A New Spin on the Quantum Brain
This reminded me of talk by David Mermin, about Michael E. Fischer: an important statistical physicist and the father of Matthew Fischer, as they mention in the text.<p>As with almost everything David Mermin writes, I specially enjoyed this talk: &quot;My Life with Fischer&quot; [0]. In this talk  he describes how great, but scientifically &#x27;unforgiving&#x27;, Michael Fischer was, and how he raised the standards and quality of work of those around him.
If he has discussed this successfully at length with his father and if his upbringing instilled in him some of the qualities Mermin attributes to his father, Matthew Fischer should be on to something interesting.<p>Let me share some quotes from that speech:<p>&quot;Wagner and I had tried to explain to Michael that an argument of Pierre’s could be adapted to prove that there could be no spontaneous magnetization in the 2-dimensional Heisenberg model. I hadn’t known Michael for very long at that point, and one of the first things I learned was that you should think twice before claiming to <i>prove</i> something in front of a man who encourages postdocs to show that the free energy <i>exists</i>. He didn’t believe a word of it. Spectral functions, indeed! How did we know those frequency integrals even converged? It soon became evident that we were dealing with a man who knew nothing about quantum field theory, didn’t care one bit that he didn’t, and was convinced that we would be better off ourselves to forget it. Immediately.<p>So in the face of this astonishing attack, we worked backwards, unbundling the result from the conceptual wrappings in which it was enshrouded by some of the great thinkers of the previous decade, peeling off layer after layer, day after day, in the face of unrelenting skepticism, until finally we had it down to a trivial statement about finite dimensional matrices.<p>And then an astonishing change took place. “Publish!” he practically shouted, “it’s very important!” and having learned what it was like to be at the end of a Michael Fisher attack, I suddenly learned what it was like to have him on your side. Freeman Dyson came to town. Michael introduced us. “Mermin and Wagner have proved that there’s no spontaneous magnetization in the 2-dimensional Heisenberg model,” Michael proudly
informed him, as Herbert and I basked in his admiration. “Of course there isn’t.” Dyson responded. “But they have <i>proved</i> that there isn’t” Michael insisted. One Dyson eyebrow may have moved up half a millimeter in response. No matter. I was hooked on arguing with Michael Fisher. My life would never be the same.&quot;<p>On Mermin and Ashcroft&#x27;s textbook (one of the best in the field):<p>&quot;One person, however, has influenced almost every chapter. Michael E. Fisher, Horace White Professor of Chemistrry, Physics, <i>and</i> Mathematics, friend and neighbor, gadfly and troubadour, began to read the manuscript six years ago and has followed ever since, hard upon our tracks, through chapter, and, on occasion, through revision and re-revision, pouncing on obscurities, condemning dishonesties, decrying omissions, labeling axes, correcting misspellings, redrawing figures, and often making our lives very much more difficult by his unrelenting insistence that we could be more literate, accurate, intelligible, and thorough. We hope he will be pleased at how many of his illegible red marginalia have found their way into our text, and expect to be hearing from him about those that have not.&quot;<p>&quot;What does Michael Fisher do when he checks into a hotel room for a night? He rearranges the furniture. He’ll rotate the bed 90 degrees, put the TV in the closet to make more room on the desk, carry the desk over to the window to get more light. He is an inspiration to me. Often I find it valuable to ask myself at difficult moments, what would Michael do? This strategy is not to be confused with that of the “What Would Jesus Do?” movement, though a comparison can be interesting. Often the two questions can lead to quite different answers.<p>Let me give you a recent example of the benefits of asking “What would Michael do?” A few years ago I was at the annual meeting of the Danish Physical Society which took place at a small conference center south of Copenhagen. Each conferee had a little apartment with a tiny attic. Downstairs was a living room and bathroom. Up a narrow ladder was a built in bed in a room with no light. Since one used the apartment only at night this was an irritating arrangement. I don’t know how Jesus would have coped, but it was pretty clear to me what Michael would have done. So I dragged the mattress and bedding down the ladder, remade the bed on the living room floor, and never climbed up to the attic again. This solution would not have occurred to me if I had not asked myself ”What would Michael do?”<p>The next day various Danish conferees complained about the arrangement. Ah, I said, under such trying circumstances you should always ask yourself what Michael Fisher would do. That night the air was filled with matresses hurtling down ladders. I believe there is now a flourishing ”What Would Michael Do?” movement among the Danish physicists.&quot;<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arxiv.org&#x2F;abs&#x2F;cond-mat&#x2F;0211382" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arxiv.org&#x2F;abs&#x2F;cond-mat&#x2F;0211382</a>