Adventures in Order and Chaos: A Scientific Autobiography

208 Pages·2004·3.859 MB·English

by  George Contopoulos (auth.)

A
S
ASTROPHYSICS AND
S
L
SPACE SCIENCE LIBRARY
ADVENTURES IN
ORDER AND CHAOS
A Scientific Autobiography
GEORGE CONTOPOULOS
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
ADVENTURES IN ORDER AND CHAOS
ASTROPHYSICS AND
SPACE SCIENCE LIBRARY
VOLUME 313
EDITORIALBOARD
Chairman
W.B. BURTON,National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.A.
([email protected]); University of Leiden, The Netherlands ([email protected])
Executive Committee
J. M. E. KUIJPERS, Faculty of Science, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
E. P. J. VAN DEN HEUVEL, Astronomical Institute, University of Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
H. VAN DER LAAN, Astronomical Institute, University of Utrecht,
The Netherlands
MEMBERS
I. APPENZELLER, Landessternwarte Heidelberg-Königstuhl, Germany
J. N. BAHCALL, The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, U.S.A.
F. BERTOLA, Universitá di Padova, Italy
J. P. CASSINELLI, University of Wisconsin, Madison, U.S.A.
C. J. CESARSKY, Centre d'Etudes de Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France
O. ENGVOLD, Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo, Norway
R. McCRAY, University of Colorado, JILA, Boulder, U.S.A.
P. G. MURDIN, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, U.K.
F. PACINI, Istituto Astronomia Arcetri, Firenze, Italy
V. RADHAKRISHNAN, Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, India
K. SATO, School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Japan
F. H. SHU, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A.
B. V. SOMOV, Astronomical Institute, Moscow State University, Russia
R. A. SUNYAEV, Space Research Institute, Moscow, Russia
Y. TANAKA, Institute of Space & Astronautical Science, Kanagawa, Japan
S. TREMAINE,CITA, Princeton University, U.S.A.
N. O. WEISS, University of Cambridge, U.K.
ADVENTURES IN ORDER
AND CHAOS
A Scientific Autobiography
By
GEORGE CONTOPOULOS
Member of the Academy of Athens,
Research Centre of Astronomy,
Athens, Greece
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
DORDRECHT / BOSTON/ LONDON
AC.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 1-4020-3039-8 (HB)
ISBN 1-4020-3040-1 (e-book)
Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers,
P.O. Box 17, 3300 AADordrecht, The Netherlands.
Sold and distributed in North, Central and South America
by Kluwer Academic Publishers,
101 Philip Drive, Norwell, MA02061, U.S.A.
In all other countries, sold and distributed
by Kluwer Academic Publishers,
P.O. Box 322, 3300 AHDordrecht, The Netherlands.
Printed on acid-free paper
springeronline.com
All Rights Reserved
© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers
No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording
or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception
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Printed in the Netherlands.
Contents
Preface ix
1 YEARSOFSTUDY 1
2 THESIS 4
3 FIRSTTRIPSABROAD 7
4 APPOINTMENTASAPROFESSOR 9
5 THETHIRDINTEGRAL 13
6 TOTHEUNITEDSTATES(THROUGHMOSCOW) 17
7 YALE 18
8 CHANDRASEKHAR 24
9 PRINCETON-NEWYORK 28
10 FIRSTIAUSYMPOSIUMINDYNAMICALASTRONOMY 32
11 IAUCOMMISSION33 35
12 APPLICATIONSOFTHETHIRDINTEGRAL 37
12.1 CelestialMechanics 37
12.2 GalacticDynamics 38
12.3 TheFermi-Pasta-UlamProblem 39
12.4 TheSto¨rmerProblem 39
12.5 Solitons 40
12.6 OtherApplications 40
12.7 TheBreakdownoftheThirdIntegral 41
13 RESONANCEOVERLAP 41
14 THEJUNTAPERIODANDTHEIAU 44
15 SECONDSABBATICALINTHEUSA.THEDENSITYWAVE
THEORY 49
16 AVISITTOISRAEL 55
vi ADVENTURESINORDERANDCHAOS
17 FIRSTIAUREGIONALMEETING 56
18 CONTACTSINITALY 59
19 SERVICEINTHEIAU 61
20 IAUSECRETARIAT 67
21 VISITSTOTHEUSSR 69
22 TOPOLOGICALMETHODSINGALACTICDYNAMICS 76
23 THEIAUGENERALASSEMBLYINGRENOBLE 80
24 ASABBATICALATESO 82
25 ASTRONOMYANDASTROPHYSICS 85
26 TRAVELLINGINWESTERNEUROPE 89
27 DESTRUCTIONOFTHEINTEGRALS 91
28 SYSTEMSOFTHREEDEGREESOFFREEDOM 93
29 BIFURCATIONS 98
30 THEIAUGENERALASSEMBLYINGREECE 100
31 BROUWERPRIZE 103
32 VISITSTOESO 105
33 TERMINATIONOFSPIRALSANDBARS 107
34 FURTHERTRAVEL 108
35 ORDERANDCHAOS 113
36 RELATIVITYANDCOSMOLOGY 117
37 QUANTUMMECHANICSVSCLASSICALMECHANICS 124
38 UNIVERSITYOFFLORIDA 126
39 INTEGRABLEMODELS 131
40 ESCAPES 132
41 POTENTIALSWITHOUTESCAPES 134
42 CHAOSANDRANDOMNESS 135
43 HOMOCLINICANDHETEROCLINICTANGLES 139
44 HONORARYDEGREEFROMTHEUNIVERSITY
OFCHICAGO 142
45 DYNAMICALSPECTRA 143
46 DESTRUCTIONOFISLANDSOFSTABILITY 145
47 STICKINESS 148
48 COLLABORATORSINGREECE 150
49 COLLABORATORSABROAD 152
Contents vii
50 OURFACULTY 154
51 NATO 157
52 MOTIVATION 163
53 PAPERSANDREFEREES 168
54 LECTURES 174
55 ACADEMYOFATHENS 176
56 PROSPECTSFORTHEFUTURE 181
References 185
Preface
FormanyyearsIwasorganizingaweeklyseminarondynamicalastronomy,
and I used to make some historical remarks on every subject, including some
anecdotes from my contacts with many leading scientists over the years. I
describedalsothe developmentofvarioussubjectsand theemergence ofnew
ideasindynamicalastronomy. Thenseveralpeoplepromptedmetowritedown
theseremarks, which cannotbefoundinpapers, orbooks. Thus, Idecided to
writethisbook,whichcontainsmyexperiencesovertheyears.
I hope that this book may be helpful to astronomy students all over the
world. Duringmymanyyearsofteaching,asavisitingprofessor,inAmerican
Universities(1962-1994,Yale,Harvard,MIT,Cornell,Chicago,Marylandand
Florida)Iwasimpressedbythequalityofmygraduatestudents. Mostofthem
wereverybright,askingpenetratingquestions,andpreparingtheirhomework
in a perfect way. In a few cases, instead of a final examination, I assigned to
them some small research projects and they presented their results at the end
of the course. They were excellent in preparing the appropriate slides and in
presentingtheirresultsinaconciseandclearway.
OntheotherhandmyGreekstudents,andstudentsofseveralEuropeanUni-
versities, were shy, awkward with the English language, and had difficulties
presentingtheirwork. Butallthischangedinthelasttwentyyears. Atadoc-
toralschoolinThessalonikiduring1993(Contopoulosetal. 1994b)about50
studentsfrommanyEuropeancountrieswereaskedtomakeshortpresentations
oftheirdoctoralresearch. Thistimetheirpresentationswereperfect. Theyhad
nothingtoenvyfromtheirAmericancolleagues.
The change was not easy. It required a major effort to overcome the diffi-
cultiesofthelanguage, tolearnhowtofindand usethe literature, andhowto
presenttheirresultsinaclearway.
I remember an assistant of mine, who had difficulty in speaking English in
ourseminars(weusedEnglishforpractice). ButIinsisted. Andtheoutcome
x ADVENTURESINORDERANDCHAOS
was that a few years later he was a professor, and an associate editor of an
internationaljournalofAstronomy.
Thus, I want to encourage students to try hard. Even if they come from a
remotecountry,orregion,theycanexcellininternationalscience.
My scientific autobiography relates my own efforts to overcome the diffi-
cultiesofmybackgroundandreachthemostup-to-dayproblemsofdynamical
astronomy. In particular it describes how I became involved in many prob-
lems, from celestial mechanics to cosmology, and what were the main ideas
thatguidedmeovertheyears. FinallyIdescribemyexperienceinwritingand
refereeing papers, and in preparing lectures, as well as my thoughts about the
futureofdynamicalastronomyandofrelatedfields.