[Virtual Physics]

number 06.            July 15, 1996

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a forum for virtual meetings of scientists and students involved in a research activity on:
THE SOLID STATE PHYSICS AND SUPERCONDUCTIVITY

Editors:
Marcel Ausloos, ausloos@gw.unipc.ulg.ac.be, Institut de Physique, Université de Liège, Belgium,
Zbigniew J.Koziol, (Editor-in-Chief) webex@ra.isisnet.com, WebExperts Inc., Canada
Michal Spalinski, Michal.Spalinski@fuw.edu.pl, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Warsaw University, Poland
Copyright (C) 1996 by Zbigniew Koziol.
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IN THIS ISSUE:

Letter from the Editor
Ising - physicist and teacher, by Sigismund Kobe
Summer School on Superconductivity in Networks: First Announcement
First Step to Nobel Prize in Physics: Statistics'96

____________________________________________________________

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Dear Readers of Virtual Physics,

Let me have a pleasure to welcome all students and scientists willing to receive our electronic journal. Except of those who expressed explicitly their interest in Virtual Physics, e-mail addresses of several new persons have been added by me to the mailing list. I do believe that our work will become interesting to you and all of you will wish to participate actively in the form of exchanging the information, as proposed by us.

We are very happy that Virtual Physics gains popularity and respect within the community of physicists. We will continue to improve the quality of our work by searching for more contacts and cooperation.

I am proud to announce that Dr. Marcel Ausloos from Université de Liège in Belgium offered his time, work and advice to Virtual Physics by joining the team of Editors. Dr. Ausloos's expertise in numerous fields of theoretical condensed matter physics and statistical physics is a valuable asset for us. His well-known role in the research community working on the properties of high-Tc superconductors and his desire for strengthening electronic communication will certainly help us to find out our own place on the internet publishing landscape.

In this issue, we present a very nice biographical article devoted to Ernst Ising, written by Professor Sigismund Kobe. Physics is done by people whose lives are placed in a variable, complex environment determined by historical events, culture, traditions and politics. Still, we are all starving for the dominance in science of universal values of the humanity which are essential not for the preserving rational understanding of the nature only but for smooth and justfull changes of the world we live in. I am very glad that, thanks to Professor Kobe, I can share with you this history of a physicist whose work belongs to the best known achievements of statistical physics.

Sincerely yours,
Zbigniew Koziol

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Ising - physicist and teacher
S. Kobe

Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technische Universität Dresden, D-01062 Dresden, Germany

Reprinted with the permission; published in: Actas: Noveno Taller Sur de Fisica del Solido, Misión Boroa, Chile, 26-29 April 1995 (Universidad de la Frontera, Temuco, Chile, 1995), p. 1.

A PostScript version is available at LANL server
The Ising model is one of the standard models in statistical physics. Since 1969 more than 12000 publications appeared using this model. In 1996 Ernst Ising celebrated his 96th birthday. Some biographical notes and milestones of the development of the Ising model are given.

Ernst Ising was born on May 10, 1900 in Köln (Cologne, Germany), the son of the merchant Gustav Ising and his wife Thekla, nee Löwe. The family moved to Bochum (Westfall). Ernst Ising completed the Gymnasium in Bochum in 1918. Shortly after that he had to do a brief military training. In 1919 he started studying mathematics and physics at the University of Göttingen and continued his studies in Bonn and Hamburg. In Hamburg Wilhelm Lenz (1888 - 1957) suggested to Ising to turn to theoretical physics. Under his guidance he began investigating a model of ferromagnetism which was introduced by his supervisor in 1920 [1]. In his dissertation (1924) Ising studied the special case of a linear chain of magnetic moments, which are only able to take two positions ''up'' and ''down'' and which are coupled by interactions between nearest neighbours. He showed that spontaneous magnetization cannot be explained using this model in its one-dimensional version [2].

After receiving his doctor's degree Ising went to Berlin and worked from 1925 to 1926 in the patent office of the Allgemeine Elektrizitätsgesell-schaft (AEG). He was not satisfied with this job and decided to become a teacher. For a year he worked at the famous boarding school in Salem in South-Baden (near the lake Constance). In 1928 he returned to Berlin University to study philosophy and pedagogy. In 1930 he passed the state examinations before the school board in higher education. In the same year he married Johanna Ehmer, a doctor of economy. The couple went to Strausberg near Berlin, where Ernst Ising got a teaching position at a high school as ''Studienassessor" (in Germany a holder of a higher civil service post, who has passed the necessary examinations but has not yet completed his probationary period). Later he was tranferred to Crossen on the river Oder (now: Krosno in Poland) to fill in for an ill colleague.

Just after Hitler came to power in January 1933, Jewish citizens were dismissed from their jobs as civil servants. Consequently, Ernst Ising lost his position on March 31st, 1933. For one year he was unemployed, except for a short stay in Paris at a school for emigrant children. In 1934 he found a new job as a teacher at a boarding school for Jewish children in Caputh near Potsdam. This school was founded by the progressive social educationalist Gertrud Feiertag (1890 - 1942?). The number of students increased in the following years, because Jewish children had been dismissed from public schools. In 1937 Ising became the headmaster of this school. In this position on November 10, 1938 he experienced the devastation of his school building by incited inhabitants and children of the village as part of the great pogrom against the Jewish population in Germany.

In the beginning of the year 1939 Ernst and Johanna Ising traveled to Luxembourg with the plan to emigrate to the United States of America. But at that time there was a quota of immigration to the U.S.A. and so it was impossible for them to fulfil their plan. On Ising's fortieth birthday the German army occupied Luxembourg. The U.S. consulates were closed just before the waiting time for emigration was over. Ising and his family survived the war. From April 1943 until the liberation in 1944, he was forced to work for the German army.

Two years after the end of the war Ising left Europe on board a freighter to the U.S.A. He got a job as a teacher at the State Teacher's College in Minot (N.D.). From 1948 till 1976 he was Professor of Physics at the Bradley University Peoria (Il.), earned the Honorary Doctor's degree of this university in 1968 and was named "Outstanding Teacher of the Year 1971". Since 1953 Ernest Ising is U.S. citizen. After his retirement he traveled a lot and visited many countries all over the world.


Now Ising lives in Peoria. Recently he celebrated many jubilees, among them were the 70th anniversaries of his doctor's degree, the appearance of his publication [2], his 96th birthday, and his iron wedding anniversary.

[ERNEST ISING ]

ERNEST ISING



Photograph taken in the Library of the Departments of Natural Sciences, Bradley University, Peoria(Il.) on 11 March, 1996.

Ising became aware of the first citation of his paper by Heisenberg [3], who introduced the quantum mechanical exchange interaction to describe ferromagnetism. Later Ising was completely shut off from scientific life and communication for a long time. It was not until 1949 that Ising found out from the scientific literature that his paper had become widely known. The main drive for calling the model "Ising model" seems to stem from R. Peierls' publication "On Ising's Model of Ferromagnetism" [4]. He argued that spontaneous magnetization must exist, but his proof was not quite rigorous. This was shown later by N.G. van Kampen, M.E. Fisher, S. Sherman and others, cf. [5], [6]. Further history of the model is characterized by the search for the phase transition between the ferromagnetic and the paramagnetic state, cf. [5]. The actual breakthrough came from the findings of various authors [7]-[9] which say that a matrix representation of the problem can be introduced in such a way that the partition function can be related to the largest eigenvalue of this matrix. Kramers and Wannier [7] have calculated the numerical value for the Curie temperature of the two-dimensional version of the Ising model, whereas the exact and complete solution was first given by Onsager [10].

Today the Ising model is a widely used standard model of statistical physics. Every year 700 - 900 papers which apply this model are published; problems regarding neural networks, protein folding, biological membranes, social imitation and frustration are among them.

In this contribution some biographical notes on the life and work of E. Ising are given and the early history of the Ising model is mentioned. Further biographical sources can be found in [5], [11]-[16].

Acknowledgements

I am deeply indebted to J. Ising for letting me have and use her unpublished memoirs [16]. I thank M. Suzuki for drawing my attention to Kubo's paper [9].

The author is indebted to K. Puech for the critical reading of the manuscript.

References

[1] W. Lenz, Phys. Zeitschrift 21 (1920) 613.
[2] E. Ising, Zeitschrift f. Physik 31 (1925) 253.
[3] W. Heisenberg, Zeitschrift f. Physik 49 (1928) 619.
[4] R. Peierls, Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc. 32 (1936) 477.
[5] S. G. Brush, Rev. Mod. Phys. 39 (1967) 883.
[6] R. B. Griffiths, Phys. Rev. 136 (1964) A437.
[7] H. A. Kramers and G. H. Wannier, Phys. Rev. 60 (1941) 252.
[8] E. Montroll, J. Chem. Phys. 9 (1941) 706; 10 (1942) 61.
[9] R. Kubo, Busseiron Kenkyu 1 (1943) 1 (in Japanese).
[10] L. Onsager, Phys. Rev. 65 (1944) 117.
[11] L. Fry , The Isings: A 20th Century Couple, (Hilltopics, Bradley University, Peoria, 1991).
[12] H. Feidel-Mertz and A. Paetz, Einverlorenes Paradies, (dipa, Frankfurt/M., 1994), in German.
[13] L. M. Robinson, The Ising Model: Its Creator, Development, and Applications, preprint (1995).
[14] S. Kobe, Physikalische Blätter 51 (1995) 426 (in German).
[15] S. M. Bhattacharjee and A. Khare, Current Science (India) 96 (1995) 816.
[16] J. Ising, Walk on a Tighthrope or Paradise Lasted a Year and a Half, (1986), unpublished.

Prof. Dr. Sigismund Kobe
Institut für Theoretische Physik,
Technische Universität Dresden,
D-01062 Dresden, Germany
Tel.: +49-351-463 3861
Fax: +49-351-463 7297

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Summer School on Superconductivity in Networks:
First Announcement

Certosa di Pontignano, Siena, Italy, 7-20 September 1997

Received: July 10, 1996

SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND, AN INTRODUCTION:

The School, which is aimed at Ph.D. students and postdoc-level researchers, will offer the possibility to the students to meet in one setting various experts from different physics contexts, all relevant to the investigation of superconducting arrays: experts in the quantum field, in the classical field, in experimental domains of vortex and charge imaging, in that of simulation of complex dynamical systems, in that of lattice quantum Montecarlo, and so on, in order to provide the young attendees a broad cultural background and an up-to-date panorama of this scientifically exciting and technologically promising field of research.

Research activity in the area of "superconducting networks" requires, in fact, a solid background in both the technological domain (thin film deposition and lithography, with particular reference to the fabrication of nanostructures), and in the experimental domain (ultrasensitive experiments performed on a microscopic scale at low temperature) as well as, of course, in the theoretical and computer simulation domains. The multidisciplinarity of the subject requires a corresponding multidisciplinary background and outlook: this School aims to favour their realization.

The School, moreover, is also intended to stimulate useful scientific exchanges and to favour the creation of synergies between young and more expert technologists, experimentalists and theoreticians attending or giving the lessons.

LOCATION:

The Certosa of Pontignano (Castelnuovo Berardenga - Siena) is the Conference center of the University of Siena. It is situated in the beautiful Siena countryside, five minutes by car from the city, two hours from the Rome Airport. There are good train connections.

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE:

Carlo Giovannella (Rome Tor Vergata, IT) - Chairperson
Peter Christiansen (Lyngby, DK)
Per Delsing (Gothenburg, SE)
Colin Lambert (Lancaster, UK)
Robert Parmentier (Salerno, IT)
Niels Pedersen (Lyngby, DK)

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:

Jose' Carlos Ciria (Saragoza, SP)
Carlo Giovannella (Roma Tor Vergata, IT)
Robert Parmentier (Salerno, IT)
Luigi Moi (Siena, IT)
____________________________________________________________
Dr. C. Giovannella
Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita' di Roma "Tor Vergata"
Via della Ricerca Scientifica 1, I- 00133 Rome, Italy
Tel. +39 6 7259 4524, FAX: +39 6 202 3507
e-mail: supnet@roma2.infn.it
soon on the web: http://wwwas.roma2.infn.it/
(see Eurosup area, presently under reconstruction)

A request form for further information about the school can be found at WWW pages of Virtual Board

____________________________________________________________

First Step to Nobel Prize in Physics:
Statistics '96

An International Competition in Research Projects
for Secondary School Students

Received: June 22, 1996

See messages at the Virtual Board for more information about the competition


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|    |               |     1st FS     :     2nd FS     :     3rd FS     |    4th FS      |     Total      |
|No. |  Country      |  23 countries  :  26 countries  :  21 countries  | 25 countries   | 45 countries   |
|    |               |.................................:................|................|................|
|    |               |  P  A  R  C  I :  P  A  R  C  I :  P  A  R  C  I |  P  A  R  C  I |  P  A  R  C  I |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 1. | Algeria       |  7  0  0  1  0 : 10  0  1  1  0 :  1  0  0  1  0 |  -  -  -  -  - | 18  0  1  3  0 |
| 2. | Austria       |  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - |  1  0  0  0  0 |  1  0  0  0  0 |
| 3. | Bangladesh    |  3  0  0  0  1 :  3  0  0  0  0 :  1  0  0  0  0 |  1  0  0  0  0 |  8  0  0  0  1 |
| 4. | Belarus       |  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - :  2  0  0  0  0 |  2  0  2  0  0 |  4  0  2  0  0 |
| 5. | Belgium       |  -  -  -  -  - :  1  0  0  0  0 :  -  -  -  -  - |  -  -  -  -  - |  1  0  0  0  0 |
| 6. | Bulgaria      |  2  0  1  0  0 :  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - |  -  -  -  -  - |  2  0  1  0  0 |
| 7. | Canada        |  -  -  -  -  - :  3  0  2  0  0 :  -  -  -  -  - |  -  -  -  -  - |  3  0  2  0  0 |
| 8. | China         |  6  0  0  1  0 :  1  0  0  0  0 :  -  -  -  -  - |  7  0  1  0  0 | 14  0  1  1  0 |
| 9. | Colombia      |  2  0  0  0  0 :  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - |  -  -  -  -  - |  2  0  0  0  0 |
|10. | Cyprus        |  1  0  0  1  0 :  -  -  -  -  - :  1  0  0  1  0 |  1  0  0  0  0 |  3  0  0  2  0 |
|11. | Czechlands    |  -  -  -  -  - :  1  0  0  0  0 :  2  0  2  0  0 |  3  0  2  1  0 |  6  0  4  1  0 |
|12. | Egypt         |  -  -  -  -  - :  1  0  0  1  0 :  2  0  0  1  0 |  2  0  0  0  0 |  5  0  0  2  0 |
|13. | Ethiopia      |  -  -  -  -  - :  2  0  0  0  1 :  6  0  0  1  1 |  1  0  0  0  0 |  9  0  0  1  2 |
|14. | Great Britain |  4  1  1  0  2 :  1  0  1  0  0 :  -  -  -  -  - |  -  -  -  -  - |  5  1  2  0  2 |
|15. | Greece        | 13  0  0  4  0 : 13  1  1  2  0 :  3  0  1  1  0 |  1  0  1  0  0 | 30  1  3  7  0 |
|16. | Hungary       |  -  -  -  -  - :  1  0  0  0  0 :  -  -  -  -  - |  -  -  -  -  - |  1  0  0  0  0 |
|17. | India         | 12  0  1  0  3 :  7  0  0  1  1 : 16  0  1  5  3 |  1  0  0  0  0 | 36  0  2  6  7 |
|18. | Indonesia     |  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - :  7  0  0  2  0 |  -  -  -  -  - |  7  0  0  2  0 |
|19. | Iran          |  1  0  0  0  0 :  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - |  -  -  -  -  - |  1  0  0  0  0 |
|20. | Israel        |  -  -  -  -  - :  2  0  0  2  0 :  2  0  1  1  0 |  3  0  1  0  0 |  7  0  2  3  0 |
|21. | Italy         |  1  0  0  0  0 :  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - |  -  -  -  -  - |  1  0  0  0  0 |
|22. | Japan         |  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - |  3  0  1  0  0 |  3  0  1  0  0 | 
|23. | Jordan        |  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - |  8  0  1  1  0 |  8  0  1  1  0 | 
|24. | Kuwait        |  -  -  -  -  - :  5  0  1  0  0 :  -  -  -  -  - |  3  0  0  0  0 |  8  0  1  0  0 |
|25. | Latvia        |  -  -  -  -  - :  3  0  0  0  0 :  -  -  -  -  - |  2  0  1  0  0 |  5  0  1  0  0 |
|26. | Macedonia     |  -  -  -  -  - :  3  0  0  1  0 :  1  0  1  0  0 |  3  0  0  0  0 |  7  0  1  1  0 |
|27. | Malaysia      |  - - - - - - - : - - - - - - -  :  -  -  -  -  - |  1  0  0  1  0 |  1  0  0  1  0 |
|28. | Nigeria       | 22  0  0  0  1 :  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - |  -  -  -  -  - | 22  0  0  0  1 |
|29. | Pakistan      |  3  0  0  1  0 :  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - |  -  -  -  -  - |  3  0  0  1  0 |
|30. | Philippines   |  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - |  1  0  0  0  1 |  1  0  0  0  1 |
|31. | Poland        |  2  0  1  0  0 :  2  1  1  0  0 :  5  1  1  2  0 |  6  0  0  0  0 | 15  2  3  2  0 |
|32. | Portugal      |  -  -  -  -  - :  1  0  0  0  0 :  -  -  -  -  - |  -  -  -  -  - |  1  0  0  0  0 |
|33. | Romania       |  4  0  1  0  0 :  3  0  0  0  0 :  -  -  -  -  - |  -  -  -  -  - |  7  0  1  0  0 |
|34. | Russia        |  8  1  4  1  0 :  -  -  -  -  - :  4  1  2  0  0 |  1  0  1  0  0 | 13  2  7  1  0 |
|35. | Singapore     |  1  1  0  0  0 :  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - |  -  -  -  -  - |  1  1  0  0  0 |
|36. | Slovakia      |  8  0  0  0  1 :  1  0  0  0  1 :  -  -  -  -  - |  -  -  -  -  - |  9  0  0  0  2 |
|37. | Syria         |  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - :  1  0  0  0  0 |  -  -  -  -  - |  1  0  0  0  0 |
|38. | Sweden        |  -  -  -  -  - :  2  0  0  0  0 :  -  -  -  -  - |  -  -  -  -  - |  2  0  0  0  0 |
|39. | Switzerland   |  -  -  -  -  - :  2  2  0  0  0 :  1  1  0  0  0 |  -  -  -  -  - |  3  3  0  0  0 |
|40. | Tunisia       |  9  0  0  0  1 :  -  -  -  -  - :  4  0  0  1  0 |  1  0  0  1  0 | 14  0  0  2  1 |
|41. | Turkey        |  6  0  0  2  2 : 12  1  5  0  0 : 16  1  0  0  1 | 17  0  5  1  1 | 51  2 10  3  4 |
|42. | Ukraine       | 16  0  2  3  0 :  7  1  3  0  0 :  6  2  3  1  0 |  8  1  2  0  0 | 37  4 10  4  0 |
|43. | USA           |  1  0  1  0  0 :  1  0  0  0  0 :  -  -  -  -  - |  4  2  2  0  0 |  6  2  3  0  0 |
|44. | Vietnam       |  -  -  -  -  - :  -  -  -  -  - :  1  0  0  1  0 |  -  -  -  -  - |  1  0  0  1  0 |
|45. | Yugoslavia    |  2  0  1  0  0 :  1  1  0  0  0 :  1  0  1  0  0 |  1  0  1  0  0 |  5  1  3  0  0 |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|      TOTAL         |134  3 13 14 11 : 89  7 15  8  3 : 83  6 13 18  5 | 82  3 21  5  2 |388 19 62 45 21 |
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Notation: P - total number of papers; A - number of awards; R, C, I - numbers of honorable mentions in categories "Research papers", "Contributions" and "Instruments and devices", respectively.

Dr. Waldemar Gorzkowski
Secretary General
____________________________________________________________
Virtual Physics: a forum for virtual meetings of scientists and students involved in a research activity on THE SOLID STATE PHYSICS AND SUPERCONDUCTIVITY

Editors:

Marcel Ausloos, ausloos@gw.unipc.ulg.ac.be, Institut de Physique B5,
Université de Liège, Sart Tilman, B-4000 Liège, Belgium, tel. (+32 41) 66 37 52
Zbigniew J. Koziol (Editor-in-Chief), WebEx@ra.isisnet.com, WebExperts Inc.,
2-6032 Compton Ave., Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 1E7 Canada, tel. (902) 423 2149
Michal Spalinski, Michal.Spalinski@fuw.edu.pl, Institute of Theoretical Physics,
Warsaw University, Hoza 69, 00-681 Warsaw, Poland, tel. (+48 2) 628 3031

Virtual Physics URL address: http://www.isisnet.com/MAX/vp.html
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Copyright (C) 1996 by Zbigniew Koziol.
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