James S. Langer

James S. Langer (* September 21, 1934 Pittsburgh) is an American theoretical solid state physicist.

Life

Long studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology ( Master's degree in 1955 ) and received his doctorate in 1958 with Rudolf Peierls in theoretical physics at the University of Birmingham. Then he was back at Carnegie Mellon, where he in 1964 was Assistant Professor Instructor and later a professor. From 1982 he was professor of mathematics and physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was from 1989 to 1995 director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics. Since 2007 he is a professor emeritus. 1966/67, he was a visiting professor at Cornell University.

Langer investigated the quantum-mechanical many-body theory of transport in solids ( such as power fluctuations in narrow superconducting channels with Ambegaokar 1967), Kinetics of phase transitions, pattern formation in hydrodynamics and crystal growth ( dendrites ), dynamics of earthquakes and fracture phenomena.

In 1997 he was awarded the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, of which he was vice-president from 2001 to 2005 since 1985. In 2000 he was president of the American Physical Society and he also was the Condensed -Matter department before.