Phil Anderson's Magnetic Ideas in Science

Abstract

In Philip W. Anderson's research, magnetism has always played a special role, providing a prism through which other more complex forms of collective behavior and broken symmetry could be examined. I discuss his work on magnetism from the 1950s, where his early work on antiferromagnetism led to the pseudospin treatment of superconductivity - to the 70s and 80s, highlighting his contribution to the physics of local magnetic moments. Phil's interest in the mechanism of moment formation, and screening evolved into the modern theory of the Kondo effect and heavy fermions.