KEN WILSON MEMORIAL VOLUME: RENORMALIZATION, LATTICE GAUGE THEORY, THE OPERATOR PRODUCT EXPANSION AND QUANTUM FIELDS

 

"A reading of selected parts sheds interesting light on a variety of complex topics in ways that are perhaps not so easily found in modern textbooks. I would suggest such a strategy to a philosopher or historian of science, or an undergraduate or graduate student in physics. The chapters are all well written, and whatever fraction is understood will prove valuable. The book is long, and not an easy read, but well worth the effort and I highly recommend it."

CERN Courier

 

"Kenneth Wilson was a brilliant and creative contributor to the work on renormalization groups and phase transitions. He applied his multifaceted genius to condensed matter physics as well as nuclear and elementary particle physics."

by Murray Gell-Mann

 

The purpose of bringing out this volume is to commemorate the memory of Ken Wilson and to preserve the legacy of his ground-breaking advances. This volume brings together a collection of articles written by colleagues of Ken Wilson as well as fellow physicists and scholars — some of who knew him personally and others who are knowledgeable about his sterling contributions to the foundations of theoretical physics.

To commemorate the memory of Ken Wilson, many leading and illustrious physicists have contributed to this volume — Ian Affleck, Belal E Baaquie, Ken Bowler, Édouard Brézin, Tohru Eguchi, Michael E Fisher, Paul Ginsparg, Domenico Giuliano, Stanislaw Glazek, Bailin Hao, Kerson Huang, Roman Jackiw, Richard Kenway, H R Krishnamurthy, N D Mermin, Stuart Pawley, Michael Peskin, Alexander Polyakov, John Schwarz, R Shankar, Akira Ukawa, David Wallace, Franz Wegner, Steven Weinberg, and Anthony Zee.

Kenneth Geddes Wilson (1936 2013) intellectual giant, Nobel Laureate, intrepid scholar, visionary thinker, pioneering physicist and a person of conscience made seminal contributions to the foundations of contemporary physics and undertook tireless efforts to bring reforms in the educational system.

The purpose of bringing out this volume is to commemorate the memory of Ken Wilson and to preserve the legacy of his ground-breaking advances. This volume brings together a collection of articles written by colleagues of Ken Wilson as well as fellow physicists and scholars some of who knew him personally and others who are knowledgeable about his sterling contributions to the foundations of theoretical physics.

The work of Ken Wilson covers many diverse and apparently unrelated fields, all of which were brought under a common paradigm by the creative and original development and application of the mathematics of quantum field theory. As observed by Wilson, "the intuitive ideas" of quantum field theory and of the entire program of renormalization, "were encased in a thick shell of formalism" and it is widely acknowledged that it was Wilson's visionary approach to quantum field theory that cut through this thick shell of formalism.

Based on his deep understanding that the essence of quantum field theory is that it describes a system with infinitely many degrees of freedom, Wilson used the mathematics of quantum field theory and of the renormalization group to solve the problem of classical phase transitions which consists of the cooperative behavior of infinitely many classical degrees of freedom. In doing this he greatly enhanced the domain of quantum field theory beyond the orbit of quantum systems as well as bringing new insights to quantum field theory from other disciplines.

To commemorate the memory of Ken Wilson, many leading and illustrious physicists have agreed to contribute to this volume. These include Murray Gell-Mann, Steven Weinberg, David Gross,