1 | Name: | Dr. Anthony J. Leggett | |
Institution: | University of Illinois | ||
Year Elected: | 1991 | ||
Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | ||
Subdivision: | 106. Physics | ||
Residency: | Resident | ||
Living? : | Living | ||
Birth Date: | 1938 | ||
Anthony J. Leggett is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor and Center for Advanced Study Professor of Physics. He has been a faculty member at the University of Illinois since 1983 and in 2020 donated his papers to the University of Illinois Archives. He is widely recognized as a world leader in the theory of low-temperature physics, and his pioneering work on superfluidity was recognized by the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences (foreign member) and is a Fellow of the Royal Society (U.K.), the American Physical Society and the American Institute of Physics. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics (U.K.) and was knighted (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005 "for services to physics." Professor Leggett has shaped the theoretical understanding of normal and superfluid helium liquids and other strongly coupled superfluids. He set directions for research in the quantum physics of macroscopic dissipative systems and use of condensed systems to test the foundations of quantum mechanics. His research interests lie mainly within the fields of theoretical condensed matter physics and the foundations of quantum mechanics. He has been particularly interested in the possibility of using special condensed-matter systems, such as Josephson devices, to test the validity of the extrapolation of the quantum formalism to the macroscopic level; this interest has led to a considerable amount of technical work on the application of quantum mechanics to collective variables and in particular on ways of incorporating dissipation into the calculations. He is also interested in the theory of superfluid liquid 3He, especially under extreme nonequilibrium conditions, in high-temperature superconductivity, and in the newly realized system of Bose-condensed atomic gases. |