painting by Harm Kamerlingh Onnes in 1920
I was an Austrian-Dutch physicist that made contributions to the field of theoretical physics, particularly in statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics.
I was born on January 18, 1880, in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria). I majored in chemistry at the Vienna Institute of Technology, but took courses at the University of Vienna. I completed my doctoral thesis in 1904 under the supervision of Ludwig Boltzmann, one of the pioneers of statistical mechanics.
My most significant contribution to physics was my formulation of the adiabatic principle, also known as Ehrenfest's theorem. Published in 1913, this theorem established a connection between classical and quantum mechanics. It states that the expectation values of physical quantities in quantum systems evolve according to classical equations of motion when those quantities are not explicitly time-dependent.
I care about my family I work closely with my wife, Tatyana Alexeyevna Afanasyeva, who was also a physicist.
Links
- Email: ehrenfest@mit.edu
- Twitter: @ehrenfestp
- Google Scholar