Sam Edwards (physicist)
| Samuel Frederick Edwards | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
1 February 1928 Swansea |
| Died | 7 May 2015 (aged 87) Cambridge, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Fields | physics |
| Institutions | University of Cambridge |
| Alma mater |
University of Cambridge Harvard University |
| Doctoral advisor | Julian Schwinger |
| Doctoral students |
Elliott H. Lieb Monica Olvera de la Cruz Michael Cates Nigel Goldenfeld |
| Known for |
path integral formulation polymer physics spin glass granular material |
| Notable awards |
Maxwell Medal and Prize (1974) Davy Medal (1984) Boltzmann medal (1995) Royal Medal (2001) Dirac Medal (2005) |
Sir Samuel Frederick Edwards FLSW FRS (1 February 1928 – 7 May 2015), "universally known as 'Sam'," was a Welsh physicist.
Sir Samuel was born on 1 February 1928 in Swansea, the son of Richard and Mary Jane Edwards.
He was educated at the Bishop Gore School in Swansea, and Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge, the University of Manchester in Britain, and at Harvard University, in the United States. He wrote his thesis under Julian Schwinger on the structure of the electron, and subsequently developed the functional integral form of field theory.
Edwards' work in condensed matter physics started in 1958 with a paper which showed that statistical properties of disordered systems (glasses, gels etc.) could be described by the Feynman diagram and path integral methods invented in quantum field theory. During the following 35 years Edwards worked in the theoretical study of complex materials, such as polymers, gels, colloids and similar systems. His seminal paper came in 1965 which "in one stroke founded the modern quantitative understanding of polymer matter."Pierre-Gilles de Gennes notably extended Edwards' 1965 seminal work, ultimately leading to de Gennes' 1991 Nobel Prize in Physics.
The Doi-Edwards theory of polymer melt viscoelasticity originated from an initial publication of Edwards in 1967, was expanded upon by de Gennes in 1971, and was subsequently formalized through a series of publications between Edwards and Masao Doi in the late 1970s.
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