Yakir Aharonov

Israeli physicist (born 1932) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yakir Aharonov

Yakir Aharonov ForMemRS (Hebrew: יקיר אהרונוב; born August 28, 1932)[1] is an Israeli physicist specializing in quantum physics. He has been a Professor of Theoretical Physics and the James J. Farley Professor of Natural Philosophy at Chapman University in California since 2008.[2] He was a distinguished professor in the Perimeter Institute between 2009-2012[3][4] and is a professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University and at University of South Carolina. He is president of the IYAR, The Israeli Institute for Advanced Research.[5]

In June 2024 he was elected to serve in the Royal Society of London.6

Biography

Yakir Aharonov was born in Haifa. He received his undergraduate education at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, graduating with a BSc in 1956. He continued his graduate studies at the Technion and then moved to Bristol University, UK together with his doctoral advisor David Bohm, receiving a Ph.D. degree in 1960. Aharonov later taught at the Brandeis University from 1960 to 1961 and the Yeshiva University from 1964 to 1967, both in the United States.[2]

Married to Nily, an educational psychologist, and father of two. His brother, Dov Aharonov, is a professor emeritus at the Faculty of Mathematics at the Technion, and his niece, Dorit Aharonov, is a professor at the School of Engineering and Computer Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Academic career

Summarize
Perspective

His research interests are nonlocal and topological effects in quantum mechanics, quantum field theories and interpretations of quantum mechanics. In 1959, he and David Bohm proposed the Aharonov–Bohm effect[6] for which he co-received the 1998 Wolf Prize.[7]

In 1988, Aharonov, David Albert, and Lev Vaidman published their theory of weak values.[8] This work was motivated by Aharonov's long-time quest to experimentally verify his theory that apparently random events in quantum mechanics are caused by events in the future (two-state vector formalism). Verifying a present effect of a future cause requires a measurement, which would ordinarily destroy coherence and ruin the experiment. He and his colleagues claim that they were able to use weak measurements and verify the present effect of the future cause.[9] Working with Aharon Casher, they predicted the Aharonov–Casher effect, the electrodynamic dual of the Aharonov–Bohm effect with magnetic dipoles and charges.[2]

Timeline

Awards and recognition

See also

References

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