Madan Lal Mehta was a theoretical physicist of Indian origin, known in particular for his work in random matrix theory.

Biography

Madan Lal Mehta was born in Relmagra (Udaipur) 24 December 1932. He obtained his "Master of Science in mathematics" from the University of Rajasthan (Jaipur) in 1956. After two years at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay, he came to France in November 1958 in the Department of Mathematical Physics (now the Department of Theoretical Physics) Centre d'Etudes Nucléaires de Saclay.

In 1961, he received his PhD under the supervision of Claude Bloch on a topic for the material at low density. In 1962–1963, he worked at the Institute for Advanced Study

Institute for Advanced Study

The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...

 in Princeton (USA).

He returned to India at Delhi University before staying again in the U.S. in 1966–1967 at Princeton University and Argonne National Laboratory. He returned to France in the Department of Theoretical Physics at CEA Saclay in September 1967 where he remained until the end of his career and his return to his homeland in January 2005. Recruited at the CNRS in 1970, he acquired French citizenship in 1971.

He died on Sunday 10 December 2006 in Udaipur

Udaipur

Udaipur , also known as the City of Lakes, is a city, a Municipal Council and the administrative headquarters of the Udaipur district in the state of Rajasthan in western India. It is located southwest of the state capital, Jaipur, west of Kota, and northeast from Ahmedabad...

 (Rajasthan

Rajasthan

Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...

, a state of India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

).

He spoke English, French, Russian, Japanese and Chinese, in addition to several Indian languages, including Hindi.

Work in physics

Madan Lal Mehta is known for his work on random matrices

Random matrix

In probability theory and mathematical physics, a random matrix is a matrix-valued random variable. Many important properties of physical systems can be represented mathematically as matrix problems...

. His book "Random Matrices" is considered classic in the field.

Together with Michel Gaudin, he developed the orthogonal polynomial method, which is the basic tool to study the eigenvalue distribution of invariant matrix ensembles. Together with Freeman Dyson

Freeman Dyson

Freeman John Dyson FRS is a British-born American theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum field theory, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering. Dyson is a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists...

, he worked on Dyson's circular ensemble

Circular ensemble

In the theory of random matrices, the circular ensembles are measures on spaces of unitary matrices introduced by Freeman Dyson as modifications of the Gaussian matrix ensembles...

s. His other collaborators include P.K. Srivastava, N. Rozenzweig, J. of Cloizeaux, G. Mahoux, A. Pandey, J.M. Normand and B. Eynard.