FRSE
Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This so ...
, FInstP (24 February 1939 – 27 January 2015) was an English
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate ca ...
Cowley was born in Woodford Green, Essex, on 24 February 1939. His father, Cecil Arthur Cowley, was a chartered surveyor, and his mother Mildred Sarah Nash was from a farming family. During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, the family evacuated to
Leighton Buzzard
Leighton Buzzard ( ) is a market town in Bedfordshire, England, in the southwest of the county and close to the Buckinghamshire border. It lies between Aylesbury, Tring, Luton/ Dunstable and Milton Keynes, near the Chiltern Hills. It is n ...
,
Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council ...
, later moving to Shenfield and on to Gidea Park, Essex. He was educated at Brentwood School, where he had won a scholarship, and afterwards he entered
Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Trinity Hall (formally The College or Hall of the Holy Trinity in the University of Cambridge) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.
It is the fifth-oldest surviving college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by ...
, where he read
natural sciences
Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeat ...
. Cowley would remain at Cambridge to study for a PhD.
He married Sheila Joyce Wells, a teacher of mathematics, on 4 April 1964 and they had two children. On 27 January 2015 Cowley died at a care home in Oxford as a result of a head injury sustained in a bicycle accident a year earlier.
Career and research
He was appointed professor of physics at the
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a 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 world's second-oldest university in contin ...
in 1988 (a post that carried with it a
fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
ship at
Wadham College, Oxford
Wadham College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street and Parks Road.
Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Doroth ...
). Cowley made his name in the field of neutron scattering. This work led to the study of
phase transition
In chemistry, thermodynamics, and other related fields, a phase transition (or phase change) is the physical process of transition between one state of a medium and another. Commonly the term is used to refer to changes among the basic states ...
s.
Awards and honours
In 1972 Cowley was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the following year he was awarded the inaugural Max Born Prize. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1978 and awarded the Fernand Holweck Medal and Prize in 1990. In 2003 he received the Walter Hälg Prize from the European Neutron Scattering Association and the
Faraday Medal and Prize
The Michael Faraday Medal and Prize is a gold medal awarded annually by the Institute of Physics in experimental physics. The award is made "for outstanding and sustained contributions to experimental physics." The medal is accompanied by a pr ...
from the
Institute of Physics
The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, research and application.
It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide membership of over 20,000. The IOP is the Physica ...