Rodney James Baxter FRS

FAA The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

(born 8 February 1940 in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

) is an Australian

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 caus ...

, specialising in

statistical mechanics In physics, statistical mechanics is a mathematical framework that applies statistical methods and probability theory to large assemblies of microscopic entities. It does not assume or postulate any natural laws, but explains the macroscopic be ...

. He is well known for his work in

exactly solved model In mathematics, integrability is a property of certain dynamical systems. While there are several distinct formal definitions, informally speaking, an integrable system is a dynamical system with sufficiently many conserved quantities, or first in ...

s, in particular

vertex model A vertex model is a type of statistical mechanics model in which the Boltzmann weights are associated with a vertex in the model (representing an atom or particle). This contrasts with a nearest-neighbour model, such as the Ising model, in which th ...

s such as the six-vertex model and

eight-vertex model In statistical mechanics, the eight-vertex model is a generalisation of the ice-type (six-vertex) models; it was discussed by Sutherland, and Fan & Wu, and solved by Baxter in the zero-field case. Description As with the ice-type models, the ei ...

, and the

chiral Potts model The chiral Potts model is a spin model on a planar lattice in statistical mechanics studied by Helen Au-Yang Perk and Jacques Perk, among others. It may be viewed as a generalization of the Potts model, and as with the Potts model, the model is de ...

and

hard hexagon model In statistical mechanics, the hard hexagon model is a 2-dimensional lattice model of a gas, where particles are allowed to be on the vertices of a triangular lattice but no two particles may be adjacent. The model was solved by , who found that i ...

. A recurring theme in the solution of such models, the

Yang–Baxter equation In physics, the Yang–Baxter equation (or star–triangle relation) is a consistency equation which was first introduced in the field of statistical mechanics. It depends on the idea that in some scattering situations, particles may preserve thei ...

, also known as the "star–triangle relation", is named in his honour.

Biography

Baxter was educated at Bancroft's School and

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

(BA, MA), before relocating to the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

to complete his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

. He was among the first doctoral graduates in theoretical physics from the ANU, graduating in 1964. Then, in 1964 and 1965, he worked for the Iraq Petroleum Company. He worked as an assistant professor at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 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 ...

from 1968 until 1970, when he took up a position at the ANU, and served a term as the Head of the Department of Theoretical Physics in the Institute of Advanced Study, until he retired in 2002. He is currently the

Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

Professor of Physics. In 1984, he was awarded a

Doctor of Science Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...

by Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science,

Royal Society of London The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

, and the

Isaac Newton Institute The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences is an international research institute for mathematics and its many applications at the University of Cambridge. It is named after one of the university's most illustrious figures, the mathema ...

, where he was Royal Society Research Professor in 1992. In 1980 he was awarded the

Boltzmann Medal The Boltzmann Medal (or Boltzmann Award) is a prize awarded to physicists that obtain new results concerning statistical mechanics; it is named after the celebrated physicist Ludwig Boltzmann. The Boltzmann Medal is awarded once every three years ...

, the main recognition for research contribution concerning

. In 2006, he was awarded the Lars Onsager Prize ''"For his original and groundbreaking contributions to the field of exactly solved models in statistical mechanics, which continue to inspire profound developments in statistical physics and related fields".''

Research

Baxter gained recognition in 1971 when he used the star-triangle relation to calculate the free energy of the eight-vertex model, and went on to similarly solve the

(1980) and the

in 1988. He also developed the corner transfer matrix method for calculating the

order parameter In chemistry, thermodynamics, and other related fields, a phase transition (or phase change) is the physical process of transition between one state of a medium and another. Commonly the term is used to refer to changes among the basic states of ...

s of the eight-vertex and similar models. In 2005 he used the method of

Michio Jimbo is a Japanese mathematician working in mathematical physics and is a professor of mathematics at Rikkyo University. He is a grandson of the linguist . Career After graduating from the University of Tokyo in 1974, he studied under Mikio Sato at t ...

, Tetsuji Miwa and Nakayashiki to verify Albertini, McCoy, Perk and Tang's conjecture for the order parameter of the

. His use of the Yang–Baxter equation led to the formulation and the study of representations of the

quantum group In mathematics and theoretical physics, the term quantum group denotes one of a few different kinds of noncommutative algebras with additional structure. These include Drinfeld–Jimbo type quantum groups (which are quasitriangular Hopf algebras) ...

by Vladimir Drinfeld in the 1980s, and quantum generalisations of affine algebras, and they are

quasi-triangular Hopf algebra In mathematics, a Hopf algebra, ''H'', is quasitriangularMontgomery & Schneider (2002), p. 72 if there exists an invertible element, ''R'', of H \otimes H such that :*R \ \Delta(x)R^ = (T \circ \Delta)(x) for all x \in H, where \Delta is the copr ...

s which yield solutions of the

and provide insight into the properties of corresponding statistical models. His book, ''Exactly solved models in statistical mechanics'', has received over 4000 citations (according to Web of Science) in subsequent work in statistical mechanics and the study of quantum groups, and is used widely in teaching at universities.

Awards and honours

* Pawsey Medal, Australian Academy of Science, 1975 *

IUPAP The International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP ) is an international non-governmental organization whose mission is to assist in the worldwide development of physics, to foster international cooperation in physics, and to help in the ...

, 1980 * Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal, Australian Academy of Science, 1983 * Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics,

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

, 1987 * Harrie Massey Medal and Prize,

Australian Institute of Physics The Australian Institute of Physics was established in 1963, when it replaced the Australian Branch of the British Institute of Physics based in London.

Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, research and application. It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide membership of over 20,000. The IOP is the Physica ...

(UK), 1994 * Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, 1977 *

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 ...

of London, 1982 *

Centenary Medal The Centenary Medal is an award which was created by the Australian Government in 2001. It was established to commemorate the centenary of the Federation of Australia and to recognise "people who made a contribution to Australian society or go ...

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government i ...

, 2003 * Lars Onsager Prize,

, 2006 *

Royal Medal The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal and The King's Medal (depending on the gender of the monarch at the time of the award), is a silver-gilt medal, of which three are awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important ...

, 2013 *

Henri Poincaré Prize The Henri Poincaré Prize is awarded every three years since 1997 for exceptional achievements in mathematical physics and foundational contributions leading to new developments in the field. The prize is sponsored by the Daniel Iagolnitzer Foundat ...

, 2021

Publications

References

* V. Chari and A.N. Pressley, ''A Guide to Quantum Groups'' Cambridge University Press, 1994

External links

2006 Onsager Prize
www.physorg.com
History of theoretical physics at ANUElected FAA 1977
science.org.au
Elected FRS 1982
royalsociety.org
Royal Medal 2013
www.austms.org.au {{DEFAULTSORT:Baxter, Rodney J. 1940 births Living people Baxter Baxter Fellows of the Royal Society Royal Medal winners British emigrants to Australia