Bertram Neville Brockhouse, (July 15, 1918 – October 13, 2003) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

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 ...

. He was awarded 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 " ...

(1994, shared with

Clifford Shull Clifford Glenwood Shull (September 23, 1915 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – March 31, 2001) was a Nobel Prize-winning American physicist. Biography Shull attended Schenley High School in Pittsburgh, received his BS from Carnegie Institute of Tec ...

) "for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter", in particular "for the development of

neutron spectroscopy Neutron scattering is a spectroscopic method of measuring the atomic and magnetic motions of atoms. Inelastic neutron scattering observes the change in the energy of the neutron as it scatters from a sample and can be used to probe a wide variety of ...

".Brockhouse biographical details from nobelprize.org
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Education and early life

Brockhouse was born in

Lethbridge Lethbridge ( ) is a city in the province of Alberta, Canada. With a population of 101,482 in its 2019 Alberta municipal censuses, 2019 municipal census, Lethbridge became the fourth Alberta city to surpass 100,000 people. The nearby Canadian ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

, and was a graduate of the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

( BA, 1947) and the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

( MA, 1948;

Ph.D A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

, 1950).

Career and research

From 1950 to 1962, Brockhouse carried out research at

Atomic Energy of Canada Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) is a Canadian federal Crown corporation and Canada's largest nuclear science and technology laboratory. AECL developed the CANDU reactor technology starting in the 1950s, and in October 2011 licensed this ...

Chalk River Nuclear Laboratory Chalk River Laboratories (french: Laboratoires de Chalk River; also known as CRL, Chalk River Labs and formerly Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, CRNL) is a Canadian nuclear research facility in Deep River, about north-west of Ottawa. CRL is a ...

. Here he was joined by P. K. Iyengar, who is treated as the father of India's nuclear program. In 1962, he became professor at McMaster University in Canada, where he remained until his retirement in 1984. Brockhouse died on October 13, 2003 from

Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is approximately southwest of T ...

at age of 85.

Awards and honours

Brockhouse was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1965. In 1982, Brockhouse was made an Officer of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the ...

and was promoted to Companion in 1995. Brockhouse shared the 1994

with American

of MIT for developing neutron scattering techniques for studying condensed matter. In October 2005, as part of the 75th anniversary of McMaster University's establishment in

, a street on the University campus (University Avenue) was renamed to Brockhouse Way in honour of Brockhouse. The town of

Deep River, Ontario Deep River is a town in Renfrew County, Ontario, Canada. Located along the Ottawa River, it lies about north-west of Ottawa on the Trans-Canada Highway. Deep River is opposite the Laurentian Mountains and the Province of Quebec. The name ''Deep R ...

has also named a street in his honour. The Nobel Prize that Bertram Brockhouse won (shared with Clifford Shull) in 1994 was awarded after the longest ever waiting time (counting from the time when the award-winning research had been carried out). In 1999 the Division of Condensed Matter and Materials Physics (DCMMP) and the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) created a medal in honour of Brockhouse. The medal is called the Brockhouse Medal and is awarded to recognize and encourage outstanding experimental or theoretical contributions to condensed matter and materials physics. This medal is awarded annually on the basis of outstanding experimental or theoretical contributions to condensed matter physics. An eligible candidate must have performed their research primarily with a Canadian Institution.

References

External links

Bertram Brockhouse, the Triple-axis Spectrometer, and Neutron Spectroscopy
from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information,

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...

* including the Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1994 ''Slow Neutron Spectroscopy and the Grand Atlas of the Physical World'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Brockhouse, Bertram 1918 births 2003 deaths Scientists from Lethbridge Spectroscopists Canadian nuclear physicists University of Toronto alumni University of British Columbia Faculty of Science alumni McMaster University faculty Nobel laureates in Physics Canadian Nobel laureates Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Fellows of the American Physical Society Companions of the Order of Canada Canadian Fellows of the Royal Society Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize winners 20th-century Canadian scientists Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences