Guide to the Papers of Jose Moyal, 1944-1964

Summary

Collection number:: MS 10360
Creator:: Moyal, Jose
Extent:: 0.18 metres and (1 archives box)
Language:: English
Availability:: Available
Access conditions:: Available for research. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

This collection comprises drafts and manuscripts of papers in mathematics, applied mathematics and physics from 1946-1964; correspondence with P.A.M. Dirac 1944-1946. This material was previously held by the Australian Academy of Science (Ref: MS 045), and was transferred to the National Library of Australia in 2017.

Biographical Note:

José Enrique Moyal (1 October 1910 – 22 May 1998) was a mathematical physicist who contributed to aeronautical engineering, electrical engineering and statistics, among other fields.

He helped establish the phase space formulation of quantum mechanics in 1949 by bringing together the ideas of Hermann Weyl, John von Neumann, Eugene Wigner, and Hip Groenewold.This formulation is statistical in nature and makes logical connections between quantum mechanics and classical statistical mechanics, enabling a natural comparison between the two formulations. "Phase Space Quantization," is a synonym for "Moyal Quantization" and largely avoids use of operators for quantum mechanical observables prevalent in the canonical formulation. Quantum-mechanical evolution in phase space is specified by a Moyal bracket.

Moyal grew up in Tel Aviv, and attended the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium. He studied in Paris in the 1930s, at the École Supérieure d'Electricité, Institut de Statistique, and, finally, at the Institut Henri Poincaré.He was a professor of mathematics at Macquarie University, a colleague of John Clive Ward at the former School of Mathematics and Physics, having previously worked at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. Moyal worked as an engineer with the de Havilland aircraft factory in England during World War II. He was Professor of Maths at Macquarie University 1972-77.