Sir Arnold Whittaker Wolfendale (25 June 1927 – 21 December 2020)GRO Register of Births: SEP 1927 6d 1198a RUGBY – Arnold W. Wolfendale, mmn = Hoyle''The Times'', 30 December 2020, p49 (Subscription required) was a British astronomer who served as the fourteenth

Astronomer Royal Astronomer Royal is a senior post in the Royal Households of the United Kingdom. There are two officers, the senior being the astronomer royal dating from 22 June 1675; the junior is the astronomer royal for Scotland dating from 1834. The Astro ...

from 1991 to 1995. He was Professor of Physics at

Durham University Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament (UK), Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by r ...

from 1965 until 1992 and served as president of the

European Physical Society The European Physical Society (EPS) is a non-profit organisation whose purpose is to promote physics and physicists in Europe through methods such as physics outreach, supporting physicists to engage in the design and implementation of European s ...

(1999–2001).Prof Sir Arnold Wolfendale, Debretts Biography
He was president of the

Royal Astronomical Society The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is a learned society and charitable organisation, charity that encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, planetary science, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science. Its ...

from 1981 to 1983.

Education and background

His family moved to Flixton,

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when he was 18 months. He attended Stretford Grammar School near Manchester. Wolfendale graduated with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

in physics from the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

in 1948, followed by a

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in 1953 and a

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in 1970.

Career

During his career he held academic posts at the universities of

(1951–6),

(1956–92), the

University of Ceylon The University of Ceylon was the only university in Sri Lanka (earlier Ceylon) from 1942 until 1972. It had several constituent campuses at various locations around Sri Lanka. The University of Ceylon Act No. 1 of 1972, replaced it with the Univ ...

and the

University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is a public research university in Pokfulam, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese by the London Missionary Society and formally established as the University of ...

. He was Professor of Physics at Durham 1965–92, including a period as head of department, and remained an

emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

professor until his death. In 1965, he was part of the team that first detected

neutrino A neutrino ( ; denoted by the Greek letter ) is an elementary particle that interacts via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small ('' -ino'') that i ...

s at the

Kolar Gold Fields Kolar Gold Fields (K.G.F.) is a mining region in K.G.F. taluk (township), Kolar district, Karnataka, India. It is headquartered in Robertsonpet, where employees of Bharat Gold Mines Limited (BGML) and BEML Limited (formerly Bharat Earth Mov ...

Publications

Arnold Wolfendale
publications in

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:: :: :: :: ::
Arnold Wolfendale
publications at the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System ::
Arnold Wolfendale
publications in

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Arnold Wolfendale
publications at

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(subscription required for more than 10) *Royal Society ::

Awards and honours

Wolfendale was elected a fellow of the

in 1973, and a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 1977. He served as Astronomer Royal from 1991 to 1995. In 1992, Wolfendale retired from teaching, and he was knighted in 1995. In 1996 he became professor of experimental physics with the

Royal Institution of Great Britain The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...

. A lecture theatre in Durham University's new Calman Learning Centre has been named in his honour. He was an honorary DSc of Bucharest University and foreign member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. His nomination for the Royal Society reads

Other activities

In 1992 Wolfendale became patron of the

Society for Popular Astronomy The Society for Popular Astronomy (SPA) is a national astronomical society based in the United Kingdom for beginners to amateur astronomy. History and overview It was founded in 1953 as the Junior Astronomical Society by experienced amateur ast ...

and was a keen supporter of its activities. He opened Kielder Observatory, Northumberland in 2008, and was its Patron. In 2009 he was the 156th president of the

Birmingham and Midland Institute The Birmingham and Midland Institute (popularly known as the Midland Institute) (), is an institution concerned with the promotion of education and learning in Birmingham, England. It is now based on Margaret Street in Birmingham city centr ...

. From April 2013, he was one of the two honorary vice presidents of the

Society for the History of Astronomy The Society for the History of Astronomy is an organisation based in the United Kingdom that promotes research into the history of astronomy. It publishes a research journal called ''The Antiquarian Astronomer'' and a regular ''Bulletin''. The s ...

Personal life

He married Audrey Darby in 1951. They had twin sons. His wife Audrey died in 2007. He married anthropologist Dorothy Middleton, at Durham Cathedral, on 5 September 2015. Wolfendale died in December 2020 at the age of 93.Professor Sir Arnold Wolfendale, former Astronomer Royal who probed the source of cosmic rays – obituary
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References

External links

Portrait of Sir Arnold Wolfendale at pictures.royalsociety.org
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Prof Sir Arnold Wolfendale
Staff profile at Durham University {{DEFAULTSORT:Wolfendale, Arnold 1927 births 2020 deaths Academics of Durham University Alumni of the University of Manchester Astronomers Royal 20th-century British astronomers Cosmic ray physicists English atheists Fellows of the Royal Society Foreign fellows of the Indian National Science Academy Knights Bachelor People educated at Stretford Grammar School People from Flixton, Greater Manchester People from Rugby, Warwickshire Presidents of the Institute of Physics Presidents of the Royal Astronomical Society Presidents of the European Physical Society Recipients of the Homi Bhabha Medal and Prize