Felix Jiri Jiri Weinberg

Background

Weinberg, Felix Jiri was born on April 2, 1928 in Usti, Czechoslovakia. Came to England, 1945. Son of Victor and Nelly Altschul Weinberg.

Education

Bachelor of Science, London University, England, 1950. Bachelor of Science in Special Physics, London University, 1951. Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation in Chemical Engineering, Imperial College, London, 1953.

Doctor of Philosophy, London University, 1954. Doctor of Science in Applied Physics, London University, 1960. Doctor of Science (honorary), Israel Institute of Technology, 1990.

Career

He was Emeritus Professor of Combustion Physics and Distinguished Research Fellow at Imperial College London. As a teenager he spent much of the war in Auschwitz, Buchenwald and other Nazi concentration camps. He arrived in England on V. J. day.

Having had no formal schooling since the age of 12, he had to take his first degrees as an external student of the University of London.

He was appointed to a Personal Chair as Professor of Combustion Physics in 1967. Professor Weinberg is distinguished for his optical and electrical studies of flames and his pioneering development of innovative combustion methods.

He originated a family of powerful optical tools in combustion, using both thermal and laser light sources. His work on electrical diagnostics led to applications of electric fields to control combustion and improve understanding of ionisation and soot formation.

He developed novel combustion devices incorporating distinctive heat exchangers, permitting the ignition and burning of very low calorific fuel-air mixtures.

These have had a seminal influence on the global evolution of environmentally benign combustion furnaces. His researches into the stabilisation of high intensity combustion using plasma jets are being favoured as an approach to leaner burning jet engines. His work on laser ignition has progressed to understanding hazards associated with the use of optical fibres in flammable atmospheres.

His wide-ranging services to academia, industry and scientific societies included visiting appointments at universities in Europe, the United States of America, Japan and Israel, consultancies for petroleum, chemical, aerospace and defence organisations and membership of committees and boards of governance of numerous scientific and professional bodies.

He is author, coauthor, editor of 4 books and more than 220 papers in the scientific literature. As a survivor of Nazi concentration camps he was highly critical of fraudulent Holocaust memoirs: "I have always tended to avoid Holocaust literature and find some of the recent fictional accounts masquerading as true stories profoundly disturbing." His own account of his experiences in Nazi concentration camps "Boy 30529: A Memoir", was published in 2013, shortly after his death.

Achievements

• Felix Jiri Weinberg has been listed as a noteworthy physics professor by Marquis Who's Who.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Optics of Flames
  • The optics of flames and methods for the study of refractive index fields in gases

Membership

Fellow Institute of Physics, Institute of Energy, The Royal Society. Member American National Academy Engineering (foreign associate), Combustion Institute, The Royal Institution.

Interests

• Avocations: eastern philosophies, traveling.

Connections

Married Jill Nesta Piggot, July 26, 1954 (deceased January 2006). Children: John Felix, Peter David, Michael Johnathan.

Father:

Victor Weinberg

Mother:

Nelly Altschul Weinberg

Spouse:

Jill Nesta Piggot

child:

Peter David Weinberg

child:

John Felix Weinberg

child:

Michael Johnathan Weinberg