Mathematicians Who Became Physicists

[anonca]

I know of mainly two famous physicists who came from a distinguishly mathematical background:
Freeman Dyson
Roger Penrose

I'm sure there have been many, many, many others, so could anyone name me some more physicists who came from a mathematics background?

 

[dipole]

Neumann, although some might not agree he was a physicist.

 

[fourier jr]

where do you draw the line anyway? Hilbert did some work on general relativity & I think kinetic theory of gases.

 

[epenguin]

Fourier should come into this somehow?

 

[lisab]

Fourier should come into this somehow?

Yes, he has his place in the series.

 

[collinsmark]

Or engineers developing mathematics such as Harry Nyquist.

People shouldn't necessarily be pegged as one thing or another. One can do mathematics, physics, or engineering, depending what hat one wants to wear at at the time. No individual has to exclusively choose a single one at the expense of the others.

 

[AnTiFreeze3]

Yes, he has his place in the series.

I'm responding simply because I think this post is worthy of recognition.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I'm responding simply because I think this post is worthy of recognition.

I'll second that.

 

[turbo]

Or engineers developing mathematics such as Harry Nyquist.

People shouldn't necessarily be pegged as one thing or another. One can do mathematics, physics, or engineering, depending what hat one wants to wear at at the time. No individual has to exclusively choose a single one at the expense of the others.

True. People can often be recognized for their work that some might feel is "outside their field". That's OK.

 

[S_Happens]

Or engineers developing mathematics such as Harry Nyquist.

People shouldn't necessarily be pegged as one thing or another. One can do mathematics, physics, or engineering, depending what hat one wants to wear at at the time. No individual has to exclusively choose a single one at the expense of the others.

To further expound on this, I was going to use Josiah Willard Gibbs as an example. He was awarded the first PhD in engineering in America, and contributed quite impressively (understatement) to many other fields.

 

[atyy]

Newton - calculus, laws of motion, gravity
Lagrange - calculus of variations, Lagrangian formulation of mechanics
Hamilton - quaternions, Hamiltonian formulation of mechanics
Poincare - topology, symmetries of electrodynamics, stability of solar system
Kolmogorov, Arnold, Moser - stability of solar system
Ruelle, Takens - strange attractor, turbulence
Elie Cartan - differential geometry, general relativity
Birkhoff - ergodic theory, general relativity
Goedel - logic, general relativity
Yau - differential geometry, positive energy theorem
Arthur Jaffe - quantum field theory
Barry Simon - quantum field theory
Tadeusz Balaban - Yang-Mills theory
Peter Shor - quantum computation
Michael Freedman - topology, topological quantum computation
Andrew Hodges - twistors
John Baez - spin foams
Kevin Costello - quantum field theory