Mitchell Feigenbaum

Mitchell Jay Feigenbaum ( born December 19, 1944 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American physicist and pioneer of chaos theory. He is considered the discoverer of the universality of period doubling.

Life

Feigenbaum was born as the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland and Ukraine and grew up in Brooklyn, New York City. His father Abraham Joseph Feigenbaum was a chemist and his mother Mildred Sugar teacher. He attended Samuel J. Tilden High School and the City College of New York, where he studied electrical engineering in the years 1960-1964. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970, he received his doctorate for his work in the field of elementary particle physics. The following four years were spent Feigenbaum very unsuccessful at Cornell University and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute ( 1972-1974 ). Unsuccessful because he did not bring the necessary publications for young scientists. When asked his supervisor what had with a particular problem, he replied " Oh, I understand it. "

In 1974 joined fig tree by the Los Alamos National Laboratory and examined turbulence, especially in liquids. The research group in which he worked, could find no explanatory theory in this area, however, took advantage of this fig tree research to the study of chaotic functions.

Many mathematical functions, which a single linear parameter is based, point seemingly random patterns, also known as chaos, if the parameter is within a specific range. If the parameter is approaching this area, the function will show a branch or bifurcation at certain values ​​of the parameter. Initially there is only one stable point, then the function oscillates between two points, and later four and so on. In 1975 discovered fig tree, with the help of his HP -65 ( the first programmable pocket calculator) that the ratio of the difference between the values ​​of successive period doublings has a constant of 4.6692016090. He was then able to provide the mathematical proof for this phenomenon, and showed that a large number of mathematical functions exhibit the same behavior and the same constant just before the entrance of chaos. With the help of this universal constant, it was possible for the first time researchers to investigate the random appearing behavior of chaotic systems. Today it is known as Feigenbaum 's constant.

Fig tree lined remain responsible for the introduction of new fractal methods in cartography, which made it possible to draw scalable maps of coastlines, boundary curves and mountain ranges with the aid of computers.

In 1982 he became a professor at Cornell University, was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1983 and the 1986 Wolf Prize in Physics together with Albert Libchaber and 1987, the Dickson Prize in Science. He is since 1986 professor at Rockefeller University and director of the Center for Studies in Physics and Biology.

1978 and 1984 he was at the Institute for Advanced Study and in 1980/81 at the IHES.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1988 ), the American Physical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1987). In 1984 he was MacArthur Fellow.

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