Fifty years ago in the Zeitschrift für Physik, two papers were published which laid the foundations for the modern quantum theory of solids. Arnold Sommerfeld quantized the theory of the electron gas, and Felix Bloch showed how this could be generalized to a realistic theory for electrons in solids. In a delightful article in PHYSICS TODAY (December 1976 page 23) Bloch has recounted the circumstances in which he came to work on the electron theory of metals in Leipzig as Heisenberg's first graduate student.
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© 1978 American Institute of Physics.
1978
American Institute of Physics
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