Michael Aizenman (born 28 August 1945 in

Nizhny Tagil Nizhny Tagil ( rus, Нижний Тагил, p=ˈnʲiʐnʲɪj tɐˈgʲil) is a city in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located east of the boundary between Asia and Europe. Population: History The prehistory of Nizhny Tagil dates back to the mid-1 ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...

) is an American-Israeli

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

and a

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 ca ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...

, working in the fields of

mathematical physics Mathematical physics refers to 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 problems in physics and t ...

, statistical mechanics,

functional analysis Functional analysis is a branch of mathematical analysis, the core of which is formed by the study of vector spaces endowed with some kind of limit-related structure (e.g. inner product, norm, topology, etc.) and the linear functions defined ...

and

probability theory Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set o ...

. The highlights of his work include: the triviality of a class of scalar quantum field theories in more than four dimensions; a description of the

phase transition In chemistry, thermodynamics, and other related fields, a phase transition (or phase change) is the physical process of transition between one state of a medium and another. Commonly the term is used to refer to changes among the basic states ...

in the

Ising model The Ising model () (or Lenz-Ising model or Ising-Lenz model), named after the physicists Ernst Ising and Wilhelm Lenz, is a mathematical model of ferromagnetism in statistical mechanics. The model consists of discrete variables that represent ...

in three and more dimensions; the sharpness of the

percolation theory In statistical physics and mathematics, percolation theory describes the behavior of a network when nodes or links are added. This is a geometric type of phase transition, since at a critical fraction of addition the network of small, disconnecte ...

; a method for the study of spectral and dynamical localization for random Schrödinger operators; and insights concerning conformal invariance in two-dimensional percolation.

Biography

Aizenman is a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

American - Israeli who was born in Russia. He was an undergraduate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was awarded his PhD in 1975 at

Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City."About YU
on the Yeshiva Universi ...

(Belfer Graduate School of Science),

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, with advisor

Joel Lebowitz Joel Louis Lebowitz (born May 10, 1930) is a mathematical physicist widely acknowledged for his outstanding contributions to statistical physics, statistical mechanics and many other fields of Mathematics and Physics. Lebowitz has published ...

. After

postdoctoral A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to pu ...

appointments at the

Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (commonly known as Courant or CIMS) is the mathematics research school of New York University (NYU), and is among the most prestigious mathematics schools and mathematical sciences research cente ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, ...

(1974–75), and Princeton University (1975–1977), with

Elliott H. Lieb Elliott Hershel Lieb (born July 31, 1932) is an American mathematical physicist and professor of mathematics and physics at Princeton University who specializes in statistical mechanics, condensed matter theory, and functional analysis. Lieb ...

, he was appointed

Assistant Professor Assistant Professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States and Canada. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doctoral degree and gene ...

at Princeton. In 1982 he moved to

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and wa ...

Associate Professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. Overview In the '' North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is ...

and then

Full Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

. In 1987 he moved to the

Courant Institute The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (commonly known as Courant or CIMS) is the mathematics research school of New York University (NYU), and is among the most prestigious mathematics schools and mathematical sciences research cente ...

and in 1990 returned to

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

as Professor of Mathematics and Physics. He was several times a

visiting scholar In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...

at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

, in 1984-85, 1991–92, and 1997–98,Institute for Advanced Study: A Community of Scholars
/ref> and is a regular Visiting Scholar at the

Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( he, מכון ויצמן למדע ''Machon Vaitzman LeMada'') is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli univ ...

Honors and awards

Norbert Wiener Prize
(1990) of the Amer. Math. Soc. and

SIAM Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

for "his outstanding contribution of original and non-

perturbative In quantum mechanics, perturbation theory is a set of approximation schemes directly related to mathematical perturbation for describing a complicated quantum system in terms of a simpler one. The idea is to start with a simple system for wh ...

mathematical methods in statistical mechanics by means of which he was able to solve several long open important problems concerning critical phenomena, phase transitions, and

quantum field theory In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines classical field theory, special relativity, and quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct physical models of subatomic particles a ...

." *

Brouwer Medal The Brouwer Medal is a triennial award presented by the Royal Dutch Mathematical Society and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. The Brouwer Metal gets its name from Dutch mathematician L. E. J. Brouwer and is the Netherlands’ most prestigi ...

(2002) of th
Dutch Math. Soc.
and the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences
Dannie Heineman Prize in Mathematical Physics
2010), of APS and

AIP AIP may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Action International Pictures * Afghan Islamic Press * AIP Records, a record label * American International Pictures, an independent film production/distribution company, now a subsidiary of MGM ...

* Henri Poincaré Prize (2018) o
IAMP
Aizenman received

honorary degree An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad ho ...

s (DHC) from Université de Cergy-Pontoise (2009) and Technion (2018), and is a member of

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

(1997),

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, ...

(2017), an
Academia Europaea
(2016). During 2001-2012 he served as the

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

Communications in Mathematical Physics ''Communications in Mathematical Physics'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Springer. The journal publishes papers in all fields of mathematical physics, but focuses particularly in analysis related to condensed matter physics, st ...

Publications

''Random Operators: Disorder Effects on Quantum Spectra and Dynamics''
by M. Aizenman and S. Warzel (AMS 2015).

References

External links

Princeton home page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Aizenman, Michael Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars Princeton University faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society 21st-century American physicists Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni Yeshiva University alumni Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences faculty Rutgers University faculty Brouwer Medalists Mathematical physicists Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences alumni 1945 births Living people