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Portrait of Gunnar Källén. A physics shooting star and poet of early quantum field theory. (English) Zbl 1359.81004

Cham: Springer (ISBN 978-3-319-00626-0/hbk; 978-3-319-00627-7/ebook). xxviii, 631 p. (2014).
The person, the life, the action, and the work of Gunnar Källén, a top mathematical physicist in the middle of the 20th century, is exhaustively represented. He is born in January 1926, too late to become a famous founder of quantum mechanics, and he died by a plane accident in October 1968, too early to participate in the development of modern particle physics. He was very promising to get bigger appreciativeness, a reason for to honor him with this book. The reviewer remembers well his voice in lectures given at the Schladming Winter Schools in the 60s of the last century when he, after stating a problem, announced his solution by the words “if you sit down and work it out \(\ldots\)”. The book is organized in five parts and endowed with an index. Several coeval photos illustrate the text. Introducing sections include abstracts to the five parts. The contributors to this book, all considerable scientists, are named in the acknowledgements. A special section lists the invited contributors: K.-E. Erikson, B. Källén, E. Källén, T. D. Lee, A. Sabry, A. Sirlin, R. Stora, B. E. Y. Svensson, and S. Weinberg, all of whom knew Gunnar Källén personally.
The first part involves 34 chapters. The last one is a brief chronology and may be read first for to get an overview. The others can be divided into six groups, each to another concern. Chapter 1 concerns G. Källén’s Childhood reported by his brother Bengt. In Chapter 2, L. Hulthén tells about his student time. Chapters 3 and 4 report on his contacts to W. Pauli and T. Gustavson who became his decisive promoters. Chapter 5 is about his application letter to an extraordinary professorship at the ETH Zürich and mentions advices by W. Pauli to include some further favorable facts. However, the commission appointed Res Jost for this position. Instead, G. Källén became a staff member of CERN in Geneva. Chapter 6 reports about his activities at CERN earlier in Copenhagen and then in Geneva, his contributions to quantum field theory and particle physics. Chapter 7 concerns the establishment of a personal professorship for G. Källén at Lund University enforced by T. Gustavson. Recommendation letters from R. Oppenheimer, N. Bohr, C. Møller, and W. Pauli are reprinted. In 1960, G. Källén got this position.
G. Källén’s appear is the topic of the second group beginning with Chapter 8 which contains letters of him to W. Pauli, A. S. Wightman and F. J. Dyson. Chapter 9 tells that many scientists used to send him their manuscripts before publishing for to get his opinion. Perfect appreciations are contained in Chapter 10. Chapter 11 reports on G. Källén’s enthusiasm for language, literature, music, and sports. His reactions on questions, publications, and his function as a referee are the topic of Chapters 12 and 13. The final chapters of this group, 14, 15, and 16, discuss G. Källén’s comments on the Nobel laureates in 1966. For him J. Schwinger was more important than R. P.Feynman and S. I. Tomonaga.
The third group is devoted to Källén’s merits and legacy. Chapter 17 is a collection of invitations he got from top institutions. Results bearing his name in quantum field and particle physics are listed in Chapter 18. Chapters 19 and 20 concern the essay “Quantum Electrodynamics” in the Encyclopedia of Physics V (originally Handbuch der Physik V) and a comment by R. Stora. Chapter 21 contains an opinion of G. Källén on a manuscript by K. Nishijama. Chapters 22 and 23 concern G. Källén’s book “Elementary Particle Physics” together with reactions of the physical community.
The fourth group, Chapters 24 through 28, describe G. Källén as a teacher and names his graduates among which Steven Weinberg is well known. The style of his lectures and his kind instructions are communicated by B. E. Y. Svensson and K.-R. Erikson.
The fifth group portrays the last years of G. Källén and Gunnel, his wife. Chapter 29 is devoted to Gunnel, the four Children, and the family life. Chapter 30 tells about his participation in a conference 1968 in Vienna, where he went with B. E. Y. Svensson piloting a small private plane. In Chapter 31, his eldest son, Erland, reports about his father’s passion to fly after he became a member of an aeroplane club in 1964. He also particularizes the horrible plane accident in Hanover on the way to a meeting at CERN in October 1968, when his father unsuccessfully tried a soft emergency landing because of engine problems. His pilot seat torn off the floor and hurt with him against the instrument panel. He died some hours thereafter, but his wife sitting in the fond survived. She died half a year later because of cancer. Chapter 32 is about future prospects and cooperations he could no more meet. Two appendices conclude the first part. Chapter 33 points to published collections of the exchange of letters and manuscripts between G. Källén and W. Pauli as well as papers by them. Chapter 34 is a brief chronology of G Källén.
In the second part the correspondences with W. Pauli, W. Heisenberg, and P. A. M. Dirac are discussed as well as G. Källén’s appearance at scientific meetings. The first group, Chapters 35 though 38, concerns his discussions with W. Pauli. After an overview, their view on the state of theoretical physics is sketched. It is amusing to read how they slender on themselves and other scientists.
Describing the relation of W. Pauli to W. Heisenberg, Chapter 39 leads over to the second group, Chapters 40 through 43, the correspondence with W. Heisenberg through W. Pauli. The latter two were working on the non-linear spin model and W. Pauli let participate G. Källén by sending him the manuscripts from W. Heisenberg for to get his opinion. The answers he transferred to W. Heisenberg who, finally, was left alone believing in his model.
The third group, Chapters 44 through 47, contains the exchange of three letters with P. A. M. Dirac on quantum field theory in 1966.
The short fifth group, Chapters 48 through 51, presents some coauthors, A. Sabry. J. Toll. and A. S. Wightman.
The sixth group tells about G. Källén’s appeal at several conferences. Chapters 52 through 54 report about his participation at a meeting in Moscow, wondering that he was the only invited person from the West. A plenary lecture at the 1956 CERN symposium on the consistency of quantum electrodynamics is represented in some detail. Chapters 55 through 57 report on the Schladming Winter Schools from 1965 through 1968, a dispute between D. Bjorken and G. Källén, and the honorable obituary by P. Urban in 1969. To the 1961 Solvay conference the last group of this part is devoted. After a preview on the importance of the Solvay Congresses since 1911, Chapter 58 indicates the main points of G. Källén’s lecture on interacting quantum fields, the necessity of renormalization, the problems of perturbation and S-matrix theories. A group photo shows that all considerable scientists on these fields were present up to some Russians, assumably not allowed to go abroad. In Chapter 59, their discussion after G. Källén’s talk talk is written down word for word showing the views of top scientist at that time.
The third part acknowledges the promotion of science by G. Källén. Chapter 60 informs about the “Gunnar and Gunnel Källén Memorial Fund” donated by the “Physiographic Society Lund” for to organize special lectures called “Gunnar Källén lectures” at scientific meetings in Lund. The first lectures were given by R. Haag and H. Lehmann in 1972. The other lecturers until 2013 are listed. Chapter 61 is the reprint of the lecture by S. Weinberg given in 2009. Chapters 62 and 63 report on G. Källén’s membership in the Svedish academy of science, as an auxiliary member of the Nobel committee, and his engagement in the Ettore Majorana Center Erice. Chapters 64 through 67 concern memorial conferences and lectures to his honor by C. Møller, H. A. Kramers, and A. S. Wightman, whose lecture is reprinted. Chapter 68 describes the collaboration of G. Källén with T. D. Lee and consists in a treatise by T. D. Lee and R. Friedberg on the \(\sigma\)-model as a soluble model of the Higgs boson as a composite particle, written in 2009.
Part four reviews G. Källén’s scientific work. Chapters 69 through 78 consider these papers and how they were accepted by the community. A controversy with G. Gasiorowicz is reported. Chapters 79 and 80 deal his work on point functions and contain an essay by A. S. Wightman. Particle physics and radiative corrections are the topics of Chapters 82 and 83. Some mathematical methods preferred by G. Källén are described in the closing Chapters 84 and 85 of this part.
Part five contains selected papers and comments. Chapter 86 is the list of G. Källén’s publications. Chapters 87 through 94 are reprints of papers with brief introductory remarks by the editor of this book. Chapters 95 through 98 contain several additional commentaries from different sources.
With this book the editor, herself a mathematical physicist who took her doctoral degree at Lund University in 1970 and got a professorship ibidem in 1994, has raised a monument to Gunnar Källén.

MSC:

81-03 History of quantum theory
01A60 History of mathematics in the 20th century
01A70 Biographies, obituaries, personalia, bibliographies
01A75 Collected or selected works; reprintings or translations of classics
81P05 General and philosophical questions in quantum theory
81Txx Quantum field theory; related classical field theories
81Qxx General mathematical topics and methods in quantum theory
81Vxx Applications of quantum theory to specific physical systems
00A79 Physics

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Källén, Gunnar
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