Frank Neville Hosband Robinson (13 April 192519 October 1996) was an English physicist. Neville Robinson was educated at The Leys School in Cambridge, England, and

Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 170 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as ...

, where he read Physics. Robinson initially worked as a

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

at the

Services Electronic Research Laboratory Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a pu ...

(SERL) in Baldock,

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

, under the director Robert Sutton. He then moved to the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford University to undertake a DPhil doctorate degree in low temperature physics, as a Nuffield Research Fellow (1950–54). With

Jim Daniels James Raymond Daniels (born 1956 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American poet and writer. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, the writer Kristin Kovacic. Life and work Daniels was on the faculty of the creative writing program at Carnegie Mello ...

and Michael Grace, he produced an example of

nuclear orientation Nuclear orientation, in nuclear physics, is the directional ordering of an assembly of nuclear spins with respect to some axis in space. It is one of the nuclear spectroscopy methods. A nuclear level with spin in a magnetic field will divide into ...

for the first time. Then in 1951, in the first nuclear cooling experiment, he produced the lowest temperature ever achieved until then at only ten millionths of a

degree Kelvin The kelvin, symbol K, is the primary unit of temperature in the International System of Units (SI), used alongside its prefixed forms and the degree Celsius. It is named after the Belfast-born and University of Glasgow-based engineer and phys ...

above

absolute zero Absolute zero is the lowest limit of the thermodynamic temperature scale, a state at which the enthalpy and entropy of a cooled ideal gas reach their minimum value, taken as zero kelvin. The fundamental particles of nature have minimum vibration ...

. Robinson was an

English Electric N.º UIC: 9094 110 1449-3 (Takargo Rail) The English Electric Company Limited (EE) was a British industrial manufacturer formed after the Armistice of 11 November 1918, armistice of World War I by amalgamating five businesses which, during th ...

Research Fellow from 1955 to 1959. He was a faculty fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, from 1958 to 1961, immediately followed by becoming a founding fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford, where he stayed until his retirement in 1992. He was also a senior research officer at Oxford University during 1959 to 1992, working at the Clarendon Laboratory. During his career, he visited Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey, United States, three times while on

sabbatical A sabbatical (from the Hebrew: (i.e., Sabbath); in Latin ; Greek: ) is a rest or break from work. The concept of the sabbatical is based on the Biblical practice of ''shmita'' (sabbatical year), which is related to agriculture. According to ...

leave (during 1954–55, 1965–66, and 1973–74). In 1973, Robinson published the book ''Macroscopic Electromagnetism'', a standard text. His paper ''Microwave shot noise and minimum noise factor'' was awarded the Clerk Maxwell Prize in 1954 by the

British Institution of Radio Engineers The Institution of Electronic and Radio Engineers (IERE) was a professional organization for radio engineers. It was originally established in 1925 as the Institute of Wireless Technology. It renamed itself British Institution of Radio Engineer ...

. Importantly, he invented the

Robinson oscillator The Robinson oscillator is an electronic oscillator circuit originally devised for use in the field of continuous wave (CW) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). It was a development of the marginal oscillator. Strictly one should distinguish between ...

in the field of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), which now forms the underlying basis of

Magnetic Resonance Imaging Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio wave ...

(MRI) systems used in many hospitals.

Family

Robinson married Daphne Coulthard in 1952. They had three children including the author

Andrew Robinson Andrew or Andy Robinson may refer to: Entertainment * Andrew Robinson (actor) (born 1942), American actor * Andrew Cornell Robinson (born 1968), American artist * Andrew R. Robinson, writer of ''Kaijudo'' and other television shows * Andrew Robin ...

and the diplomat Vicky Bowman. He died of a heart attack, aged 71, in

Colmar Colmar (, ; Alsatian: ' ; German during 1871–1918 and 1940–1945: ') is a city and commune in the Haut-Rhin department and Grand Est region of north-eastern France. The third-largest commune in Alsace (after Strasbourg and Mulhouse), it is ...

, France.

References

External links

Books by Neville Robinson
from

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1925 births 1996 deaths People from West Bromwich People educated at The Leys School Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge Alumni of Nuffield College, Oxford English civil servants English nuclear physicists Fellows of Nuffield College, Oxford Fellows of St Catherine's College, Oxford Scientists at Bell Labs {{UK-physicist-stub