Eugene Paul Gross (27 June 1926 – 19 January 1991) was a theoretical

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 ...

and Edward and Gertrude Swartz

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

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , ...

, known for his contribution to the Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook (BGK) collision model used in the

Boltzmann equation The Boltzmann equation or Boltzmann transport equation (BTE) describes the statistical behaviour of a thermodynamic system not in a state of equilibrium, devised by Ludwig Boltzmann in 1872.Encyclopaedia of Physics (2nd Edition), R. G. Lerne ...

and in

lattice Boltzmann methods The lattice Boltzmann methods (LBM), originated from the lattice gas automata (LGA) method (Hardy- Pomeau-Pazzis and Frisch- Hasslacher- Pomeau models), is a class of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods for fluid simulation. Instead of sol ...

and to the

Gross–Pitaevskii equation The Gross–Pitaevskii equation (GPE, named after Eugene P. Gross and Lev Petrovich Pitaevskii) describes the ground state of a quantum system of identical bosons using the Hartree–Fock approximation and the pseudopotential interaction model. ...

which describes the ground state of a quantum system of identical

boson In particle physics, a boson ( ) is a subatomic particle whose spin quantum number has an integer value (0,1,2 ...). Bosons form one of the two fundamental classes of subatomic particle, the other being fermions, which have odd half-integer spi ...

Education and work

Gross obtained his Ph.D. at

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

in 1948, where he was one of the first graduate students of

David Bohm David Joseph Bohm (; 20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992) was an American-Brazilian-British scientist who has been described as one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th centuryPeat 1997, pp. 316-317 and who contributed ...

. Gross was

Carnegie Fellow Carnegie may refer to: People *Carnegie (surname), including a list of people with the name *Clan Carnegie, a lowland Scottish clan Institutions Named for Andrew Carnegie *Carnegie Building (Troy, New York), on the campus of Rensselaer Polytec ...

at Harvard from 1948 to 1949 and research associate 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 1950 to 1951. Subsequently, until 1954, he was a staff member at the Laboratory for Insulation Research and from 1954 to 1956 assistant professor at Syracuse University. In 1956 Gross was appointed associate professor at Brandeis University, where he became full professor in 1961. From 1963 to 1964 he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Rome in Italy, and from 1969 to 1970 visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He held the Edward and Gertrude Swartz chair of Theoretical Physics since 1976 and chaired Brandeis University's Department of Physics from 1977 to 1979. With Prabhu L. Bhatnagar and Max Krook, Gross introduced the

Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook operator The Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook operator (abbreviated BGK operator) term refers to a collision operator used in the Boltzmann equation and in the lattice Boltzmann method, a computational fluid dynamics technique. It is given by the following fo ...

in a paper in Physical Review in 1954. In 1961 Gross and separately Lev Pitaevskii presented what is now known as the

. His fields of research pertained to quantum liquids, plasmas,

solids Solid is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being liquid, gas, and plasma). The molecules in a solid are closely packed together and contain the least amount of kinetic energy. A solid is characterized by structural ...

liquid helium Liquid helium is a physical state of helium at very low temperatures at standard atmospheric pressures. Liquid helium may show superfluidity. At standard pressure, the chemical element helium exists in a liquid form only at the extremely low temp ...

and the kinetic theory of gases. Gross published over 80 scientific articles, including work with Bohm published 1949/1950 and work with P. L. Bhatnagar and M. Krook of 1954.

Education and work

References

Further reading