William Frank Vinen
William Frank Vinen , called Joe, (born February 15, 1930 ) is a British physicist who studies superfluid , superconductors , two-dimensional solid-state electronic systems and hydrodynamics. He is a professor at the University of Birmingham .
Vinen attended Watford Grammar School until 1948, was in the Royal Air Force in 1947/49 and studied from 1949 at Cambridge University (Clare College) with a bachelor's degree in 1952, a master's degree in physics in 1955 and a doctorate in 1956. He was research until 1958 Fellow at Clare College and from 1958 University Demonstrator and Fellow at Pembroke College. In 1962 he became a professor at Birmingham University, where he was Poynting Professor from 1973 and headed the physics faculty from 1973 to 1981. In 1997 he retired.
In 1964 he was visiting professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . From 1999 he was an honorary visiting professor at the University of Oregon .
He investigated the behavior of the vortex lines in liquid helium and quantized flow lines in type 2 superconductors, investigated the superfluid phase transition of liquid helium with light scattering and high-resolution spectroscopy, and studied two-dimensional systems of electrons and ions. He also studied classical and quantum turbulence.
In 2005 he received the Faraday Medal (IOP) for outstanding contributions to superconductors and superfluids, especially for the observation and measurement of quantized eddies in superfluid helium, the first direct confirmation of the applicability of quantum mechanics to macroscopic bodies . In 1980 he received the Rumford Medal , 1978 the Holweck Medal , 1963 the Simon Memorial Prize of the Institute of Physics (IOP) and in 2005 the Guthrie Medal of the IOP.
In 1973 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society and heads its Education Committee. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (1980) and became its Honorary Fellow in 2003. In 2008 he received an honorary doctorate from Charles University in Prague . He is a member of the Academia Europaea .
He has served on the Governing Board of the University of Coventry and is its Honorary Fellow for Life. He is also on the board of directors of the Open University.
He has been married since 1960 and has a son and a daughter.
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Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Vinen, William Frank |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Vinen, WF |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British physicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 15, 1930 |