N. David Mermin, the Horace White Professor of Physics at Cornell University, was trained in the theory of liquids.
Over the years, his academic interests shifted to solid state physics, statistical physics, low temperature physics, mathematical crystallography and quantum computation, but his zeal for trying to explain complex science persisted.
His book, Solid State Physics, co-authored with Cornell colleague Neil Ashcroft in 1976 and now a standard textbook, was immediately translated into Polish, Russian and Japanese, and was recently translated into German and French, even though it is now almost 30 years old.
His columns in Physics Today mix serious and lighthearted topics and range from criticizing scientific publishing to questioning the origin of the phrase "shut up and calculate" to characterize a certain attitude toward the quantum theory.
After more than 40 years of science writing, Mermin says that a good way to reveal the most interesting facet of a complex piece of physics is to pick a special case and explain it in plain language. "Instead of stating a result in technical terms like spin angular momentum, use a black box that flashes a red or green light," said Mermin. Among his many awards is the inaugural American Physics Society Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize in 1989, which lauded "his remarkable clarity and wit as a lecturer to nonspecialists on difficult subjects."
The University of Texas at Austin