Biography: Maverick Mathematician Joe Moyal

Astronuc

I stumbled across this biography while reading about Graham Farmelo's biography of Paul Dirac.

http://epress.anu.edu.au/maverick/html/prelims.html
Maverick Mathematician
The Life and Science of J.E. Moyal


It's interesting because there is an appendix with correspondence between Moyal and Dirac.
http://epress.anu.edu.au/maverick/html/apb.html
Appendix 2. P.A.M. Dirac – J. E. Moyal: Correspondence, 1944-1946. Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science, Canberra, MS 45/3/

Appendix 3. contains his paper -Quantum Mechanics as a Statistical Theory by J.E. Moyal
Originally published in the Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, Vol. 45, 1949.

http://epress.anu.edu.au/maverick/pdf/app03.pdf
Reproduced with permission of Cambridge University Press.

Moyal was also an engineer.

marcus

Kea made significant references to Moyal when she was posting at PF. After being alerted, I kept hearing the name. Especially the "Moyal product". For some reason the people who approach quantum gravity via noncommutative geometry and noncommutative field theory often mention things going by his name. Could turn out to be important.

1910-1998. This obit emphasizes his work as an engineer.
http://www.hep.anl.gov/czachos/moyal.html