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The 1999 Heineman Prize Address

Integrable models in statistical mechanics:
The hidden field with unsolved problems




Barry M. McCoy




Institute for Theoretical Physics
State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3840

Abstract:

In the past 30 years there have been extensive discoveries in the theory of integrable statistical mechanical models including the discovery of non-linear differential equations for Ising model correlation functions, the theory of random impurities, level crossing transitions in the chiral Potts model and the use of Rogers-Ramanujan identities to generalize our concepts of Bose/Fermi statistics. Each of these advances has led to the further discovery of major unsolved problems of great mathematical and physical interest. I will here discuss the mathematical advances, the physical insights and extraordinary lack of visibility of this field of physics.



 

Barry McCoy
3/29/1999