History of Physics Group
Recent Obituaries of Scientists
listed in alphabetical order of surname

page last updated 30 Jan 2008

• John Backus
  born December 23, 1924 died March 17, 2007
  Obituaries published in: The Times, April 3, 2007 page 54
  He was a computer scientist and mathematician who led the team which developed the 'Fortran' programming language while working at IBM in the 1950s. 'Fortran' allowed programmes to be written in a logical form independent of the computer on which they were to be run. This form was similar to the formulae used by scientists; it allowed large sophisticated applications to be written quickly to exploit the new hardware. The paper outlining the concepts was published in 1954. Fortran for the IBM 704 computer was released in 1957.
  
  
• Brebis Bleaney CBE, FRS
  born June 15, 1915 died November 4, 2006 (in The Times but date of November 30, 2006 in 'Interactions')
  Obituaries published in: The Times, December 6, 2006 page 66
  The Guardian January 8, 2007 and IOP Interactions February 2007 page 6
  
  He is probably best known for his invention and use of electron paramegnetic resonance, EPR, ( also known as electron spin resonance, ESR) just after the Second World War. He pioneered the application of these techniques to microwave spectroscopy and the study of paramagnetic crystals. With his wife he wrote Electricity and Magnetism published in 1958, which has been widely used not simply as an electricity text but also as an introduction to many branches of solid-state physics. He was elected an FRS in 1950.
  
  
• Roger John Blin-Stoyle FRS 1976 Pres. IOP 1990 - 1992
  born December 24, 1924 died January 31, 2007
  Obituaries published in: The Times March 12, 2007
  the IOP Interactions April 2007 page 6
  He made substantial advances in the understanding of the weak interaction and the properties and transformations of complex nuclei. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of his research in theoretical nuclear physics. After a sabbatical year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology he realised that he was dissatisfied with the way physics was taught in Oxford and moved to become Professor of Theoretical Physics at Sussex University. He became the founding Dean of the School of Mathematical and Physical sciences there. He took a broad interest in education, being seconded to be part - time chair of the Schools Curriculum Development Committee and he was convinced of the importance of the public understanding of science. In retirement he taught at a school in Lewes, East Sussex and contributed to the local activities of the University of the Third Age.
  
  
• Durward Cruickshank FRS 1979
  born 7 March 1924 - died 15 July 2007
  Obituaries published in:
  • Royal Society news 17 July 2007
  • The Daily Telegraph 17 July 2007 page 22
  • CCP4 17 July 2007
  • The Independent 28 July 2007
  • 'The Times' page 64 9 August 2007
  He was a crystallographer who pioneered the use of computers in structural analysis. He joined E. G. Cox's chemical crystallography group at Leeds University in 1946. He published extensively in Acta Crystallographica from 1948 onwards on topics in crystal structure refinement. From 1962 to 1967, he was Joseph Black Professor of Chemistry at Glasgow University. In 1967, he moved to UMIST. Since retirement, he has helped in the revival of the Laue method and latterly has been working on protein structure precision. He was an Editor of the 1992 IUCr Memorial Volume for Paul Ewald. He was IUCr Treasurer 1966-1972 and General Secretary 1970-1972.
  Vice president 1983 - 1985 of the British Crystallographic Association. Winner of the 1st Dorothy Hodgkin Prize of the British Crystallographic Association in 1991 Further information can be found on the website of the British Crystallographic Association.
  
  
• John McGregor Hill knighted 1969, FRS 1981
  Born February 21, 1921 in Chester, died January 14, 2008
  Obituary published in: The Times January 30, 2008
  He received a Ph.D in nuclear physics for research on radioactive isotopes with short lifetimes. In 1950 he began working for the Department of Atomic Energy for the Ministry of Supply at the Windscale nuclear establishment in Cumbria, where he was involved with the construction of Britain's first two nuclear reactors. They were air cooled, graphite moderated and used natural uranium fuel to produce plutonium for Britain's early nuclear weapons. He managed several other production facilities before becoming chairman of the UKAEA in 1967, a post he held until 1981. He was a Fellow of the Institue of Physics and the Institute of Energy, was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1981 and of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1982. He was awarded medals by the Institute of Energy and the Institute of Radiology and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Bradford.
  
  
• Samuel Devons FRS 1955
  born September 30, 1914 in Bangor, N Wales died December 6, 2006
  Obituaries published in: The Times February 9, 2007
  He had a distinguished career in Britain and the United States. He worked on heavy nuclei, muons, atoms, X-rays and nuclear electric charges. He enjoyed recreating historic physics experiments, from Cavendish's measurements of electric charges in the 1770s, through Weber and Kohlrausch's 1858 experiments on electrostatics and electrodynamics charges to the later work of Franklin, Faraday and Volta. After retiring in 1985 he continued to be active. In 2004 he organised a physics conference on the work of Benjamin Franklin. In 2005 he visited London to be honoured for his 50 years as an FRS.
  
  
• James Johnston
  born December 15, 1911 died December 28, 2006
  Obituaries published in: The Times February 14, 2007
  He was a health physicist and scientific administrator who helped to develop safety training for the UK Atomic Energy Authority following the Windscale nuclear plant fire on October 10, 1957 which released large amounts of radioactivity into the atmosphere contaminating the surrounding countryside.
  
  
• Alan MacDiarmid
  born April 14, 1927 in New Zealand died February 7, 2007
  Obituaries published in: The Times February 9, 2007
  He was a chemistry graduate who received a PhD in inorganic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1953. He won a New Zealand Shell Scholarship to study silicon hydrides at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where we has awarded a Ph.D in 1955. After a spell at St. Andrews he joined the chemistry department of the University of Pennsylvania, where he remained for 45 years. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2000 jointly with Alan Heeger and Hidecki Shirikawa with whom he had developed plastics that conduct electricity. They diffused bromine into polyacetylene film and found it then conducted electricity millions of time more efficiently. These conductive polymers have important practical applications as displays in mobile phones, in solar cells and in 'smart' windows which can exclude sunlight.
  
  
• Geoff Manning CBE 1986
  born 1929 died December 21, 2006
  Obituaries published in: The Oxford Times January 5, 2007, The Times February 5, 2007
  the IOP Interactions March 2007 page 6
  Spectrum, the CCLRC newsletter for staff news and events, February 2007 back page.
  He was Director of the Rutherford Laboratory (in 2007 is known as the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory) between 1979 and 1986. During this time he widened the areas of research of the laboratory, attracted foreign funding and oversaw the design and construction of the spallation neutron source, ISIS, opened by Margaret Thatcher in October 1985.
  
  
• Nevill Francis Mott FRS 1936, Nobel prize 1977
  born September 30, 1905 died August 8, 1996
  Obituaries published in: The Times August 12, 1996 p14
  
  
• Donald Osterbrock
  born July 13, 1924 died January 11, 2007
  Obituaries published in: The Times March 14, 2007 p 73
  He was best known for his studies of the birth of stars and innovative methods of observing gaseous nebulae. He also investigated galactic nuclei, the black holes at the centre of galaxies. He was president of the American Astronomical Society. As well as textbooks and articles he also published historical studies of 19th and 20th century astronomy.
  
  
• Rendel Sebastian (Bas) Pease FRS 1977 Pres. IOP 1978 - 1980
  born November 2, 1922 died October 17, 2004, buried in West Ilsley, Berks
  Obituaries published in: The Times October 26, 2004
  Bas Pease was a distinguished advocate of the peaceful application of nuclear power for the generation of electricity. His major research involved the use of X-ray crystallography to study the positions of hydrogen atoms in crystals and the structure of solids. In 1955, with George Kinchin, he published a paper on the mechanism of damage by radiation in a reactor core, providing a crucial theoretical model of how heavy fast particles and gamma rays behave when they pass through a solid. In 1961 he was Appointed Division head at Culham Laboratory for Plasma Physics and Nuclear Fusion.
  
  His family was a very political one, committed to Fabian Socialism. Between 1988 and 2002 he was Chairman of the British Pugwash Group, which works, among other things, for the prevention of the spread of nuclear weapons to countries which do not now have them, and for the abolition of the existing nuclear arsenals. He was also an accomplished musician.
  
  
• Gareth Roberts FRS 1984 Pres. IOP 1998 - 2000
  born May 16, 1940 died February 6, 2007
  Obituaries published in: The Times March 20, 2007
  the IOP Interactions April 2007 page 6
  He was born into a Welsh speaking family in North Wales. He studied physics at the University Collage of North Wales at Bangor. His interests were in Langmuir-Blodgett films and insulating films on semi-conductors. he was elected to the Royal Society for his work in molecular electronics. He was particularly concerned with the development of science education, but his influence on social and educational policy was far more broadly based. He was Vice-chancellor of Sheffield University 1991 - 2000 and was knighted in 1997. He was president of Wolfson college Oxford from 2001 until his death in 2007.
  
  
  
  
• Lewis Edward John Roberts
  born 31 Jan 1922 in Cardiff Died 10 Aril 2012 Ashes buried in Chilton 16 Aug
  Obituary short in The Times page 48 25 July 2012
  He was anuclear scientist who made contributions to solid-state chemistry and joined the team working to cretaean atomic bomb before switching to civil nuclear-development.
  Director of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, Oxford 1975 - 1986.
  Wolfson professor of Environmental Risk, University of East Anglia 1986 - 1990.
  
  
• Joseph Rotblat
  born November 4, 1908 died August 31, 2005
  
  Articles in the Group Newsletter by or about him
  • Issue no 15 2002 page 45 he gave a paper on 'The Importance of being a Nobel Laureate'
  • A report on a Conference 'War and Peace' celebrating his life and work was published on page 35 of the January 2007 issue no 21 of the Group newsletter.
  
  

last updated 13 Aug 2014