Benjamin Abeles (23 June 192514 December 2020) was an Austrian-Czech physicist whose research in the 1960s in the US on germanium–

silicon Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic ta ...

alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which at least one is a metal. Unlike chemical compounds with metallic bases, an alloy will retain all the properties of a metal in the resulting material, such as electrical conductivity, ductilit ...

s led to the technology used to power space probes such as the ''Voyager'' spacecraft. He grew up in Austria and Czechoslovakia and arrived in the UK in 1939 on one of the ''

Kindertransport The ''Kindertransport'' (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort of children (but not their parents) from Nazi-controlled territory that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World ...

'' missions. He completed his education after the war in Czechoslovakia and Israel (from 1949), obtaining a doctorate in physics. He then lived and worked as a research physicist in the US and retired in 1995. His honours include the 1979

Stuart Ballantine Medal {{notability, date=February 2018 The Stuart Ballantine Medal was a science and engineering award presented by the Franklin Institute, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It was named after the US inventor Stuart Ballantine. Laureates *1947 - Geo ...

and his induction into the

New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame The New Jersey Inventor's Hall of Fame was established in 1987 to honor individuals and corporations in New Jersey for their inventions. Award recipients are recognized at the annual Award Banquet Dinner. The New Jersey Inventors Hall of ...

(1991).

Early life and education

Born in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

in 1925, Abeles lived in

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

from 1934. In July 1939, aged 14, he was one of hundreds of Jewish children brought from

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

to London through the efforts of British humanitarian

Nicholas Winton Sir Nicholas George Winton (born Wertheim; 19 May 1909 – 1 July 2015) was a British humanitarian who helped to rescue children who were at risk of being murdered by Nazi Germany. Born to German-Jewish parents who had emigrated to Britain at ...

, an example of the various ''

'' missions that saved many such children from the impending dangers of World War II and the Holocaust. His parents and older sister were later deported and murdered by the Nazis. At age 15, he worked as a waiter and took correspondence courses in English, mathematics, physics and chemistry. When he was 18, Abeles served as a mechanic in the war as part of No. 311 Squadron RAF. He then returned to Czechoslovakia after the war and studied at

Charles University in Prague ) , image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg , image_size = 200px , established = , type = Public, Ancient , budget = 8.9 billion CZK , rector = Milena Králíčková , faculty = 4,057 , administrative_staff = 4,026 , students = 51,438 , undergr ...

and Czech Technical University in Prague, before moving to Israel in 1949 to study for his physics doctorate in Jerusalem. His thesis, published in 1955, was titled 'The Galvanomagnetic Effects in Bismuth and Bi–Sn Alloys'.

Career

Following the award of his PhD, Abeles worked in Israel on germanium electronics before moving to the United States to carry out research in Princeton for the

Radio Corporation of America The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Com ...

. During his career, Abeles worked at both the David Sarnoff Research Center and at Exxon Research and Engineering in Annandale, New Jersey. Working with George D. Cody in the 1960s, Abeles developed germanium–silicon alloys that were used in the development of the

radioisotope thermoelectric generator A radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG, RITEG), sometimes referred to as a radioisotope power system (RPS), is a type of nuclear battery that uses an array of thermocouples to convert the heat released by the decay of a suitable radioacti ...

s used to power spacecraft and probes engaged in long voyages of space exploration. Abeles also worked as a professor at the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

Recognition and later life

For their work, Abeles and Cody received the 1979

(Engineering) from the Franklin Institute, and were inducted into the

in 1991. Abeles's 65th birthday in 1990 was marked by a symposium in his honour: 'Physical Phenomena in Granular Materials'. He retired in 1995, and subsequently lived predominantly in the UK. Abeles died in Leicester, England on 14 December 2020, aged 95.Zemřel fyzik Bedřich Abeles. Sloužil v RAF, vynalezl pohon pro Voyager

References

External links

'Nicky's Family' reveals legacy of human compassion
review of documentary on the ''

kindertransport The ''Kindertransport'' (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort of children (but not their parents) from Nazi-controlled territory that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World ...

'' children including Abeles (ceskapozice.cz)
Czech-language interview with Abeles in 2011
(lidovky.cz) {{DEFAULTSORT:Abeles, Benjamin 1925 births 2020 deaths 20th-century American physicists 20th-century Austrian Jews 21st-century Austrian Jews Scientists from Vienna Jewish American scientists Royal Air Force personnel of World War II Kindertransport refugees Royal Air Force airmen American people of Austrian-Jewish descent Austrian emigrants to Czechoslovakia Czechoslovak emigrants to the United States Charles University alumni Czech Technical University in Prague alumni Fellows of the American Physical Society Czechoslovak expatriates in the United Kingdom