Mathematical physics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mathematical physics is the scientific discipline concerned with "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the development of mathematical methods suitable for such applications and for the formulation of physical theories"¹.

It can be seen as underpinning both theoretical physics and computational physics.

1 Prominent mathematical physicists
2 Mathematically rigorous physics
3 Notes
4 Bibliographical references
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Prominent mathematical physicists

The great 17th century mathematician and physicist Isaac Newton developed a wealth of new mathematics, in an informal way, to solve problems in physics, including calculus and several numerical methods (most notably Newton's method). James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin, William Rowan Hamilton, and J. Willard Gibbs were mathematical physicists who had a profound impact on 19th century science. Revolutionary mathematical physicists at the turn of the 20th century included the mathematician David Hilbert who devised the theory of Hilbert spaces for integral equations which would find a major application in quantum mechanics. The "very mathematical" Paul Dirac used algebraic constructions to produce a relativistic model for the electron, predicting its magnetic moment and the existence of its antiparticle, the positron. Albert Einstein's special relativity replaced the Galilean transformations of space and time with Lorentz transformations, and his general relativity replaced the flat geometry of the large scale universe by that of a Riemannian manifold, whose curvature replaced Newton's gravitational force. Other prominent mathematical physicists include Jules-Henri Poincaré, Richard Feynman, Roger Penrose, and Satyendra Nath Bose.

[edit] Mathematically rigorous physics

The term 'mathematical' physics is also sometimes used in a special sense, to distinguish research aimed at studying and solving problems inspired by physics within a mathematically rigorous framework. Mathematical physics in this sense covers a very broad area of topics with the common feature that they blend pure mathematics and physics. Although related to theoretical physics, 'mathematical' physics in this sense emphasizes the mathematical rigour of the same type as found in mathematics. On the other hand, theoretical physics emphasizes the links to observations and experimental physics which often requires theoretical physicists (and mathematical physicists in the more general sense) to use heuristic, intuitive, and approximate arguments. Such arguments are not considered rigorous by mathematicians. Arguably, rigorous mathematical physics is closer to mathematics, and theoretical physics is closer to physics.

Such mathematical physicists primarily expand and elucidate physical theories. Because of the required rigor, these researchers often deal with questions that theoretical physicists have considered to already be solved. However, they can sometimes show (but neither commonly nor easily) that the previous solution was incorrect.

The field has concentrated in three main areas: (1) quantum field theory, especially the precise construction of models; (2) statistical mechanics, especially the theory of phase transitions; and (3) nonrelativistic quantum mechanics (Schrödinger operators), including the connections to atomic and molecular physics.

The effort to put physical theories on a mathematically rigorous footing has inspired many mathematical developments. For example, the development of quantum mechanics and some aspects of functional analysis parallel each other in many ways. The mathematical study of quantum statistical mechanics has motivated results in operator algebras. The attempt to construct a rigorous quantum field theory has brought about progress in fields such as representation theory. Use of geometry and topology plays an important role in string theory. The above are just a few examples. An examination of the current research literature would undoubtedly give other such instances.

[edit] Notes

Note 1: Definition from the Journal of Mathematical Physics ^[1].

[edit] Bibliographical references

[edit] The Classics

E. T. Whittaker and G. N. Watson, A Course of Modern Analysis. Cambridge University Press, 1927.
John von Neumann, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. Princeton University Press, 1955.
Richard Courant and David Hilbert, Methods of Mathematical Physics. Vols. I and II. John Wiley & Sons, 1989.
Hermann Weyl, The Theory of Groups and Quantum Mechanics. 1931.
Philip M. Morse and Herman Feshbach, Methods of Theoretical Physics. Parts I and II. McGraw Hill, 1959.
Tosio Kato, Perturbation Theory for Linear Operators. Springer-Verlag, 1995.
Barry Simon and Michael Reed, Methods of Modern Mathematical Physics. Vol. I: Functional Analysis, Academic Press, 1972; Vol. II: Fourier Analysis, Self-Adjointness, Academic Press, 1975; Vol. III: Scattering Theory, Academic Press, 1978; Vol. IV: Analysis of Operators, Academic Press, 1977.
Rudolf Haag, Local Quantum Physics: Fields, Particles, Algebras. Springer-Verlag, 1996.
James Glimm and Arthur Jaffe, Quantum Physics: A Functional Integral Point of View. Springer-Verlag, 1987.
Stephen W. Hawking and George F. R. Ellis, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time. Cambridge University Press, 1975.
Vladimir I. Arnold, Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics. Springer-Verlag, 1997.
Ralph Abraham and Jerrold E. Marsden, Foundations of Mechanics: A Mathematical Exposition of Classical Mechanics with an Introduction to the Qualitative Theory of Dynamical Systems. Addison Wesley, 1994.

[edit] Textbooks for undergraduate studies

Eugene Butkov, Mathematical Physics. Addison Wesley, 1968.
Ivar Stakgold, Boundary Value Problems of Mathematical Physics. Vols. I and II. Macmillan, 1970.
Mary L. Boas, Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences. John Wiley & Sons, 3 ed., 2005.
George B. Arfken and Hans J. Weber, Mathematical Methods for Physicists. Academic Press, 1995

[edit] Other specialised subareas

Jamil Aslam and Faheem Hussain Mathematical Physics, Proceedings of the 12th Regional Conference, Islamabad, Pakistan, 27 March - 1 April 2006, World Scientific, Singapore, 2007. ISBN 978-981-270-591-4
P. Szekeres, A Course in Modern Mathematical Physics: Groups, Hilbert Space and differential geometry. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
J. Baez, Gauge Fields, Knots, and Gravity. World Scientific, 1994.
A. D. Polyanin and V. F. Zaitsev, Handbook of Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations, Chapman & Hall/CRC Press, Boca Raton, 2004.
A. D. Polyanin, Handbook of Linear Partial Differential Equations for Engineers and Scientists, Chapman & Hall/CRC Press, Boca Raton, 2002.
R. Geroch, Mathematical Physics. University of Chicago Press, 1985.