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

Personal life

Fröhlich was born on 9 December 1905 in Rexingen, Baden-Württemberg. He was the son of Fanny Frida (née Schwarz) and Jakob Julius Fröhlich, members of an old-established Jewish family, and the brother of Albrecht Fröhlich, 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 Fellows 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.

Career

In 1927, Fröhlich entered Ludwig-Maximilians University 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 physics, theoretical physicist who pioneered developments in Atomic physics, atomic and Quantum mechanics, quantum physics, and also educated and ...

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 qualifi ...

at the

University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially ), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The university was founded in 1 ...

. Due to rising

anti-Semitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

and the

Deutsche Physik ''Deutsche Physik'' (, "German Physics") or Aryan Physics () 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 appears in the title of a four- ...

movement under

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

, and at the invitation of Yakov Frenkel, Fröhlich went to the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, in 1933, to work at the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

. During the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

following the murder of

Sergei Kirov Sergei Mironovich Kirov (born Kostrikov; 27 March 1886 – 1 December 1934) was a Russian and Soviet politician and Bolsheviks, Bolshevik revolutionary. Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and a member of the Bolshevik faction ...

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

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

and a brief internment during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, 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 semiconductor ...

's department, at the

University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a public university, public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Br ...

, until 1948, rising to the position of Reader. At the invitation of

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

, he took the Chair for Theoretical Physics at the

University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...

. In 1950,

Bell Telephone Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

offered Fröhlich their endowed professorial position at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

. 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 is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. It began admitting men in 1994. The colle ...

under P. F. Strawson, 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 solid-state chemistry, quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism, and metallurgy. It is the largest branch of condensed matter physics. Solid-state p ...

at the

University of Salford The University of Salford is a Public university, public research university in Salford, Greater Manchester, Salford, Greater Manchester, England, west of Manchester city centre. The Royal Technical Institute, Salford, which opened in 1896, be ...

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

emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

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

Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...

. He was nominated for the

Nobel Prize in Physics The Nobel Prize in Physics () is an annual award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions to mankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the ...

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 superconductors: materials where Electrical resistance and conductance, electrical resistance vanishes and Magnetic field, magnetic fields are expelled from the material. Unlike an ord ...

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 that 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 may refer to: * generally the absence of an equilibrium * Non-equilibrium economics * Non-equilibrium statistical mechanics * Non-equilibrium thermodynamics {{disambiguation ...

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. As of 2022, the DPG's worldwide membership is cited as 52,220, making it one of the largest national physics societies in the world. The DPG's membership peaked ...

Max-Planck Medal and in 1981 an Honorary Doctorate from

.Honorary Doctorate Recipient – Purdue University
/ref> In 1969, he received an honorary DSc from

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

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)

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 German physicists British physicists 20th-century British physicists British 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