Michael Berry (physicist)

{{Infobox scientist

| honorific_prefix = Sir

| name = Michael Berry

| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100|FRS|FRSE|FRSA|HonFInstP}}

| image = LorentzMedaille2014-cropped.jpg

| image_size =

| alt = 2015 Picture of Michael Berry holding the Lorentz Medal

| caption = Berry in 2015

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|df=yes|1941|03|14}}

| birth_place = {{Nowrap|Surrey, England, United Kingdom}}

| birth_name = Michael Victor Berry

| death_date =

| death_place =

| residence =

| citizenship =

| nationality =

| ethnicity =

| fields =

| workplaces = University of Bristol

| alma_mater = University of Exeter (BSc)
University of St. Andrews (PhD)

| doctoral_advisor = Robert Balson Dingle{{MathGenealogy|id=100096}}

| thesis_title = The diffraction of light by ultrasound

| thesis_year = 1965

| thesis_url = https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/22569

| academic_advisors =

| doctoral_students = {{ubl|Jenny Nelson|Jonathan Keating}}

| notable_students =

| known_for = {{ubl|Berry phase|Berry connection and curvature|Berry–Robbins problem|Berry–Tabor conjecture|Weyl–Berry conjecture|Quantum carpet|Quantum chaos}}

| influences =

| influenced =

| awards = Maxwell Medal and Prize (1978)
Fellow of the Royal Society (1982)
Lilienfeld Prize (1990)
Royal Medal (1990)
IOP Dirac Medal (1990)
Naylor Prize and Lectureship (1992)
ICTP Dirac Medal (1996)
Knight Bachelor (1996)
Wolf Prize (1998)
Ig Nobel prize (2000)
Onsager Medal (2001)
Pólya Prize (2005)
Lorentz Medal (2014)

| religion =

| signature =

| footnotes =

| website = {{URL|https://michaelberryphysics.wordpress.com/}}

}}

Sir Michael Victor Berry (born 14 March 1941 in Frimley) is a British theoretical physicist. He is the Melville Wills Professor of Physics (Emeritus) at the University of Bristol.

He is known for the Berry phase, a phenomenon observed in both quantum mechanics and classical optics, as well as Berry connection and curvature. He specializes in semiclassical physics (asymptotic physics, quantum chaos), applied to wave phenomena in quantum mechanics and other areas such as optics.

Early life and education

Berry was brought up in a Jewish family and was the son of a London taxi driver and a dressmaker.{{cite book|title=The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History|date=2011|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=9781403939104|page=87|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=spOxzrifZjcC|first1=William D. |last1=Rubinstein| first2= Michael |last2=Jolles |first3=Hilary L. |last3=Rubinstein|author-link1=William Rubinstein|author-link3=Hilary L. Rubinstein}} Berry earned a BSc in physics from the University of Exeter in 1962 where he met his first wife (a sociology student with whom he had his first child){{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct65r3|title=The Life Scientific: Sir Michael Berry|access-date=21 January 2024}} and a PhD from the University of St. Andrews in 1965.{{cite web|url=https://www.lboro.ac.uk/alumni/our-alumni/sir-michael-berry/|title=Sir Michael Berry|publisher=Loughborough University|access-date=22 July 2009}} His thesis is titled The diffraction of light by ultrasound.

{{cite thesis |type=PhD thesis |publisher=University of St. Andrews |publication-place= |last=Berry |first=Michael |date=1965 |title=The diffraction of light by ultrasound |oclc=1507853 |hdl=10023/22569 |doi= |osti= |url=https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/22569 }}

Career and research

He has spent his whole career at the University of Bristol. He was a research fellow, 1965–67; lecturer, 1967–74; reader, 1974–78; Professor of Physics, 1978–88; and Royal Society Research Professor 1988–2006. Since 2006, he has been Melville Wills Professor of Physics (Emeritus) at Bristol University.{{Cite web |date=2013-06-28 |title=History |url=https://michaelberryphysics.wordpress.com/history/ |access-date=2023-10-02 |website=PROFESSOR SIR MICHAEL VICTOR BERRY, FRS |language=en}}

Awards and honours

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1982{{cite web|url=https://royalsociety.org/people/michael-berry-11072/|title=Fellows Directory|publisher=The Royal Society|access-date=3 May 2018}} and knighted in 1996.{{cite web|url=https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/54537/page/12875/data.pdf|title=The London Gazette|publisher=HMSO|access-date=3 May 2018}} From 2006 to 2012 he was editor of Proceedings of the Royal Society A.

Berry has been given the following prizes and awards:{{cite web | url=http://www.phy.bris.ac.uk/people/berry_mv/prizes.html | title=Professor Sir Michael Berry: Prizes and Awards | access-date=13 March 2011 | publisher=University of Bristol, UK}}

Maxwell Medal and Prize, Institute of Physics, 1978
Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London, 1982
Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, 1983
Elected Fellow of the Royal Institution, 1983
Elected Member of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden, 1986
Bakerian Lecturer, Royal Society, 1987
Elected member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, 1989
Dirac Medal, Institute of Physics, 1990
Lilienfeld Prize, American Physical Society, 1990
Royal Medal, Royal Society, 1990
Naylor Prize and Lectureship in Applied Mathematics, London Mathematical Society, 1992
Foreign Member: US National Academy of Sciences, 1995
Dirac Medal, International Centre for Theoretical Physics, 1996
Awarded honorary Doctor of Science degree in Trinity College Dublin, 1996{{Cite web|url=https://www.tcd.ie/registrar/honorary-degrees/recipients.php |title=Honorary Degree Recipients 1972 - 2024 |website=www.tcd.ie |language=en|access-date=2024-11-19}}
Kapitsa Medal, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1997
Wolf Prize for Physics, Wolf Foundation, Israel, 1998, jointly with Yakir Aharonov
Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics, 1999
Forder Lectureship, London Mathematical Society, 1999{{Cite web|url=https://www.lms.ac.uk/events/lectures/forder-and-aitken-lectureship|title=LMS-NZMS Forder and Aitken Lectureships {{!}} London Mathematical Society|website=www.lms.ac.uk|language=en|access-date=2018-11-13}}
Foreign Member: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2000
Ig Nobel Prize for Physics, 2000 (shared with Andre Geim for "The Physics of Flying Frogs"). By 2022 his and Geim's Ig Nobel for the magnetic levitation of a frog was reportedly part of the inspiration for China's lunar gravity research facility.{{cite web |author=|authorlink=|title=China building "Artificial Moon" that simulates low gravity with magnets|url=https://futurism.com/the-byte/china-artificial-moon-magnets|website=Futurism.com|publisher=Recurrent Ventures|access-date=17 January 2022 |date=12 January 2022|language=|quote=Interestingly, the facility was partly inspired by previous research conducted by Russian physicist Andrew Geim in which he floated a frog with a magnet. The experiment earned Geim the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics, a satirical award given to unusual scientific research. It’s cool that a quirky experiment involving floating a frog could lead to something approaching an honest-to-God antigravity chamber.}}{{cite web |author=Stephen Chen|authorlink=|title=China has built an artificial moon that simulates low-gravity conditions on Earth|url=https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3162972/china-has-built-artificial-moon-simulates-low-gravity-conditions|website=|publisher=South China Morning Post|access-date=17 January 2022 |date=12 January 2022 |language=|quote=It is said to be the first of its kind and could play a key role in the country’s future lunar missions. Landscape is supported by a magnetic field and was inspired by experiments to levitate a frog.}}
Onsager Medal, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2001
Gibbs Lecturer, American Mathematical Society, 2002{{cite journal|title=Making light of mathematics: 75th Gibbs Lecture|journal=Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.)|year=2003|volume=40|issue=2|pages=229–237|mr=1962297|doi=10.1090/S0273-0979-03-00972-8|last1=Berry|first1=Michael|doi-access=free}}
1st and 3rd prizes, Visions of Science, Novartis/Daily Telegraph, 2002
Elected to Royal Society of Edinburgh, 2005
Pólya Prize, London Mathematical Society, 2005
Doctor of Science, honoris causa, University of Glasgow, 2007
Selected Clarivate Citation laureate in Physics in 2009, jointly with Aharonov.{{Cite web |title=Thomson Reuters Predicts Nobel Laureates |url=https://www.newswire.ca/content/newswire-ca/ca/en/news-releases.detail.html/null.htm |access-date=2023-10-04 |website=www.newswire.ca |language=en}}
Doctor of Science, honoris causa, Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University in Yerevan, 2012
Lorentz Medal, 2014{{cite web |title=Michael Berry |url=https://www.knaw.nl/en/awards/laureates/lorentzmedaille/michael-berry |website=knaw.nl |publisher=KNAW |access-date=3 April 2022}}
Lise Meitner Distinguished Lecture, 2019