Thomas Fink
Thomas Fink | |
|---|---|
| File:Thomas fink.jpg | |
| Born | New York, U.S. |
| Nationality | American, British |
| Alma mater | Caltech Cambridge |
| Awards | Fisher Prize (Physics) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | Cambridge ENS Curie Institute (CNRS) LIMS |
| Doctoral advisor | Robin Ball |
| Other academic advisors | Bernard Derrida |
Thomas Fink is an Anglo-American physicist and author. He has published a number of papers in statistical mechanics and mathematical biology and two popular books. He is a Fellow at the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences and a Chargé de Recherche in the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.
Education and positions
Fink was born in Plattsburgh, New York, later moving to San Antonio, Texas. He studied physics at Caltech, where he won the annual Fisher Prize in physics, and at St John's College, Cambridge, where he was supervised by Robin Ball in the TCM group, Cavendish Laboratory. He was a Junior Fellow at Caius College, Cambridge and did a postdoc at École Normale Supérieure with Bernard Derrida. He now occupies his present positions, above.
Research
Fink is a researcher in theoretical physics. He published his first paper in the journal Science at the age of 20 while at Caltech and received his PhD at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. Fink uses statistical mechanics to study complex systems in physics and interdisciplinary fields, including discrete dynamics, network theory, critical phenomena and theoretical biology. His Erdős number is 3 (see the list of people by Erdős number).
Selected Papers
- S. Ahnert, T. Fink and A. Zinovyev, 'How much non-coding DNA do eukaryotes require?', J. Theor. Bio. 252, 587.
- F. Brown, T. Fink and K. Willbrand, ‘On arithmetic and asymptotic properties of up-down numbers’, Disc. Math. 307 1722.
- B. Derrida and T. Fink, 'Sequence determination from overlapping fragments', Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 068106.
- T. Fink and R. Ball, 'How many conformations can a protein remember?', Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 198103.
- T. Fink and Y. Mao, 'Designing Tie knots by random walks', Nature 398, 31.[1]
- B. Werner and T. Fink, 'Beach cusps as self-organized patterns', Science 260, 968.
Books
According to his homepage, Fink's books have sold 330,000 copies.
The Man's Book (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006; Orion, 2007; Little, Brown, 2009) is a handbook of men's customs, habits and pursuits. It is organized by subject, with chapters on health, dress, sports, outdoors, drinking, eating and others. The author dedicates only a few pages to each section (of which there are about 100), and within that space tries to summarize the essentials as completely and densely as possible. For instance, the section on beer explains the different beer styles, lists popular beers from around the world, and summarizes beer drinking customs. The book was designed by the author, and was written so that each section finishes on the last line of a page. This effect does not survive translation, however. The Man's Book has been reviewed in The Times (UK), the Literary Review, the New Statesman, and has been translated into German, Italian, Russian and other languages.[2]
The 85 Ways to Tie a Tie, (with Yong Mao, Fourth Estate, London, 1999) is a cultural, historical and mathematical examination of ties and tie knots. The book includes a layman's account of the authors' mathematical papers which derived all possible knots capable of being tied with a standard necktie.[3] It has been published in 10 languages.
London Institute for Mathematical Sciences
In 2009 Fink founded the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences (LIMS)[4], a private research centre in Mayfair, London funded by government research grants and benefaction. LIMS gives scientists the support and freedom to do what they do best: make fundamental discoveries.
iPhone Application
In May 2009 IntuApps, a New York iPhone application developer, and Little, Brown released an iPhone application inspired by The Man's Book. The app hit the No. 1 spot in the Apple App Store, with over 1 million downloads, on 23 May 2009, according to the IntuApps website and Little, Brown.[5]
External links
References
- ^ "Solving a knotty problem". BBC News. 4 March 1999.
- ^ Sanderson, Mark (19 November 2006). "Literary life". The Telegraph.
- ^ Buck, Gregory (2000). "Why not knot right?". Nature. 403 (6768): 362. doi:10.1038/35000270.
- ^ "London Institute for Mathematical Sciences".
- ^ "The Man's Book: the Essential Guide for the Modern Man". PCWorld. 2009-05-06. Retrieved 2010-04-05.