Asher Peres ( he, אשר פרס; January 30, 1934 – January 1, 2005) was an Israeli

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 cau ...

. He is well known for his work relating

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistr ...

and information theory. He helped to develop the Peres–Horodecki criterion for

quantum entanglement Quantum entanglement is the phenomenon that occurs when a group of particles are generated, interact, or share spatial proximity in a way such that the quantum state of each particle of the group cannot be described independently of the state of ...

, as well as the concept of quantum teleportation, and collaborated with others on quantum information and

special relativity In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory regarding the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's original treatment, the theory is based on two postulates: # The laws ...

. He also introduced the

Peres metric In mathematical physics, the Peres metric is defined by the proper time : ^ = dt^2 - 2f(t+z, x, y) (dt+dz)^2-dx^2-dy^2-dz^2 for any arbitrary function ''f''. If ''f'' is a harmonic function with respect to ''x'' and ''y'', then the corresponding ...

and researched the

Hamilton–Jacobi–Einstein equation In general relativity, the Hamilton–Jacobi–Einstein equation (HJEE) or Einstein–Hamilton–Jacobi equation (EHJE) is an equation in the Hamiltonian formulation of geometrodynamics in superspace, cast in the "geometrodynamics era" around t ...

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...

. With Mario Feingold, he published work in

quantum chaos Quantum chaos is a branch of physics which studies how chaotic classical dynamical systems can be described in terms of quantum theory. The primary question that quantum chaos seeks to answer is: "What is the relationship between quantum mech ...

that is known to mathematicians as the Feingold–Peres conjecture and to physicists as the Feingold–Peres theory.

Life

According to his autobiography, he was born ''Aristide Pressman'' in

Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne (, literally ''Beaulieu on Dordogne''; oc, Belluec) is a commune in the Corrèze department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, central France. Beaulieu is a medieval city, originally dominated by its great abbey of St Pie ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, where his father, a Polish electrical engineer, had found work laying down power lines. He was given the name ''Aristide'' at birth, because the name his parents wanted, ''Asher'', the name of his maternal grandfather, was not on the list of permissible French given names. When he went to live in Israel, he changed his first name to ''Asher'' and, as was common among immigrants, changed his family name to the Hebrew ''Peres'', which he used for the rest of his life. Peres obtained his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in 1959 at

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology ( he, הטכניון – מכון טכנולוגי לישראל) is a public research university located in Haifa, Israel. Established in 1912 under the dominion of the Ottoman Empire, the Technion ...

under

Nathan Rosen Nathan Rosen (Hebrew: נתן רוזן; March 22, 1909 – December 18, 1995) was an American-Israeli physicist noted for his study on the structure of the hydrogen atom and his work with Albert Einstein and Boris Podolsky on entangled wave functio ...

. Peres spent most of his academic career at Technion, where in 1988 he was appointed distinguished professor of physics. He died in

Haifa, Israel Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

''Quantum Theory'' textbook

He authored a textbook, '' Quantum Theory: Concepts and Methods,'' of which he wrote, :The purpose of this book is to clarify the ''conceptual meaning'' of quantum theory, and to explain some of the mathematical methods that it utilizes. This text is not concerned with specialized topics such as atomic structure, or strong or weak interactions, but with the very foundations of the theory. This is not, however, a book on the

philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ult ...

. The approach is pragmatic and strictly instrumentalist. This attitude will undoubtedly antagonize some readers, but it has its own logic: quantum phenomena do not occur in a Hilbert space, they occur in a laboratory.

N. David Mermin Nathaniel David Mermin (; born 30 March 1935) is a solid-state physicist at Cornell University best known for the eponymous Mermin–Wagner theorem, his application of the term " boojum" to superfluidity, his textbook with Neil Ashcroft on sol ...

called the book "a treasure trove of novel perspectives on quantum mechanics" and said that Peres' choice of topics is "a catalogue of common omissions" from other approaches. Among its substantial discussion of the failure of

hidden variable theories In physics, hidden-variable theories are proposals to provide explanations of quantum mechanical phenomena through the introduction of (possibly unobservable) hypothetical entities. The existence of fundamental indeterminacy for some measurem ...

, the book includes a FORTRAN program for testing whether a list of

vector Vector most often refers to: *Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction *Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism Vector may also refer to: Mathematic ...

s forms a Kochen–Specker configuration.

Michael Nielsen Michael Aaron Nielsen (born January 4, 1974) is a quantum physicist, science writer, and computer programming researcher living in San Francisco. Work In 1998, Nielsen received his PhD in physics from the University of New Mexico. In 2004, he w ...

wrote of the textbook, "Revelation! Suddenly, all the key results of 30 years of work (several of those results due to Asher) were distilled into beautiful and simple explanations." Peres downplayed the importance of the

uncertainty principle In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle (also known as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the accuracy with which the values for certain pairs of physic ...

, giving it only a single mention in his index, which points to that same page of the index.

Views on the EPR paradox

Peres claimed that the resolution to the

Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox The Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR) paradox is a thought experiment proposed by physicists Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, with which they argued that the description of physical reality provided by quantum mechanics was inco ...

, often called "spooky action at a distance", lies in the fact that quantum states are information. Peres wrote, "Information is not just an abstract notion. It requires a physical carrier, and the latter is (approximately) ''localized.'' After all, it was the business of the Bell Telephone Company to transport information from one telephone to another telephone, in a different location. ..When Alice measures her spin, the information she gets is localized at her position, and will remain so until she decides to broadcast it. Absolutely ''nothing'' happens at Bob's location. ..It is only when Alice informs Bob of the result she got (by mail, telephone, radio, or by means other than material carrier, which is naturally restricted to the

speed of light The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted , is a universal physical constant that is important in many areas of physics. The speed of light is exactly equal to ). According to the special theory of relativity, is the upper limit ...

) that Bob realizes that his particle has a definite pure state."

References

External links

''List of publications'' Foundations of Physics, 36 157-173 (2006)

(obituary by his students).
L. Peres Hari: ''Asher Peres, 1943-2005''
(obituary by his daughter). * {{DEFAULTSORT:Peres, Asher 1934 births 2005 deaths Israeli physicists Jewish scientists Technion – Israel Institute of Technology faculty Israeli Jews Jewish physicists Israeli people of Polish-Jewish descent