Michael Berry (physicist) explained
Sir Michael Victor Berry, (born 14 March 1941) is a British mathematical physicist at the University of Bristol, England.
He is known for the Berry phase, a phenomenon observed e.g. in quantum mechanics and optics, as well as Berry connection and curvature. He specializes in semiclassical physics (asymptotic physics, quantum chaos), applied to wave phenomena in quantum mechanics and other areas such as optics.
Early life and education
Berry was brought up in a Jewish family and was the son of a London taxi driver and a dressmaker.[1] Berry earned a BSc in physics from the University of Exeter where he met his first wife (a sociology student with whom he had his first child)[2] and a PhD from the University of St. Andrews.[3] His thesis is titled The diffraction of light by ultrasound.[4]
Career and research
He has spent his whole career at the University of Bristol. He was a research fellow, 1965–67; lecturer, 1967–74; reader, 1974–78; Professor of Physics, 1978–88; and Royal Society Research Professor 1988–2006. Since 2006, he has been Melville Wills Professor of Physics (Emeritus) at Bristol University.[5]
Publications
Awards and honours
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1982[8] and knighted in 1996.[9] From 2006 to 2012 he was editor ofProceedings of the Royal Society A.
Berry has been given the following prizes and awards:[10]
- Maxwell Medal and Prize, Institute of Physics, 1978
- Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London, 1982
- Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, 1983
- Elected Fellow of the Royal Institution, 1983
- Elected Member of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden, 1986
- Bakerian Lecturer, Royal Society, 1987
- Elected member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, 1989
- Dirac Medal, Institute of Physics, 1990
- Lilienfeld Prize, American Physical Society, 1990
- Royal Medal, Royal Society, 1990
- Naylor Prize and Lectureship in Applied Mathematics, London Mathematical Society, 1992
- Foreign Member: US National Academy of Sciences, 1995
- Dirac Medal, International Centre for Theoretical Physics, 1996
- Kapitsa Medal, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1997
- Wolf Prize for Physics, Wolf Foundation, Israel, 1998, jointly with Yakir Aharonov
- Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics, 1999
- Forder Lectureship, London Mathematical Society, 1999[11]
- Foreign Member: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2000
- Ig Nobel Prize for Physics, 2000 (shared with Andre Geim for "The Physics of Flying Frogs"). By 2022 his and Geim's Ig Nobel for the magnetic levitation of a frog was reportedly part of the inspiration for China's lunar gravity research facility.[12] [13]
- Onsager Medal, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2001
- Gibbs Lecturer, American Mathematical Society, 2002[14]
- 1st and 3rd prizes, Visions of Science, Novartis/Daily Telegraph, 2002
- Elected to Royal Society of Edinburgh, 2005
- Pólya Prize, London Mathematical Society, 2005
- Doctor of Science, honoris causa, University of Glasgow, 2007
- Selected Clarivate Citation laureate in Physics in 2009, jointly with Aharonov.[15]
- Doctor of Science, honoris causa, Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University in Yerevan, 2012
- Lorentz Medal, 2014[16]
- Lise Meitner Distinguished Lecture, 2019
See also
Notes and References
- Book: The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History. 2011. Palgrave Macmillan. 9781403939104. 87. William D. . Rubinstein. Michael . Jolles . Hilary L. . Rubinstein. William Rubinstein. Hilary L. Rubinstein.
- Web site: BBC Newshour. 21 January 2024.
- Web site: Academic History of Professor Sir Michael Berry. University of Bristol. 22 July 2009.
- PhD thesis . . Berry . Michael . 1965 . The diffraction of light by ultrasound . 1507853 . 10023/22569 .
- Web site: 2013-06-28 . History . 2023-10-02 . PROFESSOR SIR MICHAEL VICTOR BERRY, FRS . en.
- Longair, M. S.. Malcolm Longair. Book review: Principles of cosmology and gravitation by M. V. Sims. Space Science Reviews. 1991. 56. 1–2. 246. 1991SSRv...56..246L. 10.1007/BF00178416. 189795860.
- Web site: Professor Sir Michael Berry - Our People . 24 November 2023 . University of Bristol, UK.
- Web site: Fellows Directory. The Royal Society. 3 May 2018.
- Web site: The London Gazette. HMSO. 3 May 2018.
- Web site: Professor Sir Michael Berry: Prizes and Awards . 13 March 2011 . University of Bristol, UK.
- Web site: LMS-NZMS Forder and Aitken Lectureships London Mathematical Society. www.lms.ac.uk. en. 2018-11-13.
- Web site: China building "Artificial Moon" that simulates low gravity with magnets. Futurism.com. Recurrent Ventures. 17 January 2022 . 12 January 2022. Interestingly, the facility was partly inspired by previous research conducted by Russian physicist Andrew Geim in which he floated a frog with a magnet. The experiment earned Geim the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics, a satirical award given to unusual scientific research. It’s cool that a quirky experiment involving floating a frog could lead to something approaching an honest-to-God antigravity chamber..
- Web site: Stephen Chen. China has built an artificial moon that simulates low-gravity conditions on Earth. South China Morning Post. 17 January 2022 . 12 January 2022 . It is said to be the first of its kind and could play a key role in the country’s future lunar missions. Landscape is supported by a magnetic field and was inspired by experiments to levitate a frog..
- Making light of mathematics: 75th Gibbs Lecture. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.). 2003. 40. 2. 229–237. 1962297. 10.1090/S0273-0979-03-00972-8. Berry. Michael. free.
- Web site: Thomson Reuters Predicts Nobel Laureates . 2023-10-04 . www.newswire.ca . en.
- Web site: Michael Berry . knaw.nl . KNAW . 3 April 2022.
