| RefNo | EC/2024/27 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Goldenfeld, Nigel: certificate of election to the Royal Society |
| Date | 21 April 2024 |
| Description | Certificate endorsing election of Nigel Goldenfeld as a Fellow of the Royal Society. Includes personal details of the elected Fellow, citation giving the reasons for election, and names of proposers. Signed by the Executive Director of the Royal Society, Julie Maxton. |
| Citation | Goldenfeld co-discovered the fundamental mechanisms that select patterns in solidification and other diffusion controlled interfacial dynamical systems, and developed novel techniques to solve moving boundary problems. He deduced the d-wave pairing state of cuprate superconductors through analysis of experimental data, and codiscovered the 3D XY scaling regime of critical fluctuations. He invented renormalization group methods for asymptotics and singularly perturbed differential equations, and discovered novel scaling laws in fully-developed quantum and classical turbulent flows. Goldenfeld explained the super-exponential scaling of turbulent lifetime near the laminar-turbulence transition and elucidated how directed percolation is the universality class for this transition by constructing the Landau theory from the Navier-Stokes equations. Through digital life simulations, Goldenfeld showed how the genetic code must have evolved from an early collective state of life before the last universal common ancestor, in order for it to be universal and robust to mutations and errors. In biological physics, He developed the theory of stochastic Turing patterns induced by demographic noise, with applications in ecology, neuroscience and synthetic biology. He maintains active links with the UK and is very willing to be involved in committee work and the life of the Royal Society. |
| Extent | 4p |
| Format | Computer printout |
| PhysicalDescription | A4 papers |
| AccessStatus | Closed |
| AccessConditions | Election certificates are subject to 50 year closure period from date of election. Details of proposers and date certificate was first submitted for candidacy are kept confidential until the 50 year closure period has elapsed. |