Genealogy of theoretical physicists

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It is possible to build an academic genealogy of researchers and scholars in theoretical physics by following the pedigree of their thesis advisors. If an advisor did not exist, or if the field of physics is different, a link can be constructed by using the university the physicist graduated from.

Conventions in this page:

  • "Italic" tells us that the subtree for this name appears in some other place in the tree.
  • If the PhD date and school is known, it is listed in parenthesis.
  • Bold typeface is used for Nobel prizes, although it may be preferable to add a notation instead, for typographic reasons.

Please add to this list, using the following format:

  • [[Full Name]] (school, year of PhD) Other notes. [http....url.where.verifying.information.may.be.found]

The emphasis is on trees containing at least one Nobel Prize in Physics, Fields Medal, or similar merit. Other trees can be built in the Talk:Genealogy_of_Theoretical_Physicists section.

If physicists are advised by mathematicians, their genealogy can be readily traced using the Mathematics Genealogy Project.

Contents

[edit] Founding Fathers

  • Lev Landau (Leningrad U, 1927)
    • Boris L. Ioffe
      • Mikhail A. Shifman

[edit] Mayflower branches, (i.e. North America), and other

  • R. D. Present
    • Frederick Reines (New York U. 1944)
      • William R. Kropp (Case Western Reserve, 1964)
      • Frank A. Nezrick (Case Western Reserve, 1965)
  • Hideki Yukawa (Kyoto, 1938, K Tamaki )
    • Donald R. Yennie
      • Stanley J. Brodsky (Minnesota, 1964)

[edit] Ancient lineages

The Born tree leads to Gauß and then to Otto Mencke.

The Sommerfeld tree leads to Felix Klein and then to Otto Mencke (via Gauß) and Leibnitz. The Leibnitz heritage, although, is due to premature dead of Klein's advisor, Plücker, which forced a second supervisor for the final examination, namely Rudolf Lipschitz.

Another impressive advisor line in continental Europe descends from Leibnitz via among others, Poisson, Lagrange, the Bernoulli's, and Euler.

The main American branch's lineage proceeds via von Helmholtz to de Volder (Leiden, 1643-1709).

  • Otto Mencke (a Epicurus scholar, colleague of Leibnitz)
    • Johann Wichmannshausen
      • Christian Hausen (see http://www.math.vt.edu/people/renardym/comments.html )
        • Abraham Kaestner
          • Georg Lichtenberg
            • Heinrich Wilhelm Brandes (also advised by Kaestner)
          • Johann Pfaff de ortibus et occasibus siderum
            • Carl Gauß
              • Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel
                • Heinrich Scherk (also advised by Heinrich Brandes)
                  • Ernst Kummer
              • Christoph Gudermann
                • Karl Weierstraß (honorary degree, no PhD)
                  • Carl Runge (also advised by Ernst Kummer)
                    • Max Born
              • Christian Gerling ..ad calculos parallacticos facilitandos explicavit simulque eclipsin solarem die .
                • Julius Plücker ... quae geometriae altioris et mechanicae basis et fundamenta sunt e serie Tayloria deducit
                  • C. Felix Klein (also advised by Rudolf Lipschitz the last year)
                    • C. L. Ferdinand Lindemann 1873, Erlangen,
                      • Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld Die willkürlichen Functionen in der mathematischen Physik Universität Königsberg 1891
                      • David Hilbert Universität Königsberg 1885
                      • Martin Kutta München 1900
                      • Hermann Minkowski Königsberg 1885
  • Erhard Weigel (Leipzig 1650) De ascensionibus et descensionibus astronomicis dissertatio
    • Gottfried Leibniz (also Schwendendoerffer -law- and Thomasius -phyl- and Huygens)
      • Jacob Bernoulli (distant, via mail)
        • Johann Bernoulli
          • Leonhard Euler
            • Joseph Lagrange (distant, via mail. Also Beccaria)
              • Jean-Baptiste Fourier
                • Gustav Dirichlet
              • Simeon Poisson
                • Gustav Dirichlet
                  • Leopold Kronecker (also advised by Johann Encke, a disciple of Gauss)
                  • Rudolf Lipschitz
                    • C. Felix Klein
                • Michel Chasles
                  • Gaston Darboux

[edit] See also

[edit] External links and sources

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