properties of fundamental solutions of linear hyperbolic partial differential equations, and proved, in a special case, the Hadamard conjecture on the class of equations that satisfy the Huygens principle.
Life and work
Education
Mathisson was born in Warsaw, 4 December 1897. He graduated from a high school[which?] there with a gold medal in 1915. He began his studies at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Warsaw University of Technology. Then, from 1917 he studied at the University of Warsaw where he graduated in 1924 under the guidance of professor Czeslaw Białobrzeski.
Military service
Between the years 1918-1919 he served in the military.
Physics research
In 1930, earned his doctorate at the University of Warsaw on the work of Sur le movement tournant d'un corps dans un champ de gravitation, and began to live there in 1932. He became a professor at the University of Kazan in 1936. The following year, he returned to Warsaw. He corresponded with Albert Einstein. In the years 1937−1939, he was at Kraków's Jagiellonian University where he worked under of prof. John Weyssenhoff .
His works have been recognized by Wenceslas Dziewulskiego. Niels Bohr invited him to Copenhagen. In 1939 he went to Paris, where he met with Jacques Hadamard, and to Cambridge, where he met with Paul Dirac who was impressed enough to publish his recent work posthumously, and to post his obituary.[1]
In chronological order; M. Mathisson,[2] A. Papapetrou,[3] and W. G. Dixon[4] contributed to the derivation of the equations for a spinning body moving in a gravitational field, now known as the Mathisson-Papapetrou-Dixon equations.
Other work
Due to financial difficulties, Mathisson had to work as a Hebrew translator, as a draftsman producing technical drawings, and engineering calculations of the statics of reinforced concrete structures.[citation needed]
Mathisson died of tuberculosis in Cambridge, on the 13th of September 1940.
Publications
During his short lifetime, he published 10 scientific papers, including:
- Mathisson, M. (1931). "Die Beharrungsgesetze in der allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie". Zeitschrift für Physik (in German). 67 (3–4): 270–277. Bibcode:1931ZPhy...67..270M. doi:10.1007/BF01394605.
- Mathisson, M. (1931). "Die Mechanik des Materieteilchens in der allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie". Zeitschrift für Physik (in German). 67 (11–12): 826–844. Bibcode:1931ZPhy...67..826M. doi:10.1007/BF01390764.
- Mathisson, M. (1931). "Bewegungsproblem in der Physik und Elektronenkonstanten". Zeitschrift für Physik (in German). 69 (5–6): 389–408. Bibcode:1931ZPhy...69..389M. doi:10.1007/BF01391361.
- Mathisson, M. (1939). "Le problème de M. Hadamard relatif à la diffusion des ondes". Acta Mathematica (in French). 71 (1): 249–282. doi:10.1007/BF02547756.
- Mathisson, M. (1933). "Eine Lösungsmethode für Differentialgleichungen vom normalen hyperbolischen Typus". Mathematische Annalen (in German). 107 (1): 400–419. doi:10.1007/BF01448901.
- Mathisson, M. (1940). "The variational equation of relativistic dynamics". Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. 36 (3): 331-350. Bibcode:1940PCPS...36..331M. doi:10.1017/S0305004100017370.
- Mathisson, M. (1942). "Relativistic dynamics of a spinning magnetic particle". Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. 38 (1): 40–60. Bibcode:1942PCPS...38...40M. doi:10.1017/S0305004100022210.
See also
References
- ^ Dirac, P. A. M. (1940). "Dr. M. Mathisson". Nature. 146 (3706): 613. Bibcode:1940Natur.146..613D. doi:10.1038/146613b0.
- ^ Mathisson, M. (1937). "Neue Mechanik materieller Systeme". Acta Physica Polonica. 6: 163–209.
- ^ Papapetrou, A. (1951). "Spinning Test-Particles in General Relativity. I". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A. 209 (1097): 248–258. Bibcode:1951RSPSA.209..248P. doi:10.1098/rspa.1951.0200.
- ^ Dixon, W. G. (1970). "Dynamics of Extended Bodies in General Relativity. I. Momentum and Angular Momentum". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A. 314 (1519): 499–527. Bibcode:1970RSPSA.314..499D. doi:10.1098/rspa.1970.0020.
- Sauer, T.; Trautman, A. (2008). "Myron Mathisson: What little we know of his life". arXiv:0802.2971 [physics.hist-ph].
{{cite arXiv}}: More than one of|author2=and|last2=specified (help) - Eisenstaedt, J.; Kox, A. J. (1992). Studies in the History of General Relativity. Einstein Studies. Vol. Vol. 3. Springer. p. 400. ISBN 0-817-634-797.
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Further reading
- Lucia, U. (2005), "Myron Mathisson", in O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F. (eds.), MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
- Bartnik, E. A. "A short history of Theoretical Physics at Hoza 69..." Warsaw University.