Boston University Professor of Physics David Campbell has been named a co-recipient of the prestigious SigmaPhi Prize in Statistical Physics at the SigmaPhi Conference in Greece.
The honor, which has been awarded every three years to three statistical physicists since 2005, recognizes outstanding achievements in the field of Statistical Physics.
Campbell, an expert in nonlinear dynamics and complex systems, was one of three statistical physicists recipients of the 2020 prize, which was awarded at the 2023 conference on account of the COVID-19 pandemic, for “ clarifying the mechanism by which microscopically reversible, non-integrable dynamical systems either approach statistical equilibrium or remain trapped in non-equilibrium metastable states.”
The prize recognizes his work concerning a long-standing problem in how statistical physics evolves from classical dynamics.
“The problem is how ‘the arrow of time’ develops so that we can tell the future from the past,” he said. “For instance, if I show you a film of a pendulum oscillating back and forth, you can’t tell the difference if I run the film backward. But if I show you a film of a glass of water being poured onto a table, you can be certain that the spilled water can never come back to the table into the glass.”
According to Campbell, this is the difference between the time-reversible dynamics of Newton and the time-irreversible statistical mechanics of Boltzmann, which were the main components of his award-winning research.
“A number of very distinguished scientists have won the award, including Nobel Laureates Giorgio Parisi and J. Michael Kosterliz,” Campbell said. “Thus, I feel very honored to have received this award.”