Scheck, Florian 1936- (Florian A. Scheck)

PERSONAL:

Born November 20, 1936, in Berlin, Germany; son of Gustav O. and Ernestine G. Scheck; married Doerte Neumann; children: eight. Education: University of Freiburg, diploma, 1962, Ph.D., 1964; University of Heidelberg, habilitation, 1968. Hobbies and other interests: Music.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Institute for Physics, Johannes Gutenberg-University, D-55099 Mainz, Germany. E-mail—scheck@thep.physik.uni-mainz.de; scheck@uni-mainz.de.

CAREER:

Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, visiting scientist, 1964-66; University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany, university assistant, 1967-68; CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), Geneva, Switzerland, research fellow, 1968-70; Swiss Institute for Nuclear Research, Zurich, Switzerland, head of theory group, and titular professor at ETH Zurich, 1970-76; Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany, professor, 1976-2005, professor emeritus, 2005—. Visiting positions at institutes, including CERN, Geneva, 1971-72, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 1973, Institute for High Energy Physics and TFT, Helsinki, 1982, TRIUMF, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 1988, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan, 1988-89, Université des Sciences et Techniques du Languedoc, Montpellier, France, 1988-89, University of Cape Town, South Africa, 1993, and University of Costa Rica, 2005. Member or chair of advisory or program committees at SIN, CERN, Nevis Laboratories, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, MAMI (Mainz, Germany), NIKHEF-K (Amsterdam, Netherlands), and the German Ministry of Science and Technology. Organizer of conferences, workshops, and schools on elementary particle physics and mathematical physics.

MEMBER:

German Physical Society.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

Leptons, Hadrons, and Nuclei, North-Holland Physics (New York, NY), 1983, revised edition published as Electroweak and Strong Interactions: An Introduction to Theoretical Particle Physics, with Fifty-nine Figures, Eighty Exercises, and Solutions, 2nd enlarged edition, Springer (New York, NY), 1996.

Mechanik: Von den Newtonschen gesetzen zum deterministischen chaos, Springer (New York, NY), 1988, 2nd edition, 1990, translation published as Mechanics: From Newton's Laws to Deterministic Chaos, Springer (New York, NY), 1990, 4th edition, 2005.

(Editor, with S. Ciulli, F. Scheck, and W. Thirring) Rigorous Methods in Particle Physics, Springer (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor, with H. Upmeier and W. Werner) Noncommutative Geometry and the Standard Model of Elementary Particle Physics, Springer (New York, NY), 2002.

Quantum Physics, Springer (Berlin, Germany), 2007.

Contributor to professional journals. Associate editor, Nuclear Physics B (Particles and Fields) and Nuclear Physics C (Intermediate Energy Physics).

SIDELIGHTS:

Florian Scheck is a well-known German physicist and researcher whose publications include several highly specialized titles, such as Leptons, Hadrons, and Nuclei (later revised as Electroweak and Strong Interactions: An Introduction to Theoretical Particle Physics, with Fifty-nine Figures, Eighty Exercises, and Solutions), Mechanics: From Newton's Laws to Deterministic Chaos, and Noncommutative Geometry and the Standard Model of Elementary Particle Physics.

One of Scheck's best-known publications is probably Mechanics, which was originally published in German as Mechanik: Von den Newtonschen gesetzen zum deterministischen chaos. First published in Germany in 1988, Mechanik was translated and published in its first American edition two years later. Since then, the book has been updated and revised in several editions and became particularly relevant following a powerful surge of new interest in the field of classical mechanics. This area of physics has been revitalized in contemporary times because of the lively interaction between differential geometers and mathematical physicists. According to Meinhard E. Mayer, a reviewer for Physics Today, Scheck's book is made particularly relevant for contemporary readers because it offers valuable information about symmetry in mechanics, and because it "can serve as a guide to the newer developments for more advanced readers." In the first part of the book, the author discusses Hamiltonian, Lagrangian, and relativistic mechanics, which can all be considered traditional material. In the second portion of the book, he discusses the tangent bundle approach, differential geometric formulation of mechanics, and the cotangent bundle approach. Geometry necessary to understanding the material is reviewed and illustrated. Mayer pointed to the chapter on stability and chaos as particularly "enjoyable" and "readable."

Scheck's first publication, Leptons, Hadrons, and Nuclei, published in 1983, was eventually revised as Electroweak and Strong Interactions. According to Michael E. Peskin, a reviewer for Physics Today, the original title is the more accurate of the two, as the book serves more as "an introduction and reference for one particular type of theoretical problem" rather than "a comprehensive introduction to theoretical particle physics." The type of problem discussed in this book is one that serves as the basis for virtually all tests of symmetry and structure, and in this book, Scheck carefully explains various methods for working with problems of that sort. He provides many examples to illustrate his points, and gives an introduction to certain aspects of mesonic and muonic atoms "in fascinating detail, at a level that cannot be found in any other textbook," stated Peskin, who felt that the book would make a helpful guide for researchers and students.

Scheck's textbook Quantum Physics discusses the basic tenets and applications of quantum mechanics and gives an introduction to relativistic quantum field theory. In both sections, the necessary mathematical work is reviewed. Overall, the book is "ideally suited for a two-semester course" on quantum physics, in the opinion of a writer for Word Power Books.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Scientist, July 1, 1992, Stephen Reynolds, review of Mechanics: From Newton's Laws to Deterministic Chaos.

Contemporary Physics, March 1, 1992, D. Richards, review of Mechanics.

Physics Today, November 1, 1985, Carl Shakin, review of Leptons, Hadrons, and Nuclei, p. 107; December 1, 1995, Meinhard E. Mayer, review of Mechanics, p. 70; February 1, 1997, Michael E. Peskin, review of Electroweak and Strong Interactions: An Introduction to Theoretical Particle Physics, with Fifty-nine Figures, Eighty Exercises, and Solutions, p. 67.

SciTech Book News, April 1, 1991, review of Mechanics, p. 31.

SIAM Review, March 1, 1992, Stuart S. Antman, review of Mechanics, p. 135.

ONLINE

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz Web site,http://www.uni-mainz.de/eng/ (August 20, 2008), author profile.

Word Power Books,http://www.word-power.co.uk/ (August 18, 2008), review of Quantum Physics.