Itamar Procaccia (( he, איתמר פרוקצ'יה); born September 29, 1949 in Tel Aviv) is an Israeli physicist and chemist who has made contributions to areas in statistical physics, nonlinear dynamics, soft matter, and turbulence. Procaccia studied chemistry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem with and obtained a bachelor's degree in 1973 and obtained a doctorate in theoretical chemistry in 1976. From 1977 to 1979, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since 1979 he has been at the Weizmann Institute, where he became a professor in 1985. With

Peter Grassberger Peter Grassberger (born 17 May 1940) is a retired professor who worked in statistical and particle physics. He made contributions to chaos theory, where he introduced the idea of correlation dimension, a means of measuring a type of fractal dime ...

, he introduced the correlation dimension as a measure of fractal dimension in 1983 (often referred to as the Grassberger–Procaccia algorithm).Grassberger ''Grassberger-Procaccia Algorithmus'', Scholarpedia
/ref> He has held guest appointments at the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

, the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques,

Nordita The Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, or NORDITA, or Nordita ( da, Nordisk Institut for Teoretisk Fysik), is an international organisation for research in theoretical physics. It was established as Nordisk Institut for Teoretisk Atomfys ...

, 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 ...

Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is a private biomedical research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and provides doctoral and postdoctoral education. It is classif ...

, the École normale supérieure de Lyon, and the University of Chicago, among others. He is a fellow of the

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 ...

, the Institute of Physics and a member of the Leopoldina and the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. In 2009 he received the

Israel Prize The Israel Prize ( he, פרס ישראל; ''pras israél'') is an award bestowed by the State of Israel, and regarded as the state's highest cultural honor. History The Israel Prize is awarded annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state cer ...

for physics. In 2017 he received the

EPS Statistical and Nonlinear Physics Prize The EPS Statistical and Nonlinear Physics Prize is a biannual award by the European Physical Society (EPS) given since 2017. Its aim is to recognize outstanding research contributions in the area of statistical physics, nonlinear physics, compl ...

Selected publications

, Itamar Procacci
Measuring the Strangeness of Strange Attractors
''Physica D'', 9, (1983), 189–208 *

, Itamar Procacci
Characterization of strange attractors
Physical Review Letters, 50, (1983), 346–349 * Thomas C. Halsey, Mogens H. Jensen, Leo P. Kadanoff, Itamar Procaccia, and Boris I. Shraiman
"Fractal measures and their singularities: The characterization of strange sets"
Physics A, 33 1141 (1986)

References

External links

Itamar Procaccia's home page at the Weizmann Institute
{{DEFAULTSORT:Procaccia, Itamar 1949 births Living people Israeli physicists Israeli chemists Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni Israel Prize in physics recipients Academic staff of Weizmann Institute of Science Fellows of the American Physical Society Fellows of the Institute of Physics