Ising is Everywhere (in Science and in Oxford)

Just over 100 years ago, Ernst Ising solved a simple model for a one-dimensional ferromagnet in his PhD thesis. In the century since, the Ising model has come become one of the best-studied models in physics: a conservative estimate is that nearly a quarter of a million papers discuss it or its variants, in fields ranging from statistical mechanics to lattice gauge theory, and from neural networks to social dynamics.

In this series of three lectures, Profs. Siddharth Parameswaran, Fabian Essler, and Paul Fendley will attempt to convey some idea of why the model continues to fascinate physicists to this day, illustrate how it informs our ideas about quantum phases of matter, and sketch some of the beautiful mathematical ideas that underpin its exact solution in two dimensions. Along the way, they will highlight the role it has played in the work of physicists associated with the RPC, from Rudolf Peierls and Roger Elliott to David Sherrington and John Cardy.

Further details of the individual talks will be published here in due course. In the meantime, secure your place by registering now: REGISTER.

For any queries you can contact Jordan Summers, Theoretical Physics Administrator, at tpadmin@physics.ox.ac.uk.