Professor Samuel Devons
Born(1914-09-30)30 September 1914
Bangor, Wales, United Kingdom
Died6 December 2006(2006-12-06) (aged 92)
Westchester, New York, USA
NationalityBritish
CitizenshipUnited Kingdom
AwardsRutherford Medal and Prize (1970)

Samuel Devons FRS (30 September 1914 – 6 December 2006) was a British physicist and science historian.

Biography

Devons, son of a Lithuanian immigrant, David Isaac Devons 1881-1926 and Edith Edelston from York 1891-1938 Sam was born in Bangor, Wales.[1][2][3] When he turned 16, he was awarded a scholarship for physics at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1935, Devons received his bachelor's degree at Trinity College, and his PhD in 1939.

Personal life

Devons married Ruth Toubkin in 1938 in England, United Kingdom, and moved to the United States in 1960, to work at Columbia University Physics Department. He had four daughters (Susan, Judith, Amanda and Cathryn), and had 12 grandchildren (Laura, Marc, Benjamin, Daniel, Jesse, David, Jonathan, Anna, Jacob, Rachel, Jessica and Matthew), and 3 great-grandchildren at the time of his death (Joel, Emily and Julia,) and later Elisheva, Nachman, Nathan, Noah, Stella, Isabella, Sophia, Gavriel, Constantino, Gabriel, Racheli, Cathryn, Hannah, Shana, Sebastian, Lucas, Benyamin, Jordan, Aryeh, Luke, Oscar, and Eliyahu, for a total of 25 great grandchildren as of 2023.

In World War II, Devons served as a senior scientific officer in the Air Ministry, Ministry of Aircraft Production and Ministry of Supply, working on antiaircraft barrages, microwaves, and radar.[1][2] During the war, he became a liaison officer for the US and UK, posted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology radiation laboratory.[1][2] At the end of the war, he served as a British intelligence officer in Germany, assisting in the interrogation of surrendered scientists.[1][3]

In 2005, he was honored for 50 years as a Fellow of the Royal Society.[2]

Institutional history

Works

  • The Excited States of Nuclei (1949)
  • Biology and Physical Sciences (1969) (ed.)
  • High Energy Physics and Nuclear Structure (1970) (ed.)

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Frank Sciulli (3 January 2007). "Professor Samual Devons; Physicist and historian of science". The Independent.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Professor Samuel Devons". The Times. London. 9 February 2007.
  3. 1 2 "Samuel Devons". Physics Today. 4 January 2007. Archived from the original on 12 June 2011.
  4. ↑ "Samuel Devons, Physicist and Historian, 92". The New York Times. 18 December 2006.


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