Herbert S. Green

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Herbert (Bert) Sydney Green (17 December 1920 - 16 February 1999) was a doctoral student of the Nobel Laureate Max Born at Edinburgh. As formulators of the BBGKY hierarchy, Max Born and Bert Green became co-founders of modern many-body theory. Bert Green is the "G" in "BBGKY."

He graduated with a PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 1947 with a thesis entitled, A Unitary Quantum Electrodynamics.

From 1951 till his death in 1999, Green lectured mathematical physics at the University of Adelaide, Australia.

Green is notable for his book:

H.S. Green, Information Theory and Quantum Physics: Physical Foundations for Understanding the Conscious Process, Springer, 2000, ISBN 3-540-66517-X.

In his memoirs [1], J.C. Ward wrote of Green:

"To characterize H. S. Green is impossible. I have never met any one like him. It is not that he was without talent. He had plenty, in a bizarre fashion…Green was unique in his complete disinterest in the outside world. He had absolute confidence on anything that he came up with…My duty, it appeared, was to listen with enthusiasm to every idea and to applaud at regular intervals. Even the Institute did not require this particular service. I sincerely tried for what seemed like an eternity, more likely a few weeks, to act as a responsible audience, and then gave up. Later back at the Institute, Bram Pais said to me 'I could have told you about Green.' He then described how Wolfgang Pauli had once entered his office quivering… 'For heavens sake'…said Pauli…'protect me from that green monster'."

[edit] References

Peter Szekeres, "Mathematical physics at The University of Adelaide," Report on Mathematical Physics, 57(1), 2006, pp. 3-11.
Angus Hurst, "Herbert Sydney Green 1920-1999," Historical Records of Australian Science, 13(3), 2000, pp. 301-322.