Ian Philip Grant, DPhil; FRS; CMath; FIMA, FRAS, FInstP (born 15 December 1930) is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

mathematical physicist. He is Emeritus Professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Oxford and was elected a fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 1992. He is a pioneer in the field of

computational physics Computational physics is the study and implementation of numerical analysis to solve problems in physics. Historically, computational physics was the first application of modern computers in science, and is now a subset of computational science ...

and is internationally recognised as the principal author of GRASP, the General Relativistic Atomic Structure Program.

Education

St Albans School, Hertfordshire St Albans School is a public school (traditional English fee-charging day and former boarding school) in the city of St Albans in Hertfordshire. Entry before Sixth Form is for boys only, but the Sixth Form has been co-educational since 1991. ...

(1939-1948). Open Scholar in Natural Science, Wadham College Oxford, MA (Mathematics) (1951). Clarendon Laboratory,

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

, D.Phil (1954).

Career

Source: UKAEA. Mathematical Physics Division, Aldermaston. Senior Scientific officer (1957-1962); Principal Scientific Officer (1962-1964). Joint Research Fellowship,

Atlas Computer Laboratory The Atlas Computer Laboratory on the Harwell, Oxfordshire campus shared by the Harwell Laboratory was one of the major computer laboratories in the world, which operated between 1961 and 1975 to provide a service to British scientists at a tim ...

(Science Research Council) and

Pembroke College, Oxford Pembroke College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford, is located on Pembroke Square, Oxford. The college was founded in 1624 by King James I of England and VI of Scotland, using in part the endowment of merchant Thomas Tesdale ...

(1964-1969). Tutorial Fellow in Mathematics, Pembroke College, Oxford, now Emeritus Fellow. (1969-1998)
Professor of Mathematical Physics, University of Oxford
now Emeritus Professor.(1992-1998) Visiting Professor, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge. (2013-)

Academic Research

Source: Professor Ian Grant has made fundamental contributions to the development of the mathematical theory on relativistic effects in atomic physics, of importance for detailed studies of all atomic systems and particularly for heavy atoms and for highly ionised atoms in laboratory and astronomical plasmas. He has also been instrumental in the creation of computer codes that are used worldwide (in particular GRASP) and have had a major impact on the understanding of both the foundations of the relativistic theory of many electron systems and on the precision of theoretical interpretation of a variety of properties of atoms. Professor Grant and his co-workers extended this approach to the relativistic modelling of molecular electronic structure and the development of the BERTHA computer package. Further research work included studies of electron scattering from heavy atoms and of the structures of molecules containing heavy atoms, culminating in the creation of the DARC computer package, integrating modules designed for calculations using relativistic R-matrix approach and GRASP. He also led important earlier work on radiative transfer in stellar and planetary atmospheres. Professor Grant’s book Relativistic Quantum Theory of Atoms and Molecules: Theory and Computation reviews the field of relativistic atomic and molecular structure to the mid-2000s.

References

1930 births Living people Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford British physicists Fellows of Pembroke College, Oxford Fellows of the Royal Society English Jews Jewish British physicists People educated at St Albans School, Hertfordshire {{UK-physicist-stub