Harrie Massey

Sir Harrie Stewart Wilson Massey ( born May 16, 1908 in St Kilda, near Melbourne, † November 27, 1983 in Cambridge ) was an Australian theoretical physicist who worked in the field of atomic physics and atmospheric physics and a significant role in the early British space research played.

Massey grew up in Hoddles Creek and won with sixteen years a government scholarship to study at the University of Melbourne where he studied physics and chemistry with a bachelor's degree in 1927 and thereafter, mathematics with a bachelor's degree in 1929. As the University at that time had no doctoral program he concluded in 1930 with a Master 's degree in physics, with Ralph Fowler as a supervisor for the theoretical part in the then new wave mechanics and an experimental part of the scattering of soft X- rays to metal surfaces. In 1929 he went with a scholarship to study at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University under the direction of Ernest Rutherford. In 1932 he was there his doctorate under Fowler (The Collision of material particles ). There was also his well-known book on the atomic scattering processes with Nevill Mott. In the early 1930s, he watched as the first with Edward Bullard electron diffraction in gases. In 1933 he was a lecturer in mathematical physics at the Queen's University of Belfast, and in 1938 professor of mathematics and physics in 1950 at University College London. During the Second World War he worked for the British Admiralty in research on mine warfare. From 1950, he headed the Department of Physics at University College. From 1973 he was professor of astrophysics at the University College. In 1975, he went there to retire.

He was knighted in 1960 and was a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Hughes Medal he was awarded in 1955 and the Royal Medal he received in 1958. He was also the 1982 Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. Massey was the first Chairman of the British National Committee for Space Research (1958-1976) and the European Space Sciences Committee. He was co-founder of the European Space Research Organisation and the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London. A prize from the Royal Society and the Australian Institute of Physics is named after him. The latter awarded with the British Institute of Physics since 1988 the Massey Medal.

Writings

  • With Mott theory of atomic collisions, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1933, 1949, 1966, 1987
  • With Hyman Kestelman Ancillary Mathem, atics, 1958, 2nd edition, Pitman and Sons, 1964
  • Applied Physics Atomic Processes, Academic Press, 1982
  • Atoms and Energy, London, Elek Books, 1956
  • Robert LF Boyd The upper atmosphere, New York, Philosophical Library, 1958
  • Arthur Robert Quinton Basic Laws of Matter, Bronxville (New York), Herald Books 1961
  • Space Travel and Exploration, London, Taylor and Francis 1966
  • Space Physics, Cambridge University Press 1964
  • The new age in physics, New York, Harper 1966
  • Negative ion, Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition, 1950, 3rd edition, 1976
  • Atomic and Molecular Collisions, Wiley / Taylor and Francis 1979
  • With Malcolm Owen Roberts History of British Space Science, Cambridge University Press 1986
  • With EHS Burhop Electronic and Ionic Impact Phenomena, Oxford, Clarendon Press 1952, 2nd edition with HB Gilbody 1969
Integrated Authority File
288816
de