Predrag Cvitanović (; born April 1, 1946) is a theoretical physicist regarded for his work in
nonlinear dynamics
In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many other ...
, particularly his contributions to
periodic orbit theory.
Life
Cvitanović earned his B.S. from
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...
in 1969 and his Ph.D. at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
in 1973. Before joining the physics department at the
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...
he was the director of the Center for Chaos and Turbulence Studies of the
Niels Bohr Institute
The Niels Bohr Institute (Danish: ''Niels Bohr Institutet'') is a research institute of the University of Copenhagen. The research of the institute spans astronomy, geophysics, nanotechnology, particle physics, quantum mechanics and biophysics. ...
in Copenhagen.
Cvitanović is a member of the
Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
{{Infobox organization
, name = The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
, full_name =
, native_name = Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab
, native_name_lang =
, logo = Royal ...
, a corresponding member of
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Croatica, hr, Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, abbrev. HAZU) is the national academy of Croatia.
HAZU was founded under patronage of the Croatian bishop Jo ...
, a recipient of the Research Prize of the Danish Physical Society, and a fellow of the American Physical Society.
In 2009 Cvitanović was the recipient of the prestigious Alexander von
Humboldt Prize
The Humboldt Prize, the Humboldt-Forschungspreis in German, also known as the Humboldt Research Award, is an award given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany to internationally renowned scientists and scholars who work outside of G ...
for his work in turbulence theory.
He currently holds the
Glen P. Robinson Chair in Non-Linear Science in from
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...
.
Scientific work
Perhaps his best-known work is his introduction of cycle expansions— that is, expansions based on using periodic orbit theory—to approximate chaotic dynamics in a controlled
perturbative
In quantum mechanics, perturbation theory is a set of approximation schemes directly related to mathematical perturbation for describing a complicated quantum system in terms of a simpler one. The idea is to start with a simple system for whi ...
way. This technique has proven to be widely useful for diagnosing and quantifying chaotic dynamics in problems ranging from atomic physics to neurophysiology.
This theory has been applied by Cvitanović and others to fluid turbulence. Another well-known result is the
Feigenbaum-Cvitanović functional equation.
Books
* P. Cvitanović, R. Artuso, R. Mainieri, G. Tanner and G. Vattay,
Chaos: Classical and Quantum Niels Bohr Institute
The Niels Bohr Institute (Danish: ''Niels Bohr Institutet'') is a research institute of the University of Copenhagen. The research of the institute spans astronomy, geophysics, nanotechnology, particle physics, quantum mechanics and biophysics. ...
, Copenhagen 2005
* P. Cvitanović, "Group Theory: Birdtracks, Lie's, and Exceptional Groups" Princeton University Press, Princeton 2008, available online at http://birdtracks.eu/
See also
*
E7½
In mathematics, the Lie algebra E7½ is a subalgebra of E8 containing E7 defined by Landsberg and Manivel in order
to fill the "hole" in a dimension formula for the exceptional series E''n'' of simple Lie algebras. This hole was observed by ...
*
Feigenbaum function
*
Penrose graphical notation
In mathematics and physics, Penrose graphical notation or tensor diagram notation is a (usually handwritten) visual depiction of multilinear functions or tensors proposed by Roger Penrose in 1971. A diagram in the notation consists of several sha ...
References
External links
Cvitanović's web page at Georgia TechConference in honor of Cvitanović's 60th birthdayA collection of Cvitanović's quotes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cvitanovic, Predrag
1946 births
Cornell University alumni
Living people
Georgia Tech faculty
Croatian physicists
Scientists from Zagreb
Dynamical systems theorists