Denys Wilkinson Building, University of Oxford - Banbury Road

Sir Denys Haigh Wilkinson FRS (5 September 1922 – 22 April 2016) was a British

nuclear physicist Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

Life

He was born on 5 September 1922 in Leeds, Yorkshire and educated at Loughborough Grammar School and Jesus College, Cambridge, graduating in 1943. After wartime work on the British and Canadian Atomic Energy projects, he returned to Cambridge in 1946, where he was awarded a PhD in 1947 and held posts culminating as Reader in Nuclear Physics from 19561957. From 1944 to 1959, he was a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1956. In 1957 he went to the University of Oxford as Professor of Nuclear Physics, and won the Fernand Holweck Medal and Prize the same year. In 1959 he became Professor of Experimental Physics at Oxford, and from 1962 to 1976 was head of the Department of Nuclear Physics. While he held his professorship at Oxford, he was a Fellow (there called a Student) of

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

. He was

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...

in 1974. In 2001 the Nuclear Physics Laboratory at the University of Oxford, which he had helped to create, was renamed the

Denys Wilkinson Building The Denys Wilkinson Building is a prominent 1960s building in Oxford, England, designed by Philip Dowson at Arup in 1967. Overview The building houses the astrophysics and particle physics sub-departments of the Department of Physics at Oxfor ...

in his honour. Denys Wilkinson served as chairman for both the Physics III Committee and the Electronic Experiments Committee at

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...

. On leaving Oxford, he served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sussex from 1976 to 1987. After his retirement, he was appointed Emeritus Professor of Physics at Sussex in 1987. Denys Wilkinson's work in nuclear physics included investigation of the properties of nuclei with low numbers of nucleons. He was amongst the first to experimentally test rules relating to isospin. He also applied concepts from physics to the study of bird navigation. He is also notable for the invention of the

Wilkinson Wilkinson may refer to: People * Wilkinson (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) Places in the United States * Wilkinson, Illinois * Wilkinson, Indiana, a town in Hancock County * Wilkinson, Minnesota * Wilkinson, Mis ...

analog-to-digital converter, to support his experimental work. He died on 22 April 2016 at the age of 93. His papers are held at the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge. He was an Honorary Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge from 1961, and an Honorary Student of Christ Church, Oxford from 1979. He won the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society in 1965 and the

Royal Medal The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal and The King's Medal (depending on the gender of the monarch at the time of the award), is a silver-gilt medal, of which three are awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important ...

in 1980. In 1980 he received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Mathematics and Science at Uppsala University,

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

References

External links

Portrait
(1990), by Keith Clements, held at the University of Sussex {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilkinson, Denys Haigh 1922 births 2016 deaths Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge British nuclear physicists Fellows of Christ Church, Oxford Fellows of Jesus College, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Physics Knights Bachelor People associated with the University of Sussex People from Leeds Royal Medal winners Presidents of the Institute of Physics People associated with CERN People educated at Loughborough Grammar School British expatriates in Canada