Mathematician Spencer To Present Lecture At Institute For Advanced Study

Thomas Spencer, professor in the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study, will speak on "Transitions and Universality: Some Examples and Conjectures" on January 16 at 4:30 p.m. in Wolfensohn Hall on the Institute campus. The lecture will be followed by a reception in the Common Room of Fuld Hall.

This talk, says Spencer, "will describe some simple examples of systems which exhibit transitions from order to disorder. Examples come from the theory of population dynamics, magnetism, and 'voter' models of cooperative behavior. As a parameter such as temperature is increased, the collective cooperative behavior gives way to disorder.

"The order-to-disorder transition is expected to be universal. This means that many features of the system are independent of the details of the model near the transition temperature. Hence, a variety of apparently different physical and mathematical systems have the same detailed structure near the transition temperature."

Spencer earned his B.A at the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. at New York University. He held postdoctoral positions at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Science and Harvard University before joining the Rockefeller University faculty in 1975 as associate professor. He became professor at Rutgers University in 1978, and professor at the Courant Institute in 1980. Spencer was a member in the School of Mathematics in the fall semester 1984-85. He has been a faculty member at the Institute since 1986.

His research interests include statistical mechanics, random media, and dynamical systems. He is a former associate editor of the Annals of Mathematics, Communications in Mathematical Physics, and the Journal of Statistical Physics.

Spencer (with J. Frohlich) was awarded the Dannie Heineman prize for Mathematical Physics in 1991.

The talk is one of a series of public lectures presented by faculty members of the Institute for Advanced Study throughout the academic year 2001-2002.