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.
Econophysics is a non-orthodox interdisciplinary research field, applying theories and methods originally developed by physicists in order to solve problems in economics, usually those including uncertainty or stochastic processes and nonlinear dynamics. Some of its application to the study of financial markets has also been termed statistical finance referring to its roots in statistical physics. Econophysics is closely related to social physics.
Nikolay Nikolayevich Bogolyubov was a Soviet, Ukrainian and Russian mathematician and theoretical physicist known for a significant contribution to quantum field theory, classical and quantum statistical mechanics, and the theory of dynamical systems; he was the recipient of the 1992 Dirac Medal.
Ruslan Leont'evich Stratonovich was a Russian physicist, engineer, and probabilist and one of the founders of the theory of stochastic differential equations.
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".
Alexander Leonidovich Kuzemsky is a Russian theoretical physicist.
Objective-collapse theories, also known spontaneous collapse models or dynamical reduction models, are proposed solutions to the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. As with other interpretations of quantum mechanics, they are possible explanations of why and how quantum measurements always give definite outcomes, not a superposition of them as predicted by the Schrödinger equation, and more generally how the classical world emerges from quantum theory. The fundamental idea is that the unitary evolution of the wave function describing the state of a quantum system is approximate. It works well for microscopic systems, but progressively loses its validity when the mass / complexity of the system increases.
Charles Rogers Doering was a professor of mathematics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is notable for his research that is generally focused on the analysis of stochastic dynamical systems arising in biology, chemistry and physics, to systems of nonlinear partial differential equations. Recently he had been focusing on fundamental questions in fluid dynamics as part of the $1M Clay Institute millennium challenge concerning the regularity of solutions to the equations of fluid dynamics. With J. D. Gibbon, he notably co-authored the book Applied Analysis of the Navier-Stokes Equations, published by Cambridge University Press. He died on May 15, 2021.
Stephen Ray Wiggins is a Cherokee-American applied mathematics researcher and distinguished educator, also of British heritage, best known for his contributions in nonlinear dynamics, chaos theory and nonlinear phenomena. His wide contributions include Lagrangian aspects of fluid dynamics and reaction dynamics in theoretical chemistry.
George M. Zaslavsky was a Soviet mathematical physicist and one of the founders of the physics of dynamical chaos.
Peter Hänggi is a theoretical physicist from Switzerland, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Augsburg. He is best known for his original works on Brownian motion and the Brownian motor concept, stochastic resonance and dissipative systems. Other topics include, driven quantum tunneling, such as the discovery of coherent destruction of tunneling (CDT), phononics, relativistic statistical mechanics and the foundations of classical and quantum thermodynamics.
Sergio Albeverio is a Swiss mathematician and mathematical physicist working in numerous fields of mathematics and its applications. In particular he is known for his work in probability theory, analysis, mathematical physics, and in the areas algebra, geometry, number theory, as well as in applications, from natural to social-economic sciences.
Radha Balakrishnan is an Indian theoretical physicist. She is a retired professor at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, India. After her early work in condensed matter physics on quantum crystals, she switched fields to nonlinear dynamics and has published research papers on a variety of topics.
Stochastic thermodynamics is an emergent field of research in statistical mechanics that uses stochastic variables to better understand the non-equilibrium dynamics present in many microscopic systems such as colloidal particles, biopolymers, enzymes, and molecular motors.
Siegfried Grossmann is a German theoretical physicist who has been awarded the Max Planck Medal, the major prize for achievements in theoretical physics.
Vladimir Nikolajevich Pokrovskii is a Russian scientist known for his original contributions to polymer physics and economic theory. He was the founder of the Altai school of dynamics of nonlinear fluids.
Hans J. van Ommeren Dekker is a Dutch theoretical physicist in the line of Dirk Polder, Ralph Kronig, and Nico van Kampen. His scientific work inter alia involves laser theory, path integrals in curved spaces, nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, dissipation in quantum mechanics, and hydrodynamic turbulence. He is director of the Private Institute for Advanced Study and professor emeritus at the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the University of Amsterdam.
Pranawachandra Deshmukh is an Indian physicist and educator, known for his contributions to theoretical atomic physics, collisions and light-matter interactions, ultrafast atomic processes, applications of Lambert W Function in pure and applied physics. He has made many contributions to physics education, including publishing foundation textbooks in classical and quantum physics. He taught classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, and collision theory, and his lectures are freely available through NPTEL.
