From Varenna (1970) to Como (1995): Kurt Binder’s long walk in the land of criticality

Departement de Physique, CP 223, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium

^a e-mail: mmaresch@ulb.ac.be

Received: 27 March 2019
Received in final form: 6 June 2019
Published online: 9 July 2019

Abstract

This paper aims at contributing to the history of early computational statistical mechanics. The topic concerns the physics near a critical point and how long it took for Monte Carlo (MC) simulations to be seriously considered by the community as a valid and important tool to analyze critical phenomena. We will focus on one of the leading scientific figures behind this effort: Kurt Binder, whose scientific achievements were acknowledged by the award of the Boltzmann medal in 2007. Kurt Binder, who is now 75, has retired, some years ago, from a Professorship at the University of Mainz.