__FORCETOC__ Edwin Albert Power (12 February 1928 – 31 January 2004) was an English physicist and an emeritus professor of

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathematical s ...

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. He made several contributions to the field of

non-relativistic quantum electrodynamics Non-relativistic quantum electrodynamics (NRQED) is a low energy approximation of quantum electrodynamics which describes the interaction of (non-relativistic, i.e. moving at speeds much smaller than the speed of light) spin one-half particles (e.g ...

Life

Power was born in

Honiton Honiton ( or ) is a market town and civil parish in East Devon, situated close to the River Otter, north east of Exeter in the county of Devon. Honiton has a population estimated at 11,822 (based on mid-year estimates for the two Honiton Ward ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

on 12 February 1928. He obtained his B.Sc and M.Sc in mathematics from

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

in 1948 and 1949 respectively. He obtained his Ph.D under the supervision of

John Currie Gunn Sir John Currie Gunn (13 September 1916 – 26 July 2002) was an influential Scottish mathematician and physicist. Early life and education Gunn was born at 19 Kelvinside Gardens East, Glasgow, the son of Richard Robertson Gunn, a tailor an ...

at the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

, for which he obtained the Kelvin Prize in 1951 (the prize recognizes the best physics thesis of the year). His doctoral work concerned

meson In particle physics, a meson ( or ) is a type of hadronic subatomic particle composed of an equal number of quarks and antiquarks, usually one of each, bound together by the strong interaction. Because mesons are composed of quark subparticles ...

production from

proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' elementary charge. Its mass is slightly less than that of a neutron and 1,836 times the mass of an electron (the proton–electron mass ...

–proton

collision In physics, a collision is any event in which two or more bodies exert forces on each other in a relatively short time. Although the most common use of the word ''collision'' refers to incidents in which two or more objects collide with great fo ...

s. After his Ph.D, he worked at University College, where became professor of applied mathematics in 1967, and fellow in 1991. In 1953, he became a

Commonwealth Fund Fellow The Harkness Fellowship (previously known as the Commonwealth Fund Fellowship) is a program run by the Commonwealth Fund of New York City. This fellowship was established to reciprocate the Rhodes Scholarships and enable Fellows from several coun ...

. He then spent two years in the United States, one at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, one at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

. While at Princeton, he and John Wheeler worked on electromagnetism and gravity, resulting in the proposition of "thermal

geons Geon may refer to: *Geon (geology), a time interval * Geon (Korean name), a Korean masculine given name *Geon (physics), a hypothetical gravitational wave packet *Geon (psychology), a geometrical primitive out of which everyday objects can be repre ...

" in a paper published in ''

Reviews of Modern Physics ''Reviews of Modern Physics'' (abbreviated RMP) is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Physical Society. It was established in 1929 and the current editor-in-chief is Michael Thoennessen. The journal publishes re ...

'' in 1957. Power then researched

, particularly the interactions between radiation fields and particles, and developed several techniques. In 1959, he and Sigurd Zienau published a paper on the

Coulomb gauge In the physics of gauge theories, gauge fixing (also called choosing a gauge) denotes a mathematical procedure for coping with redundant degrees of freedom in field variables. By definition, a gauge theory represents each physically distinct co ...

and its relation to the shape of

spectral line A spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum, resulting from emission or absorption of light in a narrow frequency range, compared with the nearby frequencies. Spectral lines are often used to iden ...

s, non-relativistic

Lamb shift In physics, the Lamb shift, named after Willis Lamb, is a difference in energy between two energy levels 2''S''1/2 and 2''P''1/2 (in term symbol notation) of the hydrogen atom which was not predicted by the Dirac equation, according to which the ...

, and other phenomena in the ''

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences'' is a fortnightly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Royal Society. It publishes original research and review content in a wide ...

''. Power also studied the relation between

quantum electrodynamics In particle physics, quantum electrodynamics (QED) is the relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics. In essence, it describes how light and matter interact and is the first theory where full agreement between quantum mechanics and spec ...

and various

optical Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviole ...

and molecular phenomena. In 1964, he published a book, ''Introductory Quantum Electrodynamics'', based on a series of lectures he gave in Chile and the US. Power retired as a professor in 1993, but remained active in research until his death following a short illness. He died on 31 January 2004, in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Selected publications

* * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Power, Edwin English physicists 1928 births 2004 deaths Alumni of the University of London British expatriates in the United States