William Frank Vinen (15 February 1930 – 8 June 2022) was a British physicist specialising in

low temperature physics In physics, cryogenics is the production and behaviour of materials at very low temperatures. The 13th IIR International Congress of Refrigeration (held in Washington DC in 1971) endorsed a universal definition of “cryogenics” and “cr ...

Career

Vinen was born on 15 February 1930, the son of Gilbert Vinen and his wife Olive Maud Vinen, née Roach. After Watford Grammar School, he attended

Clare College, Cambridge Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college was founded in 1326 as University Hall, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. It was refounded ...

, completing a doctorate (PhD) in 1956. He was a Research Fellow there from 1955 to 1958, when he became a Fellow at

Pembroke College, Cambridge Pembroke College (officially "The Master, Fellows and Scholars of the College or Hall of Valence-Mary") is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over 700 ...

."Vinen, William Frank, (Joe)"
''Who's Who'' (online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2017). Retrieved 4 January 2018. In 1962, he was appointed to a Chair of Physics at

Birmingham University , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

. He was appointed to the Poynting Chair in 1973. He served as Head of Department from 1973 until 1981, and retired from the University in 1997.

Awards and honours

Vinen was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1973. One or more of the preceding sentences may incorporate text from the royalsociety.org website where "all text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License." , "Intellectual property rights" His certificate of election reads: He was awarded the

Rumford Medal The Rumford Medal is an award bestowed by Britain's Royal Society every alternating year for "an outstandingly important recent discovery in the field of thermal or optical properties of matter made by a scientist working in Europe". First awar ...

in 1980 in "recognition of his discovery of the quantum of circulation in superfluid helium and his development of new techniques for precise measurements within liquid helium."

Personal life

In 1960, Vinen married Susan-Mary Audrey Master; they had one son,

Richard Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Frankish language, Old Frankish and is a Compound (linguistics), compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' an ...

, and one daughter, Katie, and lived in Birmingham."Professor Frank William Vinen FRS CPhys Hon.FInstP (1930–2022)",
''

Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, research and application. It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide membership of over 20,000. The IOP is the Physica ...

''. Retrieved 5 March 2023.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vinen, Joe 1930 births 2022 deaths 20th-century British physicists Fellows of the Royal Society Members of Academia Europaea Academics of the University of Birmingham Alumni of Clare College, Cambridge Fellows of Pembroke College, Cambridge