Michael Ellis Fisher was a preeminent theoretical physicist whose distinguished career spanned over five decades across leading academic institutions. He served as Horace White Professor of Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics at Cornell University from 1966 to 1987, where he chaired the chemistry department from 1975 to 1978. Following his time at Cornell, he joined the University of Maryland College Park as a Distinguished University Professor and University System of Maryland Regents Professor, positions he held until his retirement in 2012. Fisher received his BSc in 1951 and his PhD in physics in 1957 from King's College London, where he initially began his academic career as a lecturer before rising to full professor. Born in Trinidad on September 3, 1931, Fisher established himself as one of the most influential figures in statistical physics during the second half of the twentieth century.
Dr. Fisher made seminal contributions to the understanding of phase transitions and critical phenomena, fundamentally shaping the theoretical framework of statistical mechanics. His pioneering work on renormalization group theory, scaling relations, and critical exponents provided the mathematical foundation for analyzing second-order phase transitions across diverse physical systems. Fisher's prediction of the anomalous critical exponent η, which governs the decay of correlations at critical temperature, became a cornerstone of modern statistical physics and influenced developments in quantum field theory. His research extended beyond traditional physics to biophysics, where he applied statistical mechanics to understand DNA melting through the Poland-Scheraga model, demonstrating remarkable foresight that later proved essential for polymerase chain reaction technology. These contributions established him as one of the world's 300 most cited scientific authors from 1961 to 1975.
Fisher's profound impact on theoretical physics was recognized with numerous prestigious awards including the Wolf Prize in Physics (1980), the American Physical Society Lars Onsager Prize (1995), and the Royal Society's Royal Medal. As a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Foreign Associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences, he influenced generations of physicists through his rigorous mathematical approach and deep conceptual insights. Beyond his scientific legacy, Fisher was part of a remarkable scientific family, with two of his four children, Daniel S. Fisher and Matthew P. A. Fisher, becoming distinguished theoretical physicists in their own right. Despite retiring in 2012, Fisher remained intellectually active until his passing on November 26, 2021, leaving behind a body of work that continues to shape research in statistical physics, condensed matter theory, and biophysics.
