Henry George Booker (December 14, 1910 – November 1, 1988) was an Anglo-American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

and electrical engineer. Booker was a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

.National Academies Press, Henry G. Booker
/ref> He was head of panel on stratospheric pollution. He was a head of the Maths Group at Worth focused on radio propagation. He was director of the

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 ...

’s school of electrical engineering, and the founder of department of electrical engineering and computer science at

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

, San Diego.Online Archive of California, Henry G. Booker Papers
/ref> The

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

called Booker "worldwide authority on radio wave propagation", as well as "one of the world's foremost authorities on the propagation of electric waves"

Career and life

Henry George Booker was born in 1910 in Barking, then in Essex but now in London,

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 ...

. He went to Palmer's School in

Grays, Essex Grays (or Grays Thurrock) is the largest town in the borough and unitary authority of Thurrock in Essex, England. The town which is both a former civil parish and one of Thurrock's traditional Church of England parishes is located on the north ...

and graduated from

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

with a B.A. degree in applied and pure maths in 1933. He received Ph.D. from Cambridge in 1936 in ionospheric

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

. Booker researched radio wave propagation as a Fellow of Christ's College, and continued this research as a visiting scientist at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism. During World War II, Booker headed theoretical research at the Telecommunications Research Establishment in England. He conducted further research into radio wave propagation for the Royal Air Force, which led to significant developments in the understanding of antennas. After the war, Booker returned to Christ's College to teach until 1948. Post-1948, Booker taught exclusively in the United States. He received U.S. citizenship in 1952. In 1965, Booker moved from Cornell to the University of California, San Diego, where he became the first chair of the department of applied electrophysics, later to become the department of electrical and computer engineering. He remained at UC, San Diego as emeritus professor until the day of his death. He died of complications from a brain tumor in La Jolla, California, on November 1, 1988.

Awards and Distinctions

* 1934 Allen Scholarship, Cambridge University * 1935

Smith's Prize The Smith's Prize was the name of each of two prizes awarded annually to two research students in mathematics and theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge from 1769. Following the reorganization in 1998, they are now awarded under the n ...

, Cambridge University * 1947 Duddell Premium, Institution of Electrical Engineers * 1948 Kelvin Premium, Institution of Electrical Engineers * 1953 Fellow of the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

* 1954

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

* 1960 Member of the

in 1960 * 1970 50th Anniversary Medal, American Meteorological Society * 1981 Honorary professor, Wuhan University, Hubei, China * 1984 Centennial Medal, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

References

External links

Henry G. Booker Papers
MSS 93
Special Collections & Archives
UC San Diego Library.
National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
{{DEFAULTSORT:Booker, Henry B. 1910 births 1988 deaths 20th-century American physicists Cornell University College of Engineering faculty English emigrants to the United States Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences People from Barking, London