Person
Moyal, Jose Enrique (1910 - 1998)
- Born
- 1 October 1910
Jerusalem, Palestine - Died
- 22 May 1998
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia - Occupation
- Mathematician and Engineer
Summary
Jose Moyal, an engineer with de Havilland, England during World War II, was Reader, Institute of Advanced Studies at the Australian National University (ANU) 1957-1964 and later Professor of Mathematics at Macquarie University 1972-1977. He also worked in England and the USA. In 2000 the Department of Mathematica at the University awarded the inaugural Moyal Medal.
Details
José Moyal completed his tertiary studies at Cambridge and in France, and worked for the Ministère de l'Air during the early years of World War II. He escaped to England through Bordeaux when the Germans entered Paris. Until he came to Australia in 1954, Moyal worked at the de Havilland aircraft factory and held academic positions at Queen's University, Belfast, the University of Manchester, and in the United States. In 1958 Moyal was appointed Reader in the Department of Statistics at A.N.U. and in 1972 he became Professor of Mathematics at Macquarie University. His early research was in the properties of rubber and rubber-like materials, and in mathematical physics including quantum theory. He was the originator of the 'Moyal bracket' in quantum mechanics. Moyal's main research was the theory of stochastic processes and its application to physical problems such as neutron diffusion and multiplication, and cascades. He published several influential papers concerned with discontinuous Markov processes and theories of population processes.
Chronology
- 1954 - 1955
- Career position - Visiting Readership in Theoretical Physics, University of Sydney
- 1958 - 1964
- Career position - Reader, Department of Statistics, Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University (ANU)
- 1964 - 1972
- Career position - Senior Scientist, Argonne National Laboratory, National Atomic Energy Commission, Illinois, United States of America
- 1972 - 1977
- Career position - Professor of Mathematics, Macquarie University, Australia
- 1977
- Award - Honorary Doctor of Science (DSc), Australian National University (ANU)
- 2000
- Award (posthumous) - The Moyal Medal was first awarded by the Department of Mathematics, Macquarie University
Related entries
Wife
Archival resources
Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science
Published resources
Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions
- Smith, Ailie, Adolph Basser Library Manuscript Collection, eScholarship Research Centre, 2012, http://www.eoas.info/basser_browse.html. Details
Books
- Moyal, Ann, Maverick Mathematician: the Life and Science of J. E. Moyal (Canberra: ANU E Press, 2006), 194 pp. Details
Journal Articles
- Gani, J., 'José Enrique Moyal', Journal of Applied Probability, 35 (4) (1998), 1012-7. Details
- Hiley, B. J., 'The Moyal-Dirac controversy revisited', Journal and proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 154 (2) (2021), 139-60. https://doi.org/0035-9173/21/020139-22. Details
Resources
- Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q1709168. Details
- VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/29060458. Details
- 'Moyal, Jose Enrique', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1476544. Details
Gavan McCarthy [P004098] and Helen Cohn
Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 6 October 2023
- Foundation Supporter - Committee to Review Australian Studies in Tertiary Education