Yakir Aharonov (Hebrew: יקיר אהרונוב; born August 28, 1932) is an Israeli physicist specializing in quantum physics. He has been a Professor of Theoretical Physics and the James J. Farley Professor of Natural Philosophy at Chapman University in California since 2008. He was a distinguished professor in the Perimeter Institute between 2009-2012 and is a professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University and at University of South Carolina. He is president of the IYAR, The Israeli Institute for Advanced Research. In June 2024 he was elected to serve in the Royal Society of London.
Biography Yakir Aharonov was born in Haifa. He received his undergraduate education at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, graduating with a BSc in 1956. He continued his graduate studies at the Technion and then moved to Bristol University, UK together with his doctoral advisor David Bohm, receiving a Ph.D. degree in 1960. Aharonov later taught at Brandeis University from 1960 to 1961 and the Yeshiva University from 1964 to 1967, both in the United States. Married to Nily, an educational psychologist, and father of two. His brother, Dov Aharonov, is a professor emeritus at the Faculty of Mathematics at the Technion, and his niece, Dorit Aharonov, is a professor at the School of Engineering and Computer Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Academic career His research interests are nonlocal and topological effects in quantum mechanics, quantum field theories and interpretations of quantum mechanics. In 1959, he and David Bohm proposed the Aharonov–Bohm effect for which he co-received the 1998 Wolf Prize. In 1988, Aharonov, David Albert, and Lev Vaidman published their theory of weak values. This work was motivated by Aharonov's long-time quest to experimentally verify his theory that apparently random events in quantum mechanics are caused by events in the future (two-state vector formalism). Verifying a present effect of a future cause requires a measurement, which would ordinarily destroy coherence and ruin the experiment. He and his colleagues claim that they were able to use weak measurements and verify the present effect of the future cause. Working with Aharon Casher, they predicted the Aharonov–Casher effect, the electrodynamic dual of the Aharonov–Bohm effect with magnetic dipoles and charges.
Timeline 1960–1961: Research Associate, Brandeis University 1961–1964: Assistant Professor, Yeshiva University 1964–1967: Associate Professor, Yeshiva University 1967–1973: Joint professorship at Tel Aviv University and Yeshiva University 1973–2006: Joint professorship at Tel Aviv University and the University of South Carolina 2006–2008: Professor at George Mason University 2008–present: Professor of Theoretical Physics and the James J. Farley Professor of Natural Philosophy at Chapman University
Awards and recognition 1978: Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society 1984: Weizmann Prize in Physics 1984: Rothschild Prize in Physics 1989: Israel Prize in exact science 1990: Elected to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities 1991: The Elliott Cresson Medal – The Franklin Institute 1992: Honorary Doctor of Science, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology 1993: Elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 1993: Honorary Doctor of Science, University of South Carolina, USA 1995: Hewlett–Packard Europhysics Prize 1997: Honorary Doctor of Science, Bristol University, UK 1998: Wolf Prize in Physics with Michael Berry 1999: Honorary Doctor of Science, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina 2009: Selected Clarivate Citation laureate in Physics with Michael Berry. 2006: EMET Prize in Exact Science In 2009, the information service Thomson Reuters named Aharonov as leading candidate for the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics, based on his work's influence on quantum physics. 2010: National Medal of Science (2009), awarded and presented by President Barack Obama 2024: Foreign Member of the Royal Society
See also List of Israel Prize recipients
References
External links Aharonov homepage at Chapman University Aharonov biography Aharonov homepage at USC Aharonov homepage at Tel Aviv University Yakir Aharonov at the Mathematics Genealogy Project