Frank Nabarro
Encyclopedia
MBE
MBE can stand for:* Mail Boxes Etc.* Management by exception* Master of Bioethics* Master of Bioscience Enterprise* Master of Business Engineering* Master of Business Economics* Mean Biased Error...
OMS
OMS
OMS may refer to:* Old Millfieldians - alumni of Millfield School; also used as in the OM Society.* List of Old Marlburians - alumni of Marlborough College* O'Banion Middle School — Garland, TX* Odle Middle School — Bellevue, WA...
FRS (7 March 1916 – 20 July 2006 in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
) was an English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
-born South African physicist
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and one of the pioneers of solid-state physics
Solid-state physics
Solid-state physics is the study of rigid matter, or solids, through methods such as quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism, and metallurgy. It is the largest branch of condensed matter physics. Solid-state physics studies how the large-scale properties of solid materials result from...
, which underpins much of 21st century technology.
Education
Born into a Sephardi Jewish family, he studied at Nottingham High SchoolNottingham High School
Nottingham High School is a British boys' independent school situated about a mile north of Nottingham city centre. It has around 900 pupils from ages 11 to 18 and there is the adjoining Nottingham High Junior School catering for younger boys and, from September 2008, the Lovell House...
, then at New College, Oxford
New College, Oxford
New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.- Overview :The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always...
where he obtained a first-class honours degree in physics in 1937 and another in mathematics in 1938. At the University of Bristol
University of Bristol
The University of Bristol is a public research university located in Bristol, United Kingdom. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876.The University is...
his work under Professor Nevill Francis Mott
Nevill Francis Mott
Sir Nevill Francis Mott, CH, FRS was an English physicist. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1977 for his work on the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems, especially amorphous semiconductors. The award was shared with Philip W. Anderson and J. H...
, a future Nobel Laureate in physics, earned him the Oxford degree of B.Sc. (then equivalent to an M.Sc. elsewhere). Then followed an M.A. in 1945. Within a few years he had risen to a leading role in the field of crystal lattice dislocations and plasticity. In this period he wrote a number of seminal papers which are still cited. Later papers and the books that he published cemented his dominance of the field. (See also Egon Orowan
Egon Orowan
Egon Orowan was a Hungarian/British/U.S. physicist and metallurgist.-Life:Orowan was born in the Óbuda district of Budapest. His father, Berthold, was a mechanical engineer and factory manager, and his mother, Josze Spitzer Ságvári was the daughter of an impoverished land owner...
)
Military and academic career
At the outbreak of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Nabarro became involved in the aerial defence of London and joined the Army Operational Research
Operations research
Operations research is an interdisciplinary mathematical science that focuses on the effective use of technology by organizations...
Group, headed by then Brigadier B. F. J. Schonland
Basil Schonland
Sir Basil Ferdinand Jamieson Schonland CBE FRS was the first president of the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.-Birth and Parentage:...
. His work on the explosive effects of shells resulted in his being made an MBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
.
From 1945 to 1949, Nabarro was a research fellow at the University of Bristol
University of Bristol
The University of Bristol is a public research university located in Bristol, United Kingdom. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876.The University is...
and later became a lecturer in metallurgy
Metallurgy
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...
at the University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
, for which the university awarded him a D.Sc. in 1953. In this year, he was invited to become professor of physics and head of the physics department at the University of the Witwatersrand
University of the Witwatersrand
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg is a South African university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University...
in Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, which needed to be improved and directed towards the physics of solids in order to co-operate more fruitfully with industry on the Witwatersrand. Nabarro built the physics department into one of the strongest in the country and moulded it into a leader in metallurgical research. His own research centred on 'creep', or gradual metal failure under imposed stress, and crystal dislocations, which results in the deformation of metals. Within a few years he had built up solid state physics at Wits to considerable strength. Through careful appointments he ensured the diversification of the department into magnetic resonance spectroscopy, low temperature physics, optical spectroscopy and theoretical physics. Later, with the hiring of Friedel Sellschop
Friedel Sellschop
Jacques Pierre Friederich Sellschop was a South African scientist and pioneer in the field of applied nuclear physics.-Early life and education:Sellschop was born in Luderitz, Namibia on June 8, 1930...
, the department branched into nuclear physics
Nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei. The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons technology, but the research has provided application in many fields, including those...
.
Influenced by the work of Clarence Zener
Clarence Zener
Clarence Melvin Zener was the American physicist who first described the property concerning the breakdown of electrical insulators. These findings were later exploited by Bell Labs in the development of the Zener diode, which was duly named after him...
, he was the first to propose that the contribution of grain boundaries to the flow stress
Flow stress
Flow stress is defined as the instantaneous value of stress required to continue deforming the material - to keep the metal flowing. It is the yield strength of the metal as a function of strain, which can be expressed:* Yf = Flow stress, MPa...
was inversely proportional to the square root of the grain size. He predicted the existence and magnitude of diffusional creep
Creep (deformation)
In materials science, creep is the tendency of a solid material to slowly move or deform permanently under the influence of stresses. It occurs as a result of long term exposure to high levels of stress that are below the yield strength of the material....
and improved Peierls' estimate of the stress required to move a dislocation through a perfect lattice named the Peierls–Nabarro force after the two. He furthermore showed how theoretical and experimental estimates of this stress could be reconciled. Later he turned his attention to creep-resistant materials, in particular to the mechanism of rafting in superalloys, and more recently contributed to the theory of dislocation patterning.
During his term as Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand, his portfolio was described as "academic". This meant that he was responsible for academic staffing and planning, the organization of Senate business, and so on. The then Vice-Chancellor, Prof. D J du Plessis, was already planning, from 1978 onwards, the "transformation" of the university which would occur once the government allowed it to enroll students of all races. He set up three teams, to consider the academic implications, the finding of land to accommodate a large influx of students, and the financial aspects.
Professor Nabarro was responsible for the first team. He had to estimate how many new students the university could expect and when, how much accommodation they would need, and the logistics of moving a large number of students efficiently from one class to another.
This "Academic Plan" was the first to be devised by a South African university. Nabarro's team predicted that half of the university's student body would be "black" by the year 2000. This figure was already reached by 1997. They also realized that this influx of new students would suffer from poor education, with particular problems in mathematics, science and the use of the English language. With the aid of outside sponsors, they set up activities both within the university and in schools to help with these problems. Nabarro played a large part in coordinating these.
Frank Nabarro was one of five founding members of the South African Institute of Physics in 1955 who attended the jubilee celebration of the Institute in 2005. He was a Vice-President of the Institute and throughout his life he remained a loyal and enthusiastic supporter of its role in promoting Physics in South Africa.
He married Margaret Constance Dalziel (deceased 2 September 1997) on 25 June 1948. They had 3 sons and 2 daughters.
Footnotes
He hosted regular evening sessions for undergraduates at his home, during which lively physics discussions would take place. He was an avid reader of Marcel Proust, and had an enduring love of classical music, which he shared with his wife Margaret, who was a noted ethno-musicologist. He was Honorary President of the Johannesburg Musical Society, and in memory of his wife, he established the Margaret Dalziel Nabarro Chamber Concert Fund.Awards
- MBE (1946)
- Beilby Memorial Award (1950)
- Fellow of the Royal Society (1971)
- Medal of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science (1972)
- Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa (1973)
- De BeersDe BeersDe Beers is a family of companies that dominate the diamond, diamond mining, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. De Beers is active in every category of industrial diamond mining: open-pit, underground, large-scale alluvial, coastal and deep sea...
Gold Medal, South African Institute of Physics (1980) - Claude Harris Leon Foundation Award of Merit (1983)
- J F W HerschelJohn HerschelSir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet KH, FRS ,was an English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and experimental photographer/inventor, who in some years also did valuable botanical work...
Medal, Royal Society of South Africa (1988) - Honorary Member, South African Institute of Physics (1991)
- CSIRCouncil for Scientific and Industrial ResearchThe Council for Scientific and Industrial Research is South Africa's central and premier scientific research and development organisation. It was established by an act of parliament in 1945 and is situated on its own campus in the city of Pretoria...
Fellow, South Africa (1994) - AIME R F Mehl Award (1995)
- Founder Member, Academy of Science of South Africa (1995)
- Foreign Associate, US National Academy of Engineering (1996)
- Institute of Materials Platinum Medal (1997)
- Honorary Member, Microscopy Society of Southern Africa (1998)
- Honorary President, Johannesburg Musical Society (1999)
- Order of MapungubweOrder of MapungubweThe Order of Mapungubwe is South Africa's highest honour. It was instituted on 6 December 2002, and is granted by the president of South Africa, for achievements in the international area which have served South Africa's interests...
in Silver (2005).
Books
- Physics of Creep and Creep-Resistant Alloys by F R N Nabarro and H L de Villiers
- Theory of Crystal Dislocations (Dover Books on Physics and Chemistry) by F. R. N. Nabarro
- Dislocations in Solids : Ordered Alloys (Dislocations in Solids) by F. R. N. Nabarro and M. S. Duesbery
- Dislocations in Solids, Volume 12 (Dislocations in Solids) by F. R. N. Nabarro (editor John Price Hirth)