John George Valatin (, 1918–April 19, 1978) was a British–Hungarian theoretical physicist and professor at

Queen Mary University of London Queen Mary University of London (QMUL, or informally QM, and formerly Queen Mary and Westfield College) is a public university, public research university in Mile End, East London, England. It is a member institution of the federal University ...

. He is known for his work in

quantum field theory In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines Field theory (physics), field theory and the principle of relativity with ideas behind quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct phy ...

particle physics Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of Elementary particle, fundamental particles and fundamental interaction, forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the s ...

and

condensed matter physics Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid State of matter, phases, that arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms and elec ...

. He developed the Bogoliubov–Valatin transformation in many-body

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 ...

Early life and education

John George Valatin was born in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. He studied engineering at the

Technical University of Budapest The Budapest University of Technology and Economics ( or in short ), official abbreviation BME, is a public research university located in Budapest, Hungary. It is the most significant university of technology in the country and is considered t ...

. He earned a doctorate for his work in molecular spectra. He later left to work in industry. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, he came back to the university to work as a lecturer. He worked in the Institute of Experimental Physics.

Career abroad

In 1947, he went to work with

Louis de Broglie Louis Victor Pierre Raymond, 7th Duc de Broglie (15 August 1892 – 19 March 1987) was a French theoretical physicist and aristocrat known for his contributions to quantum theory. In his 1924 PhD thesis, he postulated the wave nature of elec ...

at the

Institut Henri Poincaré The Henri Poincaré Institute (or IHP for ''Institut Henri Poincaré'') is a mathematics research institute part of Sorbonne University, in association with the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). It is located in the 5th arrondi ...

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 ...

. He was awarded a

Doctor of Science A Doctor of Science (; most commonly abbreviated DSc or ScD) is a science doctorate awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. Africa Algeria and Morocco In Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Tunisia, all universities accredited by the s ...

diploma by the

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

for his dissertation on the theory of the

positron The positron or antielectron is the particle with an electric charge of +1''elementary charge, e'', a Spin (physics), spin of 1/2 (the same as the electron), and the same Electron rest mass, mass as an electron. It is the antiparticle (antimatt ...

. Afterwards, he left to the

Niels Bohr Institute The Niels Bohr Institute () is a research institute of the University of Copenhagen. The research of the institute spans astronomy, geophysics, nanotechnology, particle physics, quantum mechanics, and biophysics. Overview The institute was foun ...

Copenhague Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

, Sweden, in 1950 where he worked on a covariant gauge-independent formulation of

quantum electrodynamics In particle physics, quantum electrodynamics (QED) is the Theory of relativity, relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics. In essence, it describes how light and matter interact and is the first theory where full agreement between quant ...

. In 1952 he joined the group of

Rudolf Peierls Sir Rudolf Ernst Peierls, (; ; 5 June 1907 – 19 September 1995) was a German-born British physicist who played a major role in Tube Alloys, Britain's nuclear weapon programme, as well as the subsequent Manhattan Project, the combined Allied ...

and

Paul Taunton Matthews Paul Taunton Matthews CBE FRS (19 November 1919 – 26 February 1987) was a British theoretical physicist. Biography Matthews was born in Erode in British India, and was educated at Mill Hill School and Clare College, Cambridge, where he w ...

Birmingham University The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

where he spent 13 years. With Peierls, Valatin learned to write quantum field theory using

Feynman diagram In theoretical physics, a Feynman diagram is a pictorial representation of the mathematical expressions describing the behavior and interaction of subatomic particles. The scheme is named after American physicist Richard Feynman, who introduced ...

s. There he worked on point-splitting regularization for divergences in quantum electrodynamics. During that time he received British citizenship. After

John Bardeen John Bardeen (; May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991) was an American solid-state physicist. He is the only person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Houser Brattain for their inventio ...

Leon Cooper Leon N. Cooper (né Kupchik; February 28, 1930 – October 23, 2024) was an American theoretical physicist and neuroscientist. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on superconductivity. Cooper developed the concept of Cooper pairs and ...

and John Schrieffer developed the

BCS theory In physics, the Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) theory (named after John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and John Robert Schrieffer) is the first microscopic theory of superconductivity since Heike Kamerlingh Onnes's 1911 discovery. The theory descr ...

superconductivity Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in superconductors: materials where Electrical resistance and conductance, electrical resistance vanishes and Magnetic field, magnetic fields are expelled from the material. Unlike an ord ...

, Schrieffer worked with Valatin in Birmingham as a postdoc. Influenced by him, Valatin developed in 1957 the transformations now known as Bogoliubov-Valatin transformations independently published from

Nikolay Bogolyubov Nikolay Nikolayevich (Mykola Mykolayovych) Bogolyubov (; ; 21 August 1909 – 13 February 1992) was a Soviet, Ukrainian and Russian mathematician and theoretical physicist known for a significant contribution to quantum field theory, classi ...

. Valatin worked on generalizations of the

Hartree–Fock method In computational physics and chemistry, the Hartree–Fock (HF) method is a method of approximation for the determination of the wave function and the energy of a quantum many-body system in a stationary state. The method is named after Douglas ...

for superconductors. With

Ben Roy Mottelson Ben Roy Mottelson (9 July 1926 – 13 May 2022) was an American-Danish nuclear physicist. He won the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the non-spherical geometry of atomic nuclei. Early life Mottelson was born in Chicago, Illinois, on ...

and

David Thouless David James Thouless (; 21 September 1934 – 6 April 2019) was a British condensed-matter physicist. He was awarded the 1990 Wolf Prize and a laureate of the 2016 Nobel Prize for physics along with F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterl ...

, he generalized the Hartree–Fock method for pairing forces in

nuclear physics Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies th ...

. Together they developed the Thouless–Valatin formula, also known as the self-consistent cranking model. With Carlo Di Castro, a PhD student at the time, Valating worked on phase transitions in superconducting thin films. In 1965, he was offered a chair at Queen Mary College, London, where he established a theoretical physics group to work both in particle and condensed matter physics.

Personal life

Valatin had two sons with his wife. He was also a devoted Christian.

Books

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Valatin, John 1918 births 1978 deaths 20th-century British physicists 20th-century Hungarian physicists Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom Academics of Queen Mary University of London Budapest University of Technology and Economics alumni