Walter Thirring was born in Vienna, Austria, where he earned his Doctor of Physics degree in 1949 at the age of 22. In 1959 he became a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Vienna, and from 1968 to 1971 he was head of the Theory Division and director at CERN.
High-energy physics was Walter’s earliest scientific interest. Important papers include the first rigorous proof of divergence of perturbation series in a quantum field theory and the discovery of an exactly soluble model in relativistic quantum field theory, known as the Thirring model. That 1958 work, not Sin-itiro Tomonaga’s paper as occasionally alleged, was the source for Joaquin Luttinger’s important model in condensed-matter physics and for ”bosonization.” Walter’s 1955 monograph on quantum electrodynamics was highly influential. Two remarkable papers he published in Nuclear Physics in 1959 and 1960 contain ideas pointing to the eightfold way and the theory of quarks developed later by Murray Gell-Mann and Yuval Ne’eman.[5]
Walter Thirring authored Cosmic Impressions, Templeton Press, Philadelphia and London, in 2007, and in that book he sums up his feelings about the scientific discoveries made by modern cosmology:
In the last decades, new worlds have been unveiled that our great teachers wouldn’t have even dreamed of. The panorama of cosmic evolution now enables deep insights into the blueprint of creation… Human beings recognize the blueprints, and understand the language of the Creator… These realizations do not make science the enemy of religion, but glorify the book of Genesis in the Bible.
Selected papers of Walter E. Thirring with Commentaries. American Mathematical Society, 1998, ISBN0821808125
Einführung in die Quantenelektrodynamik. Deuticke, Wien 1955
Principles of quantum electrodynamics. Academic Press, New York 1958; 2nd edn. 1962
with Ernest M. Henley: Elementare Quantenfeldtheorie.BI Verlag, Mannheim 1975
Erfolge und Misserfolge der theoretischen Physik. In: Physikalische Blätter Jg. 33 (1977), p. 542ff. (Singularitäty theorem of Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, KAM-theory, stability of matter, lecture delivered at the presentation of the Max Planck medal)
Lehrbuch der Mathematischen Physik. Springer (trans. into English by Evans M. Harrell as A course in mathematical physics)
1. Klassische Dynamische Systeme. 1977, ISBN3-211-82089-2; trans. as Classical dynamical systems (1978)[7]
2. Klassische Feldtheorie. 1978, ISBN3-211-82169-4; trans. as Classical field theory (1978)
3. Quantenmechanik von Atomen und Molekülen. 1979, ISBN3-211-82535-5;[8] trans. as Quantum mechanics of atoms and molecules (1979)
4. Quantenmechanik großer Systeme. 1980, ISBN3-211-81604-6; trans. as Quantum mechanics of large systems (1983)
Stabilität der Materie. In: Naturwissenschaften. Springer, Berlin Jg. 73 (1986), p. 705ff.
Kosmische Impressionen. Gottes Spuren in den Naturgesetzen. Molden, Wien 2004, ISBN3-85485-110-3
Einstein entformelt. Wie ein Teenager ihm auf die Schliche kam. Seifert Verlag, Wien 2007, co-author Cornelia Faustmann, ISBN3-902-40642-9
Lust am Forschen: Lebensweg und Begegnungen. Seifert Verlag, Wien 2008, ISBN978-3902406583
^Thirring, H. Über die Wirkung rotierender ferner Massen in der Einsteinschen Gravitationstheorie. Physikalische Zeitschrift19, 33 (1918). (On the Effect of Rotating Distant Masses in Einstein's Theory of Gravitation)
^Thirring, H. Berichtigung zu meiner Arbeit: "Über die Wirkung rotierender Massen in der Einsteinschen Gravitationstheorie". Physikalische Zeitschrift22, 29 (1921). (Correction to my paper "On the Effect of Rotating Distant Masses in Einstein's Theory of Gravitation")
^Lense, J. and Thirring, H. Über den Einfluss der Eigenrotation der Zentralkörper auf die Bewegung der Planeten und Monde nach der Einsteinschen Gravitationstheorie. Physikalische Zeitschrift19 156-63 (1918) (On the Influence of the Proper Rotation of Central Bodies on the Motions of Planets and Moons According to Einstein's Theory of Gravitation)
