Anthony Philip French (November 19, 1920 – February 3, 2017) was a British physicist. At the time of his death he was professor emeritus of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Anthony French | |
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Born | Anthony Philip French November 19, 1920 |
Died | February 3, 2017 | (aged 96)
Alma mater | Cambridge University (BA, PhD) |
Spouses | Naomi Livesay
(m. 1945; died 2001)Dorothy Jensen (m. 2002) |
Awards | Oersted Medal (1989) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | |
Institutions |
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French was born November 19, 1920, in Brighton, England.[1][2] French won a scholarship to study at Sydney Sussex College at Cambridge University, receiving his B.A. in physics in 1942.[3]
In 1942, he was recruited by Egon Bretscher to the British effort to build an atomic bomb (codenamed Tube Alloys) at the Cavendish Laboratory.[3] By 1944, Tube Alloys had been merged with the American Manhattan Project and French was sent to Los Alamos.[1]
In 1945 he married Los Alamos mathematician Naomi Livesay.[4][1]
When the war ended, French returned to Cambridge University and the Cavendish Laboratory where he joined the faculty at Pembroke College, becoming a fellow and director of studies in natural sciences.[3] He was awarded a Ph.D. in 1948 based on some of his declassified work from Los Alamos.[3][1] French also briefly worked at the newly formed Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell, Oxfordshire.[3]
In 1955, French relocated to the University of South Carolina and was soon appointed chair of the physics department.[1][3] At this time he wrote the textbook Principles of Modern Physics.[3] He left South Carolina in 1962 to take a faculty position in the MIT Physics Department, where he remained until he retired and was named emeritus in 1991.[3] French's main interest was undergraduate physics education. He was chairman of the Commission on Physics Education of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (1975-1981) and president of the American Association of Physics Teachers (1985-1986). He was also a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
French's wife Naomi died in 2001.[3] In 2002 he married Dorothy Jensen.[3] French died February 3, 2017.[1][2]