Michael Arthur Moore (born 1943) is a British physicist and

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Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

where he has worked since 1976. Moore was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

(FRS) in 1989. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:

Early life and education

Moore was born on 8 October 1943, the son of John Moore and Barbara Atkinson. He was educated at

Huddersfield New College Huddersfield New College is a former grammar school and current sixth form college located in Salendine Nook on the outskirts of Huddersfield, in the county of West Yorkshire, England. The current principal is Angela Williams. On 17 May 2016 the ...

and

Oriel College, Oxford Oriel College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford (a title formerly claimed by University College, wh ...

. Whilst at Oxford he was awarded a

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

degree in 1967 for research on

Many-body theory The many-body problem is a general name for a vast category of physical problems pertaining to the properties of microscopic systems made of many interacting particles. ''Microscopic'' here implies that quantum mechanics has to be used to provid ...

supervised by W. E. Parry.

Research and career

After his PhD he worked at the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...

. Between 1969 and 1971, he was a

research fellow A research fellow is an academic research position at a university or a similar research institution, usually for academic staff or faculty members. A research fellow may act either as an independent investigator or under the supervision of a pr ...

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the s ...

. Between 1971 and 1976, he was a lecturer in physics at the

University of Sussex , mottoeng = Be Still and Know , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £14.4 million (2020) , budget = £319.6 million (2019–20) , chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar , vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil , ...

. Moore has published many papers in statistical physics covering a wide range of topics. His early research was on the application of scaling theories to magnetic spin systems and

superfluidity Superfluidity is the characteristic property of a fluid with zero viscosity which therefore flows without any loss of kinetic energy. When stirred, a superfluid forms vortices that continue to rotate indefinitely. Superfluidity occurs in two i ...

, and contained a series of useful results on critical indices. He then applied renormalisation group ideas to polymer solutions and clarified the relationship of this approach to previous theories; a particularly interesting result concerned the retrieval of the Flory index under approximation schemes. After some work on critical behaviour on surfaces, he joined the (then) new

spin glass In condensed matter physics, a spin glass is a magnetic state characterized by randomness, besides cooperative behavior in freezing of spins at a temperature called 'freezing temperature' ''Tf''. In ferromagnetic solids, component atoms' magne ...

field, and in collaboration with Alan Bray wrote a series of important papers both on replica symmetry breaking in these systems and on their properties as revealed by computer simulation. In particular, he is associated with the droplet scaling theory of the spin glass state. In recent years, Michael has extended this work to structural glasses.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moore, Michael 1943 births Academics of the University of Manchester Alumni of Oriel College, Oxford English physicists Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford Fellows of the Royal Society Living people People educated at Huddersfield New College