CONTENTS CONTENTS Two entangled and scientiﬁcally impactful lives Ji ˇrí Patera Pavel Winternitz and the Montréal School of Mathematical Physics

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CONTENTS CONTENTS

Two entangled and scientiﬁcally impactful lives: Jiˇ

rí Patera, Pavel

Winternitz and the Montréal School of Mathematical Physics

Luc Vinet1?

1IVADO and Centre de Recherches Mathématiques,

Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada

* vinet@crm.umontreal.ca

November 11, 2022

34th International Colloquium on Group Theoretical Methods in Physics

Strasbourg, 18-22 July 2022

doi:10.21468/SciPostPhysProc.?

Abstract

This text offers a personal account of the scientiﬁc legacy of two giants of mathematical

physics at the turn of the Millenium and their heritage in Canada, their land of adoption.

To the memory of my mentors and friends, Jiˇrí and Pavel, with admiration and gratitude.

Contents

1 Introduction 2

2 Early life and education in the eastern bloc 2

3 Prague and Montreal 3

4 CRM: the early period and the collaborative years 4

5 ICGTMP and outreach 5

6 Moving in different scientiﬁc directions: relentless creativity 6

7 Conclusion : Passion for research - Legacy and memories 8

References 10

arXiv:2210.15488v2 [math.HO] 10 Nov 2022

2 EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION IN THE EASTERN BLOC

1 Introduction

Within a year, sadly, Pavel Winternitz and Jiˇ

rí Patera passed away in 2021 and 2022. Each one of

them stands tall and deserves separate praise. Fate has had it that they have often been celebrated

together even though in fact, most of their scientiﬁc work has been done separately. I will also

indulge in this conﬂation that will not fully do them justice. One reason is that they cannot be

dissociated on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the International Colloquium on Group

Theoretical Methods in Physics (ICGTMP); another, is that they leave a truly joint heritage in

Montreal.

Figure 1: Jiˇ

rí and Pavel

Like quantum interacting particles that become entangled and yield “magic" [1], through the

vicissitudes of History, these brilliant individuals were set on a colliding course which they steered

to have profound inﬂuences on various fronts. This is the story that I will try to tell as a tribute to

their accomplishments.

2 Early life and education in the eastern bloc

Born in Czechoslovakia, both in 1936, Jiˇ

rí and Pavel have been educated as theoretical physicists

in the great Russian tradition of the Soviet era.

Jiˇ

rí was a native of Zdice, a small town in central Bohemia near Prague. He attended high

school in Dˇ

eˇ

cín in northwestern Bohemia after which he studied at Moscow State University and

Dubna as well. In 1964, he obtained his Doctorate from Charles University in Prague. One of

his ﬁrst papers published in 1963 in Nuclear Physics studied the production of Λ-hyperons in

−

−pinteractions [2]and was written in collaboration with the prominent physicist Blokhintsev,

a student of Tamm, who founded the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna and

was its ﬁrst director. In 1965, Jiˇ

rí took a leave from the Physical Institute of the Czechoslovak

Academy of Sciences to hold a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Research Council (NRC)

of Canada within the developing theory group of the Physics Department of the Université de

3 PRAGUE AND MONTREAL

Montréal that included Asok Bose, Guy Paquette and soon thereafter Jean-Robert Derome as well

as Robert Brunet in the Mathematics Department. This is when, with Bose, Jiˇ

rí began his work on

group theoretical methods and as you appreciate, this stay in Montreal was to have in many other

ways a determining effect on the future. It should be recalled that a memorable world fair the

“Expo 67" took place in Montreal during that period and that the Tchechoslovak pavilion was one

of the most popular. At the end of his NRC award in December 1966, Jiˇ

rí came back to Prague.

Pavel was born in Prague. He spent the war years in England from where came his ﬂuency in

English. He pursued graduate studies at the Leningrad University where Fock was teaching and

then in Dubna where he obtained his doctorate in 1966 under the supervision of Smorodinsky, a

student of Landau, who Blokhintsev had invited in 1956 to become the head of the Theoretical

Group of the JINR. In 1967, he took a leave from the JINR and from the position he had obtained

at the Nuclear Research Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in ˇ

Rež to spend time

at the International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste. In 1968, he returned to his home

country.

3 Prague and Montreal

Czechoslovakia was an exciting place to be at the beginning of 1968 with the election in January

of Dubˇ

cek as First Secretary. Followed the Prague Spring with its waves of proposed reforms.

This unfortunately displeased the Soviet leaders to the extent that in late August troops from four

Warsaw Pact countries invaded and controlled Czechoslovakia. For some days, it was possible to

ﬂee and so did Jiˇ

rí and Pavel. With a visa in hand to attend a scientiﬁc meeting in Vienna, Jiˇ

rí, his

wife Tania and their baby daughter Sacha left with what they could pack in their small car. After

a stay in London, they headed to a city that was familiar to Jiˇ

rí, namely Montreal, where he was

appointed Researcher in the nascent CRM in 1969. More hesitant to cut ties with Europe, Pavel

initially went to England with his wife Milada and their twin boys Michael and Peter and spent

some time at the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory in Chilton where Roger Philips a student of

Dirac was his host. A year later he crossed the Rubicon and at the invitation of Wolfenstein, Pavel

moved to Pennsylvania with his family ﬁrst to Carnegie-Mellon and subsequently to the University

of Pittsburgh. This is when he was encouraged to come to Montreal by Jiˇ

rí.

In 1968, the Rector of the Université de Montréal Roger Gaudry, together with Maurice Labbé,

the ﬁrst Vice-Rector Research of the university and, Jacques St-Pierre who created the Computer

Science Department, had the vision to establish a national institute for research in the mathemati-

cal sciences: the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques that was to become internationally known

as the CRM. They obtained sizable funding from the NRC to that end. Jacques St-Pierre acted

as Interim Director and hired Jiˇ

rí. Three years later, in 1972, Pavel was also joining the CRM as

Researcher. And this is how the stage was set for two young Czechs in their mid-thirties to shape

the course of mathematical physics in Canada. In retrospect, the Czech diaspora generated by the

1968 events had a profound effect on the scientiﬁc life of Montreal. I shall expand on the roles

that Jiˇ

rí and Pavel played but there is another striking example that I wish to mention. Montreal

has two university hospital systems attached to the Université de Montréal and McGill University.

Quite strikingly at the same time in the 90s and 2000s, the research institutes of both these univer-

sity hospitals were led by two Czechs: Pavel Hamet and Emil Skamene who had come to Montreal

in circumstances similar to those of Jiˇ

rí and Pavel and who all became friends of course.

I started my undergraduate studies at the Université de Montréal in 1970. Little was I suspect-

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CONTENTSCONTENTSTwoentangledandscienticallyimpactfullives:JiríPatera,PavelWinternitzandtheMontréalSchoolofMathematicalPhysicsLucVinet1?1IVADOandCentredeRecherchesMathématiques,UniversitédeMontréal,Montréal,QC,Canada*vinet@crm.umontreal.caNovember11,202234thInternationalColloquiumonGroupTheoretical...

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CONTENTS CONTENTS Two entangled and scientiﬁcally impactful lives Ji ˇrí Patera Pavel Winternitz and the Montréal School of Mathematical Physics

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