Brian Pippard Explained

Brian Pippard
Birth Date:1920 9, df=yes
Birth Place:Earl's Court, London, England
Death Place:Cambridge, England
Workplaces:University of Cambridge
Alma Mater:Clare College, Cambridge
Awards:Fellow of the Royal Society
Hughes Medal (1960)
Holweck Medal (1961)
Heineman Prize (1969)
Onsager Medal (2005)
Module:
Embed:yes
Term Start1:1966
Term End1:1973
Successor1:Sir Robert Honeycombe

Sir Alfred Brian Pippard, FRS (7 September 1920 – 21 September 2008),[1] was a British physicist. He was Cavendish Professor of Physics from 1971 until 1982 and an Honorary Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, of which he was the first President.

Biography

Pippard was educated at Clifton College[2] and Clare College, Cambridge, where he graduated with MA (Cantab) and PhD degrees.

After working as a scientific officer in radar research during the Second World War, he was appointed as a Demonstrator in Physics at the University of Cambridge in 1946, subsequently becoming a Lecturer in the subject in 1950, a Reader in 1959, and the first John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Physics a year later. In 1971 he was elected Cavendish Professor of Physics.

Pippard demonstrated the reality, as opposed to the mere abstract concept, of Fermi surfaces in metals by establishing the shape of the Fermi surface of copper through measuring the reflection and absorption of microwave electromagnetic radiation[3] (see the anomalous skin effect[4]). He also introduced the notion of coherence length in superconductors in his proposal for the non-local generalisation of the London equations[5] [6] concerning electrodynamics in superfluids and superconductors. The non-local kernel proposed by Pippard,[7] [8] [9] inferred on the basis of Chambers' non-local generalisation of Ohm's law) can be deduced within the framework of the BCS (Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer) theory of superconductivity[10] (a comprehensive description of the details of the London–Pippard theory can be found in the book by Fetter and Walecka[11]).

Pippard was the author of Elements of Classical Thermodynamics for Advanced Students of Physics,[12] Dynamics of Conduction Electrons,[13] and The Physics of Vibration.[14] He also co-authored the three-volumes encyclopaedia Twentieth Century Physics.[15]

As the Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, he compiled Cavendish Problems in Classical Physics,[16] based in large part on past examination questions for Cambridge physics students.

Pippard was the doctoral supervisor of Brian David Josephson (awarded PhD in Physics in 1964) who in 1973 received the Nobel Prize in Physics (together with Leo Esaki and Ivar Giaever) for his discovery of what is known as the Josephson effect.[17]

Obituaries

External links

Notes and References

  1. Longair . M. S. . Malcolm Longair. Waldram . J. R. . 10.1098/rsbm.2009.0014 . Sir Alfred Brian Pippard. 7 September 1920 -- 21 September 2008 . . 55 . 201–220 . 2009 .
  2. "Clifton College Register" Muirhead, J.A.O. p464: Bristol; J.W Arrowsmith for Old Cliftonian Society; April, 1948
  3. Pippard . A. B. . An Experimental Determination of the Fermi Surface in Copper . 10.1098/rsta.1957.0023 . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences . 250 . 979 . 325–357 . 1957 . 1957RSPTA.250..325P . 120993464 .
  4. N. W. Ashcroft, and N. D. Mermin, Solid State Physics (Thompson Learning, Inc., London, 1976), Chapter 14, Measuring the Fermi Surface, p. 277, Anomalous Skin Effect; . See Classical skin depth.
  5. Book: Zhou. Shu-Ang. Electrodynamic Theory of Superconductors. 1991. Peter Peregrinus Ltd.. London. 0-86341-257-2.
  6. F. London, Superfluids, Vol. I: Macroscopic Theory of Superconductivity (Dover Publications, New York, 1961), p. 152.
  7. Waldram . J. R. . Pippard . A. B. . Clarke . J. . 10.1098/rsta.1970.0075 . Theory of the Current-Voltage Characteristics of SNS Junctions and other Superconducting Weak Links . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences . 268 . 1188 . 265–287 . 1970 . 1970RSPTA.268..265W . 122559890 .
  8. Pippard . A. B. . Quantization of Coupled Orbits in Metals II. The Two-Dimensional Network, with Special Reference to the Properties of Zinc . 10.1098/rsta.1964.0008 . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences . 256 . 1072 . 317–355 . 1964 . 1964RSPTA.256..317P . 122241308 .
  9. Pippard . A. B. . Trapped Flux in Superconductors . 10.1098/rsta.1955.0011 . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences . 248 . 941 . 97–129 . 1955 . 1955RSPTA.248...97P . 119893482 .
  10. Bardeen . J. . Cooper . L. N. . Schrieffer . J. R. . Theory of Superconductivity . Physical Review . American Physical Society (APS) . 108 . 5 . 1957-12-01 . 0031-899X . 10.1103/physrev.108.1175 . 1175–1204. 1957PhRv..108.1175B . free.
  11. A.L. Fetter, and J. D. Walecka, Quantum Theory of Many-Particle Systems (Dover Publications, New York, 2003), Chapter 13, Superconductivity, Section 49, London-Pippard Phenomenological Theory;
  12. A. B. Pippard, Elements of Classical Thermodynamics for Advanced Students of Physics (Cambridge University Press, 1957); .
  13. A. B. Pippard, Dynamics of Conduction Electrons, Documents on Modern Physics (Gordon & Beach, 1965).
  14. A. B. Pippard, The Physics of Vibration (Cambridge University Press, 2007);
  15. Laurie M. Brown, Abraham Pais, and Brian Pippard, Twentieth Century Physics (Institute of Physics Publishing, 1995): Vol. I;, Vol. II; ; Vol. III;
  16. A.B. Pippard, Cavendish Problems in Classical Physics (Pamphlet) (Cambridge University Press, 1962).
    A.B. Pippard, Cavendish Problems in Classical Physics (Pamphlet), 64 p. (Cambridge University Press, 1971)
  17. Josephson . B.D. . Possible new effects in superconductive tunnelling . Physics Letters . Elsevier BV . 1 . 7 . 1962 . 0031-9163 . 10.1016/0031-9163(62)91369-0 . 251–253. 1962PhL.....1..251J .

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