Robert Ehrlich (physicist)
He has a Bachelor of Science (Φβκ)[1] from Brooklyn College (1959), and a Ph.D. in physics from Columbia University (1964), where he participated in the Nobel prize-winning muon neutrino experiment.
In 1970 he accepted a position as associate professor at SUNY New Paltz, where he served as acting chair of the department of physics.
From 1977 until his retirement in 2013, he was professor of physics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, having served 15 years as department chair.
[5] Other scholars have cited Ehrlich's published books (12 authored, 10 edited) and over 100 articles approximately 800 times.
[6] The books mainly deal with science for the general public, physics education, energy and the environment, and nuclear arms control, and most of them are listed below by category.
[13] Together with his Mason colleague Maria Dworzecka and William M. MacDonald[14] of the University of Maryland, Ehrlich was a director of the NSF-funded "Consortium for Upper-Level Physics Software (CUPS)"[15] The project involved an international team of 29 physicists.
It generated nine books published by John Wiley & Sons and 27 simulations covering many of the areas of junior-senior courses for undergraduate physics majors.
[19] At the invitation of UNESCO, workshops on the CUPS software were conducted in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates.
Reviewed by Rick Sincere[22] Also reviewed by John D. Constable[23][24] Since the 1990s, Ehrlich has investigated the possible existence of tachyons, that is, hypothetical subatomic particles that travel faster than the speed of light in vacuum, especially tachyonic or superluminal neutrinos, about which much has been written.
[25] He has published extensively in this area,[26] including a 2022 review of all searches for evidence of tachyons.
That model, based on an analysis of supernova SN 1987A postulates three doublets of active and sterile neutrinos, having specific masses, one of which is tachyonic having m2 ~ -0.2 keV2[28][29][30] Ehrlich's model would also be proven right or wrong if a new supernova were to be observed in our galaxy, but these occur only two or three times per century.
Nevertheless, Ehrlich's model has predicted a day-long emission of monochromatic 8 MeV neutrinos from extragalactic supernovae that might show up using the current generation of detectors.
Ehrlich has written a book on tachyons intended for both the general reader and physicists: Hunting the Faster than Light Tachyon, and Finding Three Unicorns and a Herd of Elephants, published by CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group in 2022.
He is a founding member and Past President of George Mason University's Retired Faculty Association,[33] and currently serves as their Webmaster and Program Planning Chair.
