• The Wilfred R. and Ann Lee Konneker Distinguished Professor of Physics in Arts & Sciences, Physics

Carl Bender

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• Ph.D. in Physics at Harvard University
• M.A. in Physics at Harvard University
• A.B. in Physics at Cornell University

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Shake it up For nonlinear systems, chaos leads to order April 3, 2006 -- "Da police are not here to create disorder; dere here to preserve disorder." — Richard J. Daley, Chicago mayor, explaining to the media the role of the police during the riotous 1968 Democratic National Convention. David Kilper/WUSTL Photo The order team. Police keep order. That's why, for example, they issue tickets for "disturbing the peace." Thus the only logical conclusion to Mayor Daley's famous quote above — other than dismissing it as the result of a tangled tongue — is sometimes disorder spawns order. Sounds impossible, right? Wrong. According to a computational study conducted by a group of physicists at Washington University in St. Louis, one may create order by introducing disorder. More...

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His most important work is in the areas of lattice approximations in quantum field theory; semi-classical, strong-coupling, and mean-field approximations in quantum field theory; path integral representations; the nature of perturbation theory in large order; and, most recently, new kinds of nonperturbative techniques for quantum field theory. Because of his strong background in applied mathematics, he is able to enter quickly into fruitful research collaborations with a wide variety of scientists, whose interests range from applied to theoretical.

Bender, who was awarded a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, was on sabbatical at Imperial College in London for his fellowship period, which ran from June 2003 to May 2004. There he conducted a research project titled "A New Approach to Quantum Field Theory."

Of the 184 Guggenheim fellowships awarded that year, only four were given in the area of physics.

Bender works primarily in quantum mechanics, the physics of very small, submicroscopic or atomic particles, and in particle physics and quantum field theory. Quantum mechanics underlies nearly all modern science and technology; it governs the essential components of computers and televisions and serves as a basis for chemistry.

In London, Bender worked on a new area of theoretical physics that he originated four years prior, namely, the extension of conventional quantum mechanics and quantum field theory into the complex plane.

"Complex quantum mechanics is not just a mathematical breakthrough," Bender said. "I believe it to be a major advance in the basic theory of quantum mechanics.

"The potential for research in this area is immense: Complex quantum mechanics provides a framework for describing the nature of antiparticles. It offers the possibility that a particle and its corresponding antiparticle need not have identical masses, and thus it may provide insight into the puzzle of why there is so much more matter than antimatter in the universe.

"Moreover, complex quantum mechanics gives a setting for exploring the physics of the Higgs particle, which is the as-yet unobserved and most poorly understood component of modern particle physics," Bender added.

Bender was invited to lecture on his work at more than a dozen universities in Europe during his fellowship year. He also presented invited talks at many international conferences on theoretical physics, including giving the keynote address at a conference in Prague, Czech Republic, that was devoted entirely to the field of complex quantum mechanics that he originated.

A Phi Beta Kappa, Bender earned a bachelor's degree, summa cum laude, in physics from Cornell University in 1964 and both a master's (1965) and doctorate (1969) in physics from Harvard University. After seven years on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty, he joined Washington University's Department of Physics in 1977.

He was installed as the Wilfred R. and Ann Lee Konneker Distinguished Professor of Physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University on Nov. 27, 2007.