# Per Bak

Per Bak
Born8, 1948
Brønderslev, Denmark
DiedOctober 16, 2002 (aged 53)
Copenhagen, Denmark
NationalityDanish
Alma materTechnical University of Denmark
Risø National Laboratory
Known forSelf-organized criticality
Bak–Tang–Wiesenfeld sandpile
Scientific career
FieldsPhysicist
InstitutionsBrookhaven National Laboratory
University of Copenhagen
Santa Fe Institute
Niels Bohr Institute
Imperial College London

Per Bak (December 8, 1948 – October 16, 2002) was a Danish theoretical physicist who coauthored the 1987 academic paper that coined the term "self-organized criticality."

## Life and work 生活和工作

After receiving his Ph.D. from the Technical University of Denmark in 1974, Bak worked at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He specialized in phase transitions, such as those occurring when an insulator suddenly becomes a conductor or when water freezes. In that context, he also did important work on complicated spatially modulated (magnetic) structures in solids. This research led him to the more general question of how organization emerges from disorder.

1974年，巴克获得丹麦科技大学博士学位，之后在布鲁克海文国家实验室工作。他专门研究相变，比如当绝缘体突然变成导体时的相变，或者水变成冰时的相变。在这种背景下，他还着重研究固体中复杂的空间调制（磁）结构。这项研究让他思考一个更普遍的问题：组织是如何从混乱中产生的。

In 1987, he and two postdoctoral researchers, Chao Tang and Kurt Wiesenfeld, published an article in Physical Review Letters setting a new concept they called self-organized criticality. The first discovered example of a dynamical system displaying such self-organized criticality, the Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld sandpile model, was named after them.

1987年，他和两位博士后研究人员：汤超(Chao Tang) 和 库尔特·维森费尔德(Kurt Wiesenfeld)，在《物理评论快报》上发表了一篇文章，提出了一个新的概念，他们称之为自组织临界。第一个说明自组织临界态的动态系统Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld沙堆模型，就是以他们命名的。

Faced with many skeptics, Bak pursued the implications of his theory at a number of institutions, including the Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Santa Fe Institute, the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and Imperial College London, where he became a professor in 2000.

In 1996, he took his ideas to a broader audience with his ambitiously entitled book, How Nature Works. In 2001, Bak learned that he had myelodysplastic syndrome and died from it the following year. Bak is survived by his second wife, Maya Paczuski, a fellow physicist and current professor at the University of Calgary,[1] with whom he has coauthored papers,[2][3] and his four children.

1996年，他写下《自然是如何运作的》，这本雄心勃勃的著作进一步推广了自组织临界理论。2001年，巴克得知自己得了骨髓增生异常综合征，于第二年去世。巴克死后，留下他的第二任妻子马雅·帕丘斯基(Maya Paczuski)和4个孩子。马雅·帕丘斯基是他的同事，也是物理学家，目前是卡尔加里大学[1] 的教授，他们曾合著了多篇论文[2][3]

## Selected publications 部分著作

• Bak, P (1 June 1982). "Commensurate phases, incommensurate phases and the devil's staircase". Reports on Progress in Physics. 45 (6): 587–629. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.131.4735. doi:10.1088/0034-4885/45/6/001.
• Bak, Per; Tang, Chao; Wiesenfeld, Kurt (27 July 1987). "Self-organized criticality: an explanation of 1/f noise". Physical Review Letters. 59 (4): 381–384. Bibcode:1987PhRvL..59..381B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.59.381. PMID 10035754.
• 1996, How Nature Works: The Science of Self-Organized Criticality, New York: Copernicus.
• Bak, Per (December 1983). "Doing physics with microcomputers". Physics Today. 36 (12): 25–28. Bibcode:1983PhT....36l..25B. doi:10.1063/1.2915383.
• 1996, How Nature Works: The Science of Self-Organized Criticality, New York: Copernicus.

1996年，《自然是如何运作的: 自组织临界性的科学》 ，纽约: 哥白尼。

## References

1. "Home | Complexity". University of Calgary (in English). Retrieved 1 January 2021.
2. Bak, P.; Paczuski, M. (18 July 1995). "Complexity, contingency, and criticality". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 92 (15): 6689–6696. Bibcode:1995PNAS...92.6689B. doi:10.1073/pnas.92.15.6689. PMC 41396. PMID 11607561.
3. Maslov, Sergei; Paczuski, Maya; Bak, Per (17 October 1994). "Avalanches and $\frac{1}{f}$ Noise in Evolution and Growth Models". Physical Review Letters. 73 (16): 2162–2165. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.73.2162. PMID 10056988.

## References

• Jensen, Mogens Høgh (November 2002). "Per Bak (1947–2002)". Nature. 420 (6913): 284. doi:10.1038/420284a. PMID 12447430. Unknown parameter |s2cid= ignored (help)

Category:1948 births Category:2002 deaths Category:Deaths from myelodysplastic syndrome Category:People from Brønderslev Category:Academics of Imperial College London Category:Complex systems scientists Category:20th-century Danish physicists Category:Brookhaven National Laboratory staff

This page was moved from wikipedia:en:Per Bak. Its edit history can be viewed at Per Bak/edithistory