Asher Peres (; January 30, 1934 – January 1, 2005) was an Israeli

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

. Peres is best known for his work relating

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

and

information theory Information theory is the mathematical study of the quantification (science), quantification, Data storage, storage, and telecommunications, communication of information. The field was established and formalized by Claude Shannon in the 1940s, ...

. He helped to develop the Peres–Horodecki criterion for

quantum entanglement Quantum entanglement is the phenomenon where the quantum state of each Subatomic particle, particle in a group cannot be described independently of the state of the others, even when the particles are separated by a large distance. The topic o ...

, as well as the concept of

quantum teleportation Quantum teleportation is a technique for transferring quantum information from a sender at one location to a receiver some distance away. While teleportation is commonly portrayed in science fiction as a means to transfer physical objects from on ...

, and collaborated with others on quantum information and

special relativity In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory of the relationship between Spacetime, space and time. In Albert Einstein's 1905 paper, Annus Mirabilis papers#Special relativity, "On the Ele ...

. He also introduced the

Peres metric In mathematical physics Mathematical physics is the development of mathematics, mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The ''Journal of Mathematical Physics'' defines the field as "the application of mathematics to proble ...

and researched the Hamilton–Jacobi–Einstein equation in

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity, and as Einstein's theory of gravity, is the differential geometry, geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of grav ...

. With Mario Feingold, he published work in quantum chaos that is known to mathematicians as the Feingold–Peres conjecture and to physicists as the Feingold–Peres theory.

Life

According to his autobiography, he was born ''Aristide Pressman'' in

Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne (, literally ''Beaulieu on Dordogne (river), Dordogne''; ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Corrèze Departments of France, department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Regions of France, region, central France. Beaulieu is ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, where his father, a Polish electrical engineer, had found work laying down power lines. He was given the name ''Aristide'' at birth, because the name his parents wanted, ''Asher'', the name of his maternal grandfather, was not on the list of permissible French given names. When he went to live in Israel, he changed his first name to ''Asher'' and, as was common among immigrants, changed his family name to the Hebrew ''Peres'', which he used for the rest of his life. Peres obtained his Ph.D. in 1959 at

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology is a public university, public research university located in Haifa, Israel. Established in 1912 by Jews under the dominion of the Ottoman Empire, the Technion is the oldest university in the coun ...

under Nathan Rosen. Peres spent most of his academic career at Technion, where in 1988 he was appointed distinguished professor of physics. He died in Haifa, Israel.

''Quantum Theory'' textbook

He authored a textbook, '' Quantum Theory: Concepts and Methods,'' of which he wrote, :The purpose of this book is to clarify the ''conceptual meaning'' of quantum theory, and to explain some of the mathematical methods that it utilizes. This text is not concerned with specialized topics such as atomic structure, or strong or weak interactions, but with the very foundations of the theory. This is not, however, a book on the

philosophy of science Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. Amongst its central questions are the difference between science and non-science, the reliability of scientific theories, ...

. The approach is pragmatic and strictly instrumentalist. This attitude will undoubtedly antagonize some readers, but it has its own logic: quantum phenomena do not occur in a

Hilbert space In mathematics, a Hilbert space is a real number, real or complex number, complex inner product space that is also a complete metric space with respect to the metric induced by the inner product. It generalizes the notion of Euclidean space. The ...

, they occur in a laboratory. N. David Mermin called the book "a treasure trove of novel perspectives on quantum mechanics" and said that Peres' choice of topics is "a catalogue of common omissions" from other approaches. Among its substantial discussion of the failure of hidden variable theories, the book includes a FORTRAN program for testing whether a list of vectors forms a Kochen–Specker configuration. Michael Nielsen wrote of the textbook, "Revelation! Suddenly, all the key results of 30 years of work (several of those results due to Asher) were distilled into beautiful and simple explanations." Peres downplayed the importance of the

uncertainty principle The uncertainty principle, also known as Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle, is a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics. It states that there is a limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties, such as position a ...

, giving it only a single mention in his index, which points to that same page of the index.

Views on the EPR paradox

Peres claimed that the resolution to the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox of

, often called "spooky action at a distance", lies in the fact that quantum states are information. Peres wrote, "Information is not just an abstract notion. It requires a physical carrier, and the latter is (approximately) ''localized.'' After all, it was the business of the Bell Telephone Company to transport information from one telephone to another telephone, in a different location. ..When Alice measures her spin, the information she gets is localized at her position, and will remain so until she decides to broadcast it. Absolutely ''nothing'' happens at Bob's location. ..It is only when Alice informs Bob of the result she got (by mail, telephone, radio, or by means other than material carrier, which is naturally restricted to the

speed of light The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted , is a universal physical constant exactly equal to ). It is exact because, by international agreement, a metre is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time i ...

) that Bob realizes that his particle has a definite pure state."

References

External links

''List of publications'' Foundations of Physics, 36 157-173 (2006)

(obituary by his students).
L. Peres Hari: ''Asher Peres, 1943-2005''
(obituary by his daughter). * {{DEFAULTSORT:Peres, Asher 1934 births 2005 deaths Israeli physicists Academic staff of Technion – Israel Institute of Technology Israeli Jews Jewish physicists Israeli people of Polish-Jewish descent