History of the Lenz-Ising model 1950-1965: from irrelevance to relevance (Q1031942)

This paper has three parts, number one dealt with the Lenz-Ising Model 1920--1950 (published in 2005, see [Arch. Hist. Exact Sci. 59, No. 3, 267--318 (2005; Zbl 1068.82001)]), this second part now treats the time from 1950--1965 and the third part, which has not yet appeared, will cover the time afterwards. As the author mentioned ``the series aims to cover and explain in depth why this model went from relative obscurity to a prominent position in modern physics, and to examine the consequences to this change'' (p. 243). The Lenz-Ising-Model originates from 1924, when Ernst Ising (1900--1998) published his thesis ``Beitrag zur Theorie des Ferro- und Paramagnetismus'' in Hamburg; he mainly referred to a publication of his teacher Wilhelm Lenz (1888--1957): ``Beitrag zum Verständnis der magnetischen Erscheinungen in festen Körpern'' [Physikalische Zeitschrift 21, 691--694 (1920)]. The model however was not much recognised, it was only during the 1930s to the early 1940s that the model was revived as a model of cooperative phenomena. In this second part the author deals with the development from the 1950s to the 1960s and documents that this period witnessed a major change in the perception of the model. The main physicist who is in the center of the author's investigation is Cyril Domb; Fred Hoyle had been his main teacher and supervisor of his thesis. Domb worked during the years 1949--1952 at the Clarendon Laboratory in Oxford and afterwards at the King's College in London. While many physicists saw the Lenz-Ising Model as irrelevant because it oversimplified nature, the group around Cyril Domb had a more positive view. Domb's publications where he recognized the Lenz-Ising Model began in 1949: ``Order-Disorder Statistics''. There were simpler models which were more referred to, as the Heisenberg Model for ferromagnetism, and the Fisher Model for classical gas continuum. The magnetic experiments of the Domb group started on magnetism, on superfluid helium and on gas-liquid transition. As the author pointed out: ``The Lenz Ising Model was in suprisingly good agreement with experimental results\dots In light of the great mathematical difficulties in modeling phase transitions, this lent some credence to the Lenz-Ising model'' (p. 280). The situation changed, the Lenz-Ising Model came from irrelevance to relevance and became the predominant model of critical phenomena in the 1960s. It were the experiments which were responsible for the change. As the author concluded ``Less than ten years later, the empirical adequacy of the Lenz-Ising model was sufficient to change its status, thus opening up a new chapter in our understanding of critical phenomena'' (p. 283).