David Pines

David Pines (June 8, 1924 May 3, 2018) was the founding director of the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter (ICAM) and the International Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter (I2CAM) (respectively, United States-wide and international institutions dedicated to research in and the understanding of emergent phenomena), distinguished professor of physics, University of California, Davis, research professor of physics and professor emeritus of physics and electrical and computer engineering in the Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC), and a staff member in the office of the Materials, Physics, and Applications Division at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
His seminal contributions to the theory of many-body systems and to theoretical astrophysics were recognized by two Guggenheim Fellowships, the Feenberg Medal, the Edward A. Frieman Prize for Excellence in Graduate Student Research, Dirac and Drucker prizes, and by his election to the National Academy of Sciences, American Philosophical Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences, and Hungarian Academy of Sciences and visiting professorships at the California Institute of Technology, College de France, Trinity College, Cambridge, University of Leiden, and the Université de Paris.
He was the founding director of the Center for Advanced Study, UIUC (1968–70), was vice-president of the Aspen Center for Physics from 1968 to 1972, founder and co-chair of the US-USSR Cooperative Program in Physics, 1968–89; and a co-founder, vice-president, chair of the board of trustees, and co-chair of the science board of the Santa Fe Institute, from 1982 to 1996.
He was the organizer or co-organizer of fifteen workshops and two summer schools of theoretical physics, was an honorary trustee and honorary member of the Aspen Center for Physics, and a member of the board of overseers at Sabancı University in Istanbul.
Biography
Early life
David Pines was born to Sidney Pines, a mechanical engineer, and Edith Pines (née Aldeman). He graduated from Highland Park High School in Dallas in 1940, and then studied at Black Mountain College for one year before enrolling at the University of California, Berkeley
Pines earned a bachelor's degree in physics from UC Berkeley in 1944, and began graduate work there. His studies were interrupted after his first semester when he was drafted into the navy. He served for two years, and then followed Robert Oppenheimer, who had served as a mentor at Berkeley, to Princeton University in 1947. He earned his Ph.D. at Princeton under David Bohm in 1950.
Research and academic positions
Instructor, University of Pennsylvania 1950–52
Research assistant professor, UIUC 1952–55
Assistant professor, Princeton University 1955–58
Member, Institute for Advanced Study 1958–59
Professor of physics & electrical engineering, UIUC 1959–1995
Professeur Associe, Faculte des Sciences, Université de Paris 1962–63
Founding director, Center for Advanced Study, UIUC 1967–70
Visiting professor, NORDITA 1970
Visiting scientist, Academy of Sciences, USSR 1970 and 1978
Visiting scientist, Academy of Sciences, China 1973
Exchange professor, Université de Paris 1978
Professor, Center for Advanced Study, UIUC 1978–1990
Visiting scientist, Hungarian Academy of Sciences 1979
Gordon Godfrey Professor, University of New South Wales 1985
B. T. Matthias Visiting Scholar (Los Alamos National Laboratory) 1986
Professor, College de France 1989
Center for Advanced Study professor of physics and electrical computer engineering, UIUC 1990–1995
External professor, Santa Fe Institute 1989–2002
Robert Maxwell Professor, Santa Fe Institute 1991
S. Ulam Visiting Scholar, Los Alamos National Laboratory 1996–97
Visiting professor, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, 1998
Visiting fellow-commoner, Trinity College, University of Cambridge 2000
Editorial contributions
Founding editor, Frontiers in Physics, 1961–present
Editor, Reviews of Modern Physics 1973–96
Educational and public service
Co-founder of the Center for Advanced Study, UIUC, 1967; the Aspen Center for Physics, 1967–69; the US-USSR Cooperative Program in Physics, 1968; the Santa Fe Institute, 1982–84; and the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter, 1998–1999
Organizer or co-organizer of fifteen workshops and two summer schools of theoretical physics
Aspen Center for Physics: vice-president, 1968–72;
Board of trustees 1968–80; honorary trustee, 1980-; member, 1980-2018
Santa Fe Institute: co-founder, 1984; vice-president,
1984–86; board of trustees, 1984–2002; chair, board of trustees, 1986–87; founding co-chair, science board, 1987–96; member, science board, 1987–1999; 2001-; external faculty 1995-2018
Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter: founding director and member of board of trustees (now board of governors) and science steering committee, 1999–2018
National Academy of Sciences; chair, Panel on Condensed Matter Physics, 1994–98
National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council:
Physics Survey Committee, 1965–66;
Board on International Scientific Exchange, founder and chair, 1973–1977
US/USSR Workshops in Condensed Matter Theory, founder and co-chair, 1968; 1970; 1974; 1978; 1988
US/USSR Commission on Cooperation in Physics, founder and co-chair, 1975–80
American Academy of Arts and Sciences: chair, physics section and class membership committee, 1996–99
Los Alamos National Laboratory:
T Division Advisory Committee: member 1975–82; chair, 1977–1982
Institute for Defense Analyses, mentor, Defense Sciences Study Group, 1985–2000
Late life
Pines died on May 3, 2018, due to pancreatic cancer.
Research interests
In 1956, Pines predicted the existence of electronic modes where electrons in different bands move coherently out of phase, which he dubbed "demon" modes, after James Clerk Maxwell, since he thought he "lived too early to have a particle or excitation named in his honor." Although Pines justified his etymological choice by making the term a half backronym (from D.E.M., which he claimed stood for "distinct electron motion"), the phenomenon is unrelated to Maxwell's statistical mechanics demon. Pines' demon should not be confused with the more common acoustic plasmon which arise from low dimensionality in, for example, 2D- or quasi-2D-materials. In comparison, the demon arises only in multiband materials through opposing currents from different electronic bands, and is not tied to a particular dimensionality. His prediction of the demon was first observed experimentally in 2023 in strontium ruthenate.
His latest research topics concerned the search for the organizing principles responsible for emergent behavior in materials where unexpectedly new classes of behavior emerge in response to the strong and competing interactions among their elementary constituents. Some recent research results on correlated electron materials are the development of a consistent phenomenological description of protected magnetic behavior in the pseudogap state of underdoped cuprate superconductors and the discovery of the protected emergence of itinerancy in the Kondo lattice in heavy electron materials and its description using a two-fluid model. He remained interested in the superfluidity of neutron stars revealed by pulsar glitches and in elementary excitations in the helium liquids.
Awards and honors
David Pines was a member and fellow of:
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Member, American Philosophical Society
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Foreign member, Russian Academy of Sciences
Honorary member, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Fellow, American Association for Advancement of Science
Fellow, American Physical Society
National Science Foundation Senior Postdoctoral Fellow in Copenhagen and Paris 1957–58
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow 1962–63 and 1970–71
During his life he received many awards including:
Lorentz Professor, Leiden University 1971
Fritz London Memorial Lecturer (Duke University) 1972
Giulio Racah Memorial Lecturer (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) 1974
Marchon Lecturer (Newcastle University) 1976
Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar (Caltech) 1977
Eugene Feenberg Memorial Lecturer (Washington U) 1982
Eastman Kodak - Rochester University Distinguished Lecturer 1983
Friemann Prize in Condensed Matter Physics 1983
Dirac Medal for the Advancement of Theoretical Physics (University of New South Wales) 1985
Emil Warburg Lecturer (University of Bayreuth) 1985
Eugene Feenberg Medal 1985
Daniel C. Drucker Eminent Faculty Award 1994
John Bardeen Prize for Superconductivity Theory 2009
Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize 2016
Books
The Many-Body Problem. (W. A. Benjamin: N.Y) 456 pp. (1961) (Russian translation, State Publishing House, Moscow, 1963)
Elementary Excitations in Solids. (W. A. Benjamin: N. Y.) 312 pp. (1963) (Russian translation, State Publishing House, Moscow, 1965). Japanese translation (Syokabo Press, Tokyo, 1974)
The Theory of Quantum Liquids, Vol. I Normal Fermi Liquids. W. A. Benjamin: NY, 1, 355 pp. (1966). (Russian Translation, Publishing House MIR, Moscow, 1968)
Book details.
The Theory of Quantum Liquids Vol. II: Superfluid Bose Liquids (with P. Nozières), Addison-Wesley, 180pp (1990)
References
External links
Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter- a Multicampus and Multidisciplinary Research Program of the University of California
1924 births
2018 deaths
American physicists
Fellows of the American Physical Society
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Theoretical physicists
Physicists from Missouri
Members of the American Philosophical Society
Foreign Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences
Foreign Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Santa Fe Institute people
United States Navy personnel of World War II
Scientists from Kansas City, Missouri
Aspen Center for Physics scholars