Vladimir Aleksandrovich Fock (or Fok, Russian: Владимир Александрович Фoк) (December 22, 1898–December 27, 1974) was a Soviet physicist, who did foundational work on quantum mechanics. is the 356th day of the year (357th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1898 (MDCCCXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... December 27 is the 361st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (362nd in leap years). ... Year 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the 1974 Gregorian calendar. ... CCCP redirects here. ... For a generally accessible and less technical introduction to the topic, see Introduction to quantum mechanics. ...

He was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. In 1922 he graduated from Petrograd University, then continued postgraduate studies there. He became a professor there in 1932. In 1919–1923 and 1928–1941 he collaborated with the State Institute of Optics, in 1924–1936 with the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology, in 1934–1941 and 1944–1953 with the Lebedev Physical Institute. Saint Petersburg (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, English transliteration: Sankt-Peterburg), colloquially known as Питер (transliterated Piter), formerly known as Leningrad (Ленингра́д, 1924–1991) and Petrograd (Петрогра́д, 1914–1924), is a city located in Northwestern Russia on the delta of the river Neva at the east end of the Gulf of Finland... Year 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Saint Petersburg State University (Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет) is one of the oldest educational institutions in Russia, situated in the city of Saint Petersburg. ... Year 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1932 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences is a Russian research institute specializing in physics. ...

His primary scientific contribution lies in the development of quantum physics, although he also contributed significantly to the fields of mechanics, theoretical optics, theory of gravitation, physics of continuous medium. In 1926 he generalized the Klein-Gordon equation. He gave his name to Fock space, the Fock representation and Fock state, and developed the Hartree-Fock method in 1930. He made many subsequent scientific contributions, during the rest of his life. The Klein-Gordon equation (Klein-Fock-Gordon equation or sometimes Klein-Gordon-Fock equation) is the relativistic version of the Schrödinger equation. ... The Fock space is an algebraic system (Hilbert space) used in quantum mechanics to describe quantum states with a variable or unknown number of identical particles. ... A Fock state, in quantum mechanics, is any state of the Fock space with a well-defined number of particles in each state. ... In computational physics and computational chemistry, the Hartree-Fock (HF) or self-consistent field (SCF) calculation scheme is a self-consistent iterative variational procedure to calculate the Slater determinant (or the molecular orbitals which it is made of) for which the expectation value of the electronic molecular Hamiltonian is minimum. ... Year 1930 (MCMXXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Historians of science, such as Loren Graham, see Fock as a representative and proponent of Einstein's theory of relativity within the Soviet world. At a time when most Marxist philosophers objected to relativity theory, Fock emphasized a materialistic understanding of relativity that coincided philosophically with Marxism.

He was a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science. The International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science was created in Menton in 1967, with Professors Raymond Daudel (France), Per-Olov Löwdin (Sweden), Robert G. Parr (USA), John A. Pople (USA) and Bernard Pullman (France) as its founding members, under the inspiration and with the support of Professor Louis de...

See also

• Fock matrix

In quantum mechanics, the Fock matrix is a matrix approximating the single-electron energy operator of a given quantum system in a given set of basis vectors. ...

References

Graham, L. (1982). "The reception of Einstein's ideas: Two examples from contrasting political cultures." In Holton, G. and Elkana, Y. (Eds.) Albert Einstein: Historical and cultural perspectives. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, pp. 107-136