John Bertram Adams
Sir John Bertram Adams KBE (born May 24, 1920 in Surrey , England ; † March 3, 1984 ) was a British physicist who was instrumental in building several particle accelerators, particularly at CERN . He was Director General of CERN several times.
Adams was the son of a photographer and inventor (including a train brake system) seriously injured in World War I, and due to the father's disability, the family faced financial difficulties and was unable to finance a university education for Adams. At the age of 16 he left school and worked on the acoustics of telephones in the Siemens laboratories in England. At the same time he attended the South East London Technical Institute, where he graduated in 1939 ( Higher national certificate ), the only one of his career. During the Second World War, Adams worked in the Telecommunications Research Establishment (first in their laboratories in Swanage , then in Malvern) on radar development as an engineer and technician from 1941 to 1945 . Because of his achievements, Herbert Skinner promoted him to the status of scientist in the laboratory. After the war he was responsible (initially also at Skinner) at the nuclear research facility in Harwell for the design and construction of a 180 M eV synchro-cyclotron, the first such facility in Europe, which was in operation for thirty years after four years of construction. He also worked on klystrons . Despite the lack of formal academic qualifications, he quickly made a career. Already in September 1953 he was at CERN on the recommendation of John Cockcroft and from 1954 he was director of the construction of the first European proton synchrotron at CERN, which went into operation from 1960. In 1960/1961 he was director of CERN. From 1961 to 1966 he was director of the British nuclear fusion laboratory in Culham . At the same time he was on the Council of the British Atomic Energy Agency from 1966 to 1971 . From 1971 he headed the construction of the SPS accelerator at CERN (as director of Laboratory 2 ). From 1976 to 1980 he was Director General of CERN and played a key role in the implementation of the LEP electron-positron storage ring.
In 1960 he received the Röntgen Prize from the Justus Liebig University in Giessen . In 1963 he became a member of the Royal Society and in 1972 with their Leverhulme Medal and in 1977 with their Royal Medal. In 1977 he received the Faraday Medal from the Institution of Electrical Engineers. In 1981 he was appointed Knight Commander ( KBE ) and in 1962 he received the CMG (Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George). He has received multiple honorary doctorates (Birmingham, University of Surrey , University of Strathclyde , Milan, Geneva) and an honorary master’s degree from Oxford University in 1966, where he was a fellow of Wolfson College.
Since 1982 he was a foreign member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences .
He was married to physicist (bachelor's degree from Liverpool University) Renie Warburton since 1943, with whom he had two daughters and a son.
Institute
The Physics Institutes of the University of Oxford and the Royal Holloway, University of London jointly operate the Institute for Accelerator Sciences named after John Adams (see web link).
Web links
- John Adams Institute, with a link to obituary by G. Stafford from the Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society
- Portrait on the CERN website
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Adams, John Bertram |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Adams, Sir John Bertram (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British physicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 24, 1920 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Surrey , England |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 3, 1984 |