Herbert Fröhlich (9 December 1905 – 23 January 1991) FRS was a German-born British physicist.

Career

In 1927, Fröhlich entered

Ludwig-Maximilians University The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

in Munich to study physics, and received his doctorate under

Arnold Sommerfeld Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld, (; 5 December 1868 – 26 April 1951) was a German theoretical physicist who pioneered developments in atomic and quantum physics, and also educated and mentored many students for the new era of theoretica ...

in 1930. His first position was as

Privatdozent ''Privatdozent'' (for men) or ''Privatdozentin'' (for women), abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz., is an academic title conferred at some European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, to someone who holds certain formal qualific ...

at the

University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially german: Uni Freiburg), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (german: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisg ...

. Due to rising

anti-Semitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

and the

Deutsche Physik ''Deutsche Physik'' (, "German Physics") or Aryan Physics (german: Arische Physik) was a nationalist movement in the German physics community in the early 1930s which had the support of many eminent physicists in Germany. The term was taken ...

movement under

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

, and at the invitation of

Yakov Frenkel __NOTOC__ Yakov Il'ich Frenkel (russian: Яков Ильич Френкель; 10 February 1894 – 23 January 1952) was a Soviet physicist renowned for his works in the field of condensed matter physics. He is also known as Jacov Frenkel, frequ ...

, Fröhlich went to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, in 1933, to work at the

Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute The Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (for short, Ioffe Institute, russian: Физико-технический институт им. А. Ф. Иоффе) is one of Russia's largest research centers specialized ...

Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. During the

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...

following the murder of

Sergei Kirov Sergei Mironovich Kirov (né Kostrikov; 27 March 1886 – 1 December 1934) was a Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary whose assassination led to the first Great Purge. Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and membe ...

, he fled to England in 1935. Except for a short visit to the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

and a brief internment during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he worked in

Nevill Francis Mott Sir Nevill Francis Mott (30 September 1905 – 8 August 1996) was a British physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1977 for his work on the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems, especially amorphous semiconductors. ...

's department, at the

University of Bristol , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

, until 1948, rising to the position of

Reader A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to: Computing and technology * Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader * Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application * A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ...

. At the invitation of

James Chadwick Sir James Chadwick, (20 October 1891 – 24 July 1974) was an English physicist who was awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the neutron in 1932. In 1941, he wrote the final draft of the MAUD Report, which inspi ...

, he took the Chair for Theoretical Physics at the

University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

. In 1950

Bell Telephone Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mul ...

offered Fröhlich their endowed professorial position 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 ...

. However, at Liverpool he had a purely research post which was attractive to him. He was then newly married to an American, Fanchon Angst, who was studying linguistic philosophy at

Somerville College, Oxford Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ir ...

under

P. F. Strawson Peter Frederick Strawson (; 23 November 1919 – 13 February 2006) was an English philosopher. He was the Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at the University of Oxford (Magdalen College) from 1968 to 1987. Before that, he ...

, and who did not want to return to the United States at that time. From 1973, he was Professor of

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 l ...

at the

University of Salford , caption = Coat of ArmsUniversity of Salford , mottoeng = "Let us seek higher things" , established = 1850 - Pendleton Mechanics Institute 1896 – Royal Technical Institute, Salford 1967 – gained ...

, however, all the while maintaining an office at the University of Liverpool, where he gained

emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

status in 1976 and remained there until his death. During 1981, he was a visiting professor at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

. He was nominated for the

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

in 1963 and in 1964. Fröhlich, who pursued theoretical research notably in the fields of

superconductivity Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic flux fields are expelled from the material. Any material exhibiting these properties is a superconductor. Unlike ...

and bioelectrodynamics, proposed a theory of coherent excitations in biological systems known as Fröhlich coherence. A system that attains this

coherent state In physics, specifically in quantum mechanics, a coherent state is the specific quantum state of the quantum harmonic oscillator, often described as a state which has dynamics most closely resembling the oscillatory behavior of a classical harmo ...

is known as a Fröhlich condensate, similar to room-temperature

non-equilibrium Non-equilibrium thermodynamics is a branch of thermodynamics that deals with physical systems that are not in thermodynamic equilibrium but can be described in terms of macroscopic quantities (non-equilibrium state variables) that represent an ext ...

Bose–Einstein condensation of quasiparticles Bose–Einstein condensation can occur in quasiparticles, particles that are effective descriptions of collective excitations in materials. Some have integer spins and can be expected to obey Bose–Einstein statistics like traditional particles. ...

Honours and awards

Fröhlich was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1951. In 1972 he was awarded the

Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft The German Physical Society (German: , DPG) is the oldest organisation of physicists. The DPG's worldwide membership is cited as 60,547, as of 2019, making it the largest physics society in the world. It holds an annual conference () and multiple ...

Max-Planck Medal The Max Planck medal is the highest award of the German Physical Society , the world's largest organization of physicists, for extraordinary achievements in theoretical physics. The prize has been awarded annually since 1929, with few exceptions, ...

and in 1981 an Honorary Doctorate from

Books by Fröhlich

*Herbert Fröhlich ''Elektronentheorie der Metalle. (Struktur und Eigenschaften der Materie in Eigendarstellung, Bd.18). '' (Springer, 1936, 1969) *Herbert Fröhlich ''Elektronentheorie der Metalle'' (Ann Arbor: Edwards Brothers, First US edition, in German, 1943) *Herbert Fröhlich ''Theory of Dielectrics: Dielectric Constant and Dielectric Loss'' (Clarendon Press, 1949, 1958) *Herbert Fröhlich and F. Kremer ''Coherent Excitations in Biological Systems'' (Springer-Verlag, 1983) *Herbert Fröhlich, editor ''Biological Coherence and Response to External Stimuli'' (Springer, 1988)

Personal life

Fröhlich was the son of Fanny Frida (née Schwarz) and Jakob Julius Fröhlich, members of an old-established Jewish family in their home town of Rexingen, and the brother of

Albrecht Fröhlich Albrecht Fröhlich FRS (22 May 1916 – 8 November 2001) was a German-born British mathematician, famous for his major results and conjectures on Galois module theory in the Galois structure of rings of integers. Education He was born in Munic ...

, a mathematician who was elected

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

in 1976.Archives of UK's 11 important scientists' work to be preserved for posterity
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References

External links

University of Liverpool: Fröhlich, Herbert FRS (1905–1991), Physicist

Did Herbert Fröhlich predict or postdict the isotope effect in superconductors?

by Fanchon Fröhlich with: *
A portrait of Herbert Fröhlich
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frohlich, Herbert 1905 births 1991 deaths Fellows of the Royal Society Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom Academics of the University of Salford Academics of the University of Liverpool Academics of the University of Bristol Jewish physicists British physicists 20th-century British physicists Optical physicists Condensed matter physicists Scientists from Baden-Württemberg Semiconductor physicists Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Winners of the Max Planck Medal