In physics, statistical mechanics is a mathematical framework that applies statistical methods and probability theory to large assemblies of microscopic entities. Sometimes called statistical physics or statistical thermodynamics, its applications include many problems in the fields of physics, biology, chemistry, neuroscience, computer science, information theory and sociology. Its main purpose is to clarify the properties of matter in aggregate, in terms of physical laws governing atomic motion.
Mathematical physics refers to the development of mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The Journal of Mathematical Physics defines the field as "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the development of mathematical methods suitable for such applications and for the formulation of physical theories". An alternative definition would also include those mathematics that are inspired by physics, known as physical mathematics.
The Accademia dei Lincei is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy.
Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann was an Austrian physicist and philosopher. His greatest achievements were the development of statistical mechanics, and the statistical explanation of the second law of thermodynamics. In 1877 he provided the current definition of entropy, , where Ω is the number of microstates whose energy equals the system's energy, interpreted as a measure of the statistical disorder of a system. Max Planck named the constant kB the Boltzmann constant.
David Pierre Ruelle is a Belgian and naturalized French mathematical physicist. He has worked on statistical physics and dynamical systems. With Floris Takens, Ruelle coined the term strange attractor, and developed a new theory of turbulence.
The Boltzmann Medal is a prize awarded to physicists that obtain new results concerning statistical mechanics; it is named after the celebrated physicist Ludwig Boltzmann. The Boltzmann Medal is awarded once every three years by the Commission on Statistical Physics of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, during the STATPHYS conference.
Giorgio Parisi is an Italian theoretical physicist, whose research has focused on quantum field theory, statistical mechanics and complex systems. His best known contributions are the QCD evolution equations for parton densities, obtained with Guido Altarelli, known as the Altarelli–Parisi or DGLAP equations, the exact solution of the Sherrington–Kirkpatrick model of spin glasses, the Kardar–Parisi–Zhang equation describing dynamic scaling of growing interfaces, and the study of whirling flocks of birds. He was awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Klaus Hasselmann and Syukuro Manabe for groundbreaking contributions to theory of complex systems, in particular "for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales".
Lamberto Cesari was an Italian mathematician naturalized in the United States, known for his work on the theory of surface area, the theory of functions of bounded variation, the theory of optimal control and on the stability theory of dynamical systems: in particular, by extending the concept of Tonelli plane variation, he succeeded in introducing the class of functions of bounded variation of several variables in its full generality.
Antonio Signorini was an influential Italian mathematical physicist and civil engineer of the 20th century. He is known for his work in finite elasticity, thermoelasticity and for formulating the Signorini problem.
Combinatorial physics or physical combinatorics is the area of interaction between physics and combinatorics.
John Lawrence CardyFRS is a British–American theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work in theoretical condensed matter physics and statistical mechanics, and in particular for research on critical phenomena and two-dimensional conformal field theory.
Ezechiel Godert David "Eddie" Cohen was a Dutch–American physicist and Professor Emeritus at The Rockefeller University. He is widely recognised for his contributions to statistical physics. In 2004 Cohen was awarded the Boltzmann Medal, jointly with Prof. H. Eugene Stanley. Cohen's citation read "For his fundamental contributions to nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, including the development of a theory of transport phenomena in dense gases, and the characterization of measures and fluctuations in nonequilibrium stationary states."
Dario Graffi was an influential Italian mathematical physicist, known for his researches on the electromagnetic field, particularly for a mathematical explanation of the Luxemburg effect, for proving an important uniqueness theorem for the solutions of a class of fluid dynamics equations including the Navier-Stokes equation, for his researches in continuum mechanics and for his contribution to oscillation theory.
Antti Kupiainen is a Finnish mathematical physicist.
Orazio Tedone was an Italian mathematical physicist. He is perhaps best known for the Larmor–Tedone formulae for solving Maxwell's equations.
In continuum physics, materials with memory, also referred as materials with hereditary effects are a class of materials whose constitutive equations contains a dependence upon the past history of thermodynamic, kinetic, electromagnetic or other kind of state variables.
Mario Pulvirenti is an Italian mathematician, Professor emeritus of Mathematical Physics at Sapienza University of Rome.
Pierre Collet is a French mathematical physicist, specializing in statistical mechanics, stochastic processes, and chaos theory.
Sergio Doplicher is an Italian mathematical physicist, who mainly dealt with the mathematical foundations of quantum field theory and quantum gravity.
The Premio Presidente della Repubblica is an Italian award introduced by the former president and academic Luigi Einaudi. Since 1949 it has been awarded on a regular basis by the Accademia dei Lincei, the Accademia di San Luca, and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. It is among the most distinguished awards of the three prestigious academies.
