Description
Book SynopsisThis volume contains the collected works of the eminent chemist and physicist Lars Onsager, one of the most influential scientists of the 20th Century.The volume includes Onsager's previously unpublished PhD thesis, a biography by H C Longuet-Higgins and M E Fisher, an autobiographical commentary, selected photographs, and a list of Onsager discussion remarks in print.Onsager's scientific achievements were characterized by deep insights into the natural sciences. His two best-known accomplishments are his reciprocal relations for irreversible processes, for which he received the 1968 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and his explicit solution of the two-dimensional Ising model, a mathematical tour de force that created a sensation when it appeared. In addition, he made significant theoretical contributions to other fields, including electrolytes, colloids, superconductivity, turbulence, ice, electrons in metals, and dielectrics.In this volume, Onsager's contributions are divided into the following fields: irreversible processes; the Ising model; electrolytes; colloids; helium II and vortex quantization; off-diagonal long-range order and flux quantization; electrons in metal; turbulence; ion recombination; fluctuation theory; dielectrics; ice and water; biology; Mathieu functions. The different fields are evaluated by leading experts. The commentators are P W Anderson, R Askey, A Chorin, C Domb, R J Donnelly, W Ebeling, J-C Justice, H N W Lekkerkerker, P Mazur, H P McKean, J F Nagle, T Odijk, A B Pippard, G Stell, G H Weiss, and C N Yang.
Table of ContentsReport on a revision of the conduction theory; on the theory of isotope separation by thermal diffusion; Bose-Einstein condensation and liquid helium; asymptotic forms for luminescent intensity due to donor-acceptor pair recombination; electrical properties of ice; the surface tension of Debye-Huckel electrolytes; electric effects during condensation and phase transitions of ice; theories of concentrated electrolytes; activity coefficients and mass-action law in electrolytes; the general conductance equation; electric moments of molecules in liquids; the motion of ions - principles and concepts; possible mechanisms of ion transit; ferroelectricity of ice?; ion passages in lipid bilayers; and other papers.
