Rudolf Peierls was a Jewish German-born English physicist and scientist. He was the author, with Otto Robert Frisch, of the so-called "Frisch-Peierls Memorandum" of March 1940, proposing a "super-bomb which utilizes the energy stored in atomic nuclei as a source of energy."
Career
In 1929, Peierls became Pauli's research assistant for the next three years. He developed the first band theory for electrons in a one-dimensional metal, using a weak periodic interaction to represent the effect of the lattice. Here he met Lev Landau, a visitor from Leningrad for the 1929 autumn, with whom he interacted strongly on a later visit during the 1930-1931 winter.
In the spring of 1930, Peierls visited Holland, meeting Hendrik Kramers, and Placzekagain, at Utrecht, Paul Ehrenfest at Leiden, and Adriaan Fokker and Felix Bloch at Haarlem. He went on to Copenhagen, where he had many discussions with Niels Bohr. Back at ETH, George Gamow had arrived from Leningrad, and Leon Rosenfeld from Belgium. In the summer, Peierls was invited to attend the All-Union Physical Congress, held August 19-24 at Odessa. Here he met Yakov Frenkel and Igor Tamm, each his lifelong friend later. After the conference, members of this group traveled across the Black Sea to Batum, Yalta, and Tbilisi, the former two going on to Vladikavkaz before turning back. Peierls then visited the Nuclear Physics Institute at Kharkiv, and also Moscow University, on his way back to Zurich. Landau came to ETH again and they collaborated on a study of Uncertainty Relations for Electromagnetic Fields, giving rise to two famous but ill-fated papers.
In the spring of 1931, Peierls visited Copenhagen, where he and Landau had heated discussions of these papers with Bohr. He then went on to Leningrad, where he gave lectures on solid-state physics. He met Abram Fedorovich Ioffe and Dmitry Ivanenko there. He visited Leipzigin early summer to join Heisenberg and Friedrich Hund there; he also met Viktor Weisskopf and Giancarlo Wick for the first time. In the summer, he returned to Leningrad to his wife Eugenia, and they toured in the Caucasus region, until her passport and visa were ready for them to leave for Berlin and Zurich. New visitors were Max Delbruck and Giulio Racah. Delbruck, Bethe, and others joined them in a holiday chalet in the snow at the end of 1931. During 1931-1932, Peierls did new work on the absorption of light in solids, which he used to gain his Habilitation, the right for him to lecture for a fee. He also wrote an important review of the electron theory of metals. He was awarded a one-year Rockefeller Travelling Fellowship for the next year 1932-1933.
At Rome University, he met Enrico Fermi, a nuclear experimenter; also Ettore Majorana, and Wick again. Peierls then saw how to calculate the diamagnetism of metals and to explain its curious oscillations with a variation of the magnetic field, observed in bismuth by de Haas and van Alphen some years before. In the spring of 1933, the Peierls family moved to Cambridge. Ralph H. Fowler was the senior theoretician, while Ernest Rutherford was head of the Cavendish Laboratory. James Chadwick had discovered the neutron in 1932; Patrick Blackett was doing nuclear physics with cloud chambers. Paul Dirac had just taken up the Lucasian professorship and Peierlsalso met Nevill Mott, and Weisskopf again. Events in Germany meant that they could not return there, so Peierls had to find a post for the coming year. He was fortunate to receive a two-year Fellowship in Manchester, from private funds of the Academic Assistance Council.
In 1933, Peierls settled in Manchester, along with Bethe who held a one-year University post, all in the one house. William Bragg was the Professor of Physics and E. J. Williams the senior theorist. Peierls was invited to the Solvay Congress held in October at Brussels, which Mott, Rosenfeld, and Gamow also attended. Peierls did some work on mixed superlattices, using a new method due to Bethe. They started to do some nuclear physics together, the stimulus being from Chadwick, who challenged them to account for his data on the photo-disintegration of the deuteron. They also made the first calculations of the neutrino-nucleus cross-sections. In the spring, Peierls lectured at the Institut Henri Poincare, Paris. In the summer, the Peierls family returned to Leningrad, and Peierls traveled with Landau in the Caucasus. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Sciences degree by Manchester University.
In 1935, Peierls took up a two-year research post in the Mond Laboratory, attached to the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge. He gained the Master of Arts degree and a link with St. Johns College there. He continued his superlattice work and extended the method to discuss adsorbed layers of atoms. Using a simple method he showed that the Ising model for ferromagnetism in two-dimensions must have an ordered state. His new links were with Maurice Goldhaber, Leo Szilard, and Mark Oliphant.
Peierls attended the Nuclear Physics Conference at Moscow in the summer of 1937. Having an active interest in Bohr's new theory of nuclear reactions in the continuous energy region, he stopped at Copenhagen enroute, for discussions with Bohr. In the autumn, he took up the Chair of Applied Mathematics at the University of Birmingham. With P. L. Kapur, he developed a theory of the narrow nuclear resonances expected with Bohr's new theory. During 1938, he made visits to Copenhagen for extensive discussions with Bohr and Placzek on this compound nucleus theory. This work was not published then, apart from a short letter in Nature.
Otto Frisch visited Peierls in 1939, and stayed on at Birmingham after war broke out. Peierls became British by naturalization early in 1940 and the two Peierls children were sent to Canada for safety from the war. Peierls and Frisch estimated how much 235U would be needed to make a nuclear bomb and went on to write their Memorandum of 1940 to make this fact, with both its implications and its consequences, known to the British government. This led to the United Kingdom atomic bomb project, known as "Tube Alloys," which officially began in the summer of 1941. Peierls became very active in theoretical researches on 235U separation methods and on the optimum reactor and bomb designs, working at Birmingham but seconded from his professorial duties. Klaus Fuchs joined him as an assistant in May 1941.
In February 1942, Peierls and others flew to the United States on atomic energy business, visiting Harold Urey and Karl Cohen, also Fermi, at Columbia University, Arthur Comptonat Chicago, and J. Robert Oppenheimer at Berkeley. In August 1943, Peierls, with Chadwick, Oliphant, and Francis Simon, visited General Leslie Groves and his "Manhattan District" project. In December, Peierls and his wife Genia, as part of a large group, sailed to the United States to join this project. Initially, Peierls was with the isotope separation group in New York, but he was on moved on to Los Alamos, where he was made head of the Implosion Dynamics Group, in the Theoretical Physics Division of the Laboratory. He attended the Trinity test of the first atomic bomb on July 16, 1944. In March 1945, Peierls was elected to the Royal Society.
Peierls returned to Birmingham University in the summer of 1945, as Head of its new "Mathematical Physics" Department, well funded, with many new posts to be filled. This grew rapidly in size and reputation. An international conference was held by the two departments in September 1948. In 1946, he was awarded the CBE, and in May he became a foundation member of the Atomic Scientists' Association in Britain. In 1948 he attended the Foundation Conference of the Tata Institute for Fundamental Physics at Bombay and after it met C. V. Raman, with whom he had a long-standing disagreement. Peierls worked at Oppenheimer's Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) at Princeton for its 1952 spring semester. In 1953, he gave a lecture course at the "Les Houches" Summer School in France in July, which led later (1955) to his book "Quantum Theory of Solids." While writing it, he found the "Peierls Instability," now well known. He organized a second international conference on nuclear physics at Birmingham, held in September, and later attended the 1953 Theoretical Physics Conference at Kyoto.
Peierls attended the "Atoms for Peace" conference at Geneva in 1955, his first meeting with Russian physicists after the war. In 1956, he attended the Conference on Physics at Moscow, and lectured at the Latin-American Summer School in Mexico City. He was a Council Member of the Royal Society during 1957-1958 and was awarded the Royal A Medal in 1959. In 1958, he lectured on nuclear physics at the Summer School at Boulder, Colorado. In 1959, Peierls spent a sabbatical semester as Visiting Professor at Columbia University, New York.
In the same year, he became a foundation member of the British Pugwash Group, being its Chairman until 1974, and then an honorary member of its Executive Committee. In 1960, Peierls attended his first Pugwash Conference, the sixth in the series, held at Moscow, and henceforth attended rather regularly. He became a member of its Continuing Committee in 1963, and its Chairman in 1970, retiring from this post in 1974.
Peierls was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1962, was awarded the 1962 Lorentz Medal of Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and received the 1963 Max Planck medal of the German Physical Societies.
He took part in the 6th "Rochester Conference" on High Energy Physics (HEP), held at CERN Geneva July 4-11, 1962, and the conference on HEP and Nuclear Structureheld at CERN 25 February-2 March 1963. He lectured at the International Spring School of Physics at Ravello April-4 May 1963, attended a conference on Analysis Function Space at MIT in June, and lectured at the 1st Yugoslav Summer School on solid-state physics, held at Hercegnovi 1-14 September 1963.
In 1963, Peierls moved to Oxford University as Wykeham Professor of Physics and Fellow of New College, and the Oxford postgraduate students of theoretical physics became members of his department. He gave the concluding address at the International Conference on Nuclear Physics at Paris July 2-8, 1963, and took part in the 7th "Rochester Conference" held at Dubna (USSR) in August 1964. In 1965, he lectured at the Banff Summer School on Quantum Transfer Theory, held August 22-September 3, and toured the Physics Institutes of Yugoslavia March 24-April 6. He visited Gottingen in 1966, for Hund's 70th Birthday Symposium, and spent March-April at Brookhaven National Laboratory as Visiting Senior Physicist.
In 1967, he took sabbatical leave (June-December) as Battelle Professor of the University of Washington in Seattle. In the next few years, he made regular summer visits there. He attended the International Conference on Theoretical Physics at Rochester (New York) at the end of August. In 1968, he was knighted and became Sir Rudolf Peierls. He was awarded the 1968 Guthrie Medal of the Institute of Physics and Physical Society (London). In 1969, he attended the European Physical Society Conference at Florence in April, organized an international conference on three-body problems held at Birmingham July 8-10, and attended the 3rd International Conference on HEP and Nuclear Structure at New YorkSeptember 8-12. In December 1971, he gave the Joseph Wunsch Lecture at the Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. In September 1972, he spoke at Dirac's 70th Birthday Symposium held at Trieste.
Peierls was a "CERN Lecturer" for 28 March-4 April, 1973 and visited the University of Coimbra for two months around the end of that year. He spoke on "Transport Theory" at the 1974 School of Statistical Mechanics (Barcelona) in June. When his retirement came in 1974, a symposium was held at Oxford in early July, to mark this occasion. In late July, he spoke on "The glorious days of physics" at the 12th School of Subnuclear Physics at Erice, Sicily.
Peierls visited the University of Sydney as Visiting Professor for three months (September-December) and then went on to Seattle (February-May, 1975), where he had just been appointed to a half-time professorship at the University of Washington until retiring at the age of 70. While there, he spoke at an atomic physics conference, and paid visits to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), UBC (Vancouver), Princeton and Oregon. They returned to Oxford via Mexico City in 1975. Later in that year, Peierls took up the Lorentz Chair at the University of Leiden (October 1975-January 1976), following which he visited the University of Mexico again, and took up his Seattle post for 1976. In 1977, Peierls was Visiting Professor at UCLA for their Winter Quarter, giving the Bethe Lecture at Cornell University (January 10-February 10), and then taking up his Seattle post for 1977.
From November 1977, Peierls took up Visiting Professorships at the University of Paris-Sud, at Orsay, and at the Centre for Nuclear Research (CEN) at Saclay, each for three months, consecutively. He gave the Loeb Lectures (Harvard) in April (17-25), became Lincei Professor at Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, for the month of May 1978, and later (29 October-12 November) visited University of Coimbra (Portugal). Starting December 10, 1978, he spent five months at the Niels Bohr Institute, attending the Einstein Centennial Symposium held March 9-15 at IAS (Princeton), from Copenhagen. For the months of September and October, 1979, he visited the Ljubljana Institute. Also in1979, he was made Honorary Member of the French Physical Society.
Peierls undertook to edit Volume 9 of the Niels Bohr Collected Works, which covers Bohr's papers on nuclear physics during 1929-1952, a task which occupied him for nearly five years and gave rise to many journeys to and from Copenhagen. This work began in November 1979, when his visit was for three months.
In late February 1980, he visited the Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory (SLAG) for two weeks. He then took up a Visiting Professorship for three months (March-May) at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. He also received the 1980 Enrico Fermi Award of the United States Department of Energy. He spoke at the International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics, held June 23-28 at Erice, Sicily. He spent September at Copenhagen and worked at CEN (Saclay) for November and December.
In 1981, the Peierls's visited Japan for a month starting 24 March, by invitation from the Nishina Foundation, and traveled around the globe. In mid-June Peierls was also elected Foreign Member of the Royal Danish Academy and Member of the German Academy of Researchers Leopoldina, of Halle. He was a Visiting Professor of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville for six weeks (October 16-November 30).
In 1982, they visited Australia again, managing some physics contacts there. Peierls spent a month (17 October-17 November) at the Technical University of Munich.
In 1983, the Peierls's visited the Center for Theoretical Physics (CTP) at Austin, Texas for two weeks enroute to the 40th-anniversary reunion meeting of the Los Alamos Laboratory, held in mid-April. They visited Pisa again enroute to lecture at the Enrico Fermi School on "Highlights in Condensed Matter Theory" at Varenna in early July. Rudolf Peierls was awarded the Matteucci Medal of the Academia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome, and was elected Corresponding Member of the Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Peierls spent early 1984 on the west coast of the United States, visiting SLAC and Santa Monicabriefly and the Santa Barbara Institute of Theoretical Physics for February and March. He gave the H. L. Welsh Lectures at the University of Toronto in mid-May. He visited the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES) at Bures-sur-Yvette for two months, starting early December.
In 1985, Peierls published his autobiographical book "Bird of Passage." He gave a lecture and the closing address at the Symposium on Foundations of Modern Physics held at Joensuu, Finland, on 16-20 June, and spoke twice at Copenhagen, at a symposium held 26-30 September on "The Challenge of Nuclear Armaments" and at the Niels Bohr Centenary Symposium, held 3-7 October.
In 1986, Peierls was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society, their highest award. He also received their 1986 Rutherford Memorial Medal, giving the associated Lectureat several centers in India during November 1987. Lady Eugenia Peierls died at Oxford 26 October 1986. Peierls visited Moscow and Leningrad around the end of October 1987. He visited UCLA as "Regent's lecturer" for two weeks in February 1988, and the University of Coimbra to receive their honorary Doctor of Science degree in May. He spoke at the Landau Memorial Conference held 6-10 June 1988 at Tel Aviv and on "Europe and SDI" at a Workshop of Accademia Lincei held at Rome 23-25 June. He visited the Landau Institute at Moscow, and Leningrad, early in September.
Peierls visited the United States West Coast for March and April of 1989, based at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He attended the 2nd Niels Bohr Symposium, late in May, and the Accademia Lincei Workshop in Rome in early June. He visited ICTP (Trieste) for a Symposium and Workshop on condensed matter, during the first half of August. He spoke at the 70th Birthday Symposium for Luigi Radicati at Pisa in October and at the Leopoldina Academy, Halle, subsequently.
In 1990, Peierls attended the Accademia Lincei Workshop in June, spoke at the Institute of Physics, Zagreb (its 40th anniversary) in October, and visited institutes in Moscow and Leningrad in late November, during which he became a Foreign Member USSR Academy of Sciences. He spoke at the Nishina Centennial Symposium held 5-7 Decemberat Tokyo, and visited the University of Osaka for the week after.
In 1991, Peierls attended the 41st Pugwash Conference in Beijing in mid-September and visited the University of Fudan (Shanghai) for the following week.
Peierls gave the Dirac Memorial Lecture on June 15, 1992, at Cambridge. He attended an international meeting on "Fifty Years Controlled Nuclear ChainReaction: Past, Present & Future" at Chicago for the third week of November, going on to speak at the University of Illinois (Urbana) during the fourth week. On December 10, 1992, in Rome, he spoke at an Accademia Lincei Symposium to mark the 50th anniversary of the first reactor. In 1993, he lectured at the University of Leiden in February, and at Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm in late May. He attended the Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute (Saint Petersburg) 75th-anniversary celebrations, becoming an Honorary Member of that institute. He spoke on "Technology transfer through research training" at the Accademia Lincei Workshop, at the end of September, but was then overtaken by pneumonia, requiring hospital treatment at Rome and Oxford.
Sir Rudolf Peierls remained in uncertain health and moved out of Oxford, into the country, settling at Oakenholt, near Farmoor, where he could be independent but have help near at hand whenever it might be needed. His treatment required three hospital visits each week, but he died in the hospital on September 19, 1995.