At the publishing house World Scientific at the beginning of 2026, the book "Ernst Ising's Doctoral Dissertation. One Hundred Years Later" was published, authored by Reinhard Folk (Johannes Kepler University, Austria), Bertrand Berche (University of Lorraine, France), Ralph Kenna (Coventry University, United Kingdom), and Yuriy Holovach (I.R. Yukhnovsky Institute of Condensed Matter Physics of the NAS of Ukraine, Ukraine).
The foreword to the publication was written by Nobel laureate in physics Giorgio Parisi. The book presents the text of Ernst Ising's doctoral dissertation "Contribution to the Theory of Ferromagnetism and Paramagnetism" (in the original German and its English translation), which was completed under the supervision of Wilhelm Lenz at the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Hamburg and defended on July 31, 1924. This dissertation became the first publication of the now widely known Ising model. Subsequently, the corresponding article was published in the journal Zeitschrift für Physik, 31, 253-258 (1925). With brilliant intuition, this model, proposed by Wilhelm Lenz to Ernst Ising at the end of 1922, aimed to describe the ferromagnetic phase using statistical mechanics, based solely on the interaction between the magnetic moments of individual atoms. The main feature of the model is the possibility for an atom's magnetic moment to be oriented in only one of two opposite directions. Over time, the Ising model became fundamental for describing collective phenomena and new properties of various systems, not only of physical nature. Today, the Ising model is fundamentally important in theoretical physics and condensed matter physics, as well as in various modifications in the science of complex systems. It serves as a paradigm that helps find a common language for scientists from different fields of knowledge, ranging from natural sciences to social, economic, and even humanitarian sciences.
The book consists of five chapters. The first chapter presents the text of E. Ising's dissertation in German and English. The second chapter contains three texts (the original German and their English translations), namely: an extended abstract of the dissertation written by E. Ising himself and published as a separate book by Grefe & Tiedemann in Hamburg, E. Ising's autobiography, and Wilhelm Lenz's review of his dissertation. The third chapter provides the authors' commentary on E. Ising's dissertation. The fourth chapter contains an article by the book's authors together with Ising's son, Thomas, about the life and fate of Ernst Ising and the fate of his famous model. The fifth chapter presents some facts about the lives of scientists who were in one way or another connected with the Ising model, traces the emergence of international scientific structures in post-war Europe, and demonstrates their solidarity in supporting Ukraine in the war caused by the Russian aggressor.
This book is the result of the collaboration of four co-authors, one of whom – Professor Ralph Kenna – passed away during the publication process of this book.
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Reference. Yuriy Holovach – Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor, Academician of the NAS of Ukraine, Chief Researcher at the I.R. Yukhnovsky Institute of Condensed Matter Physics of the NAS of Ukraine, founder of the Ising Lectures – an annual workshop on the physics of critical phenomena and complex systems held in Lviv since 1997. The idea for this book arose as one of the results of this initiative.
According to information from the I.R. Yukhnovsky Institute of Condensed Matter Physics of the NAS of Ukraine