Pierre Hohenberg

Pierre C. Hohenberg ( born October 3, 1934 in Neuilly -sur- Seine) is an American theoretical physicist who works primarily in the field of statistical mechanics.

Hohenberg studied at Harvard, where he ( after a stay 1956/57, at the Ecole Normale Superieure ) 1958 his master's degree in 1956 made ​​his bachelor and doctorate and 1962. After that, he was 1962/3 at the Institute for Physical Problems in Moscow and at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. 1964 to 1995 he was with Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, from 1985 to 1989 there head of the Department of Theoretical Physics and 1989-1995 "Distinguished Member of Technical Staff ". At the same time, he was from 1974 to 1977 professor of theoretical physics at the Technical University of Munich, where he was 1972/3 Visiting Professor. 1995-2003 he was "Deputy Provost for Science and Technology " at Yale University. Since then, he's there, " Eugene Higgins Adjunct Professor of Physics and Applied Physics". Hohenberg was also 1983/4 and 1988 again visiting professor in Paris and 1990/ 1991 as Lorentz Professor in Leiden. In 2004, he became Senior Vice Provost of Research at New York University.

Hohenberg is also politically active in 1983, he was Chairman of the Committee of the APS for the freedom of scientists and 1992/ 3 in an APS Committee for the support of scientists in the former Soviet Union; 1984 to 1996 he was in the Committee for Human Rights of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Hohenberg is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences ( since 1989), the New York Academy of Sciences. In 1990 he received the Fritz London Memorial Prize, 1999, the Max Planck Medal and the 2003 Lars Onsager Prize of the APS -.

Hohenberg formulated in 1964 with Walter Kohn, the Hohenberg- Kohn theorem in the course of their work on density functional theory. He was known especially for his studies of the theory of dynamic (ie time-varying ) critical phenomena near phase transitions in the 1960s and 1970s. He worked there with Bertrand Halperin and Ernest Ma together in the application of the method of the renormalization group. He also worked on hydrodynamic instabilities ( with JB Swift) and pattern formation in non-equilibrium systems. Regardless of Mermin and Wagner 1967 he proved the impossibility of the spontaneous breaking of continuous symmetries in one and two dimensions.