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David Shoenberg

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David Shoenberg
Born(1911-01-04)4 January 1911
St. Petersburg
Died10 March 2004(2004-03-10) (aged 93)
Cambridge
CitizenshipBritish
Alma materTrinity College, Cambridge
Known forShoenberg effect
SpouseCatherine Félicité Fischmann
AwardsSee list
Scientific career
Thesis The magnetic properties of bismuth  (1936)
Doctoral advisorPyotr Kapitza[1]
Doctoral studentsJohn K. Hulm
Joe Vinen[2]

David Shoenberg, MBE FRS,[3] (4 January 1911 – 10 March 2004) was a British physicist who worked in condensed matter physics. Shoenberg is known for having developed experimental and theoretical principles to study the De Haas–Van Alphen effect to characterize the electrical conduction of metals.

Biography

David Shoenberg was the fourth of five children of Isaac (later Sir Isaac) Shoenberg, engineer and pioneer of radio and television, and Esther (née Aisenstein).[4] He was born in St. Petersburg, but came to England with the family when he was three. He attended Latymer Upper School, from where he won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge and went up in October 1929. He had intended to study mathematics, but after one year he switched to physics, gaining a First in Part II[clarification needed] in 1932. This ensured that he could continue as a research student, working on low-temperature physics in the newly-built Mond Laboratory,[5] and supervised by Peter Kapitza, FRS.[3][4]

In August 1934 Kapitza went to a conference in Moscow, and to visit his parents, but was not permitted to leave. He left Shoenberg more or less on his own. When the half-built helium liquefier was finished, Shoenberg chose the two topics which lasted him to the end of his active life, superconductivity and the De Haas-Van Alphen effect (dHvA).[6]

Back in Moscow a new Laboratory had been built for Kapitza, to which Shoenberg was invited in 1937. He spent a year there, continuing work on, and making considerable advances in the understanding of dHvA.[7]

During the World War II Shoenberg worked on mine-detection and delayed-action fuses (for which he was appointed MBE in 1944[8]).[4]

For most of his career Schoenberg made the dHvA effect into a powerful tool for understanding the behaviour of conduction electrons in metals.[1] A tribute to Shoenberg’s work and contributions was published by V M Pudalov of the Lebedev Physical Institute in 2011.[9]

Family

In Cambridge, in March 1940, David Shoenberg married Catherine (Kate) Félicité Fischmann, who was some five years older. Her ancestry was Russian but she was born a Belgian, and had taken British nationality before her marriage. She was a physiology graduate of University College London and worked in Cambridge on tissue culture, at the Strangeways Research Laboratory and elsewhere. The Shoenbergs had two daughters, Ann and Jane, and a son Peter.

Kate died in Cambridge in 2003, age 97. David died in Addenbrooke's Hospital on 10 March 2004, following a stroke, and was cremated in Cambridge on the 18th .[4]

Appointments and awards

References

  1. ^ a b Chambers, R G (2004). "Obituary: David Shoenberg (1911–2004)". Nature. 428 (6983): 613. Bibcode:2004Natur.428..613C. doi:10.1038/428613a. PMID 15071584.
  2. ^ Gough, C. E. (1999). "W F Vinen - a celebration". Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter. 11 (40): 7669–7676. Bibcode:1999JPCM...11.7669G. doi:10.1088/0953-8984/11/40/001.
  3. ^ a b Pippard, Sir B. (2005). "David Shoenberg. 4 January 1911 -- 10 March 2004: Elected F.R.S. 1953". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 51: 379. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2005.0025.
  4. ^ a b c d "Shoenberg, David". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/93636. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  5. ^ "Royal Society Mond Laboratory". Nature: 210–211. 11 February 1933.
  6. ^ Pippard, Brian (16 March 2004). "Professor David Shoenberg: Central figure in Cambridge low-temperature physics". The Independent.
  7. ^ Shoenberg, D (1939). "Magnetic properties of bismuth. III. Further measurements on the de Haas–van Alphen effect". Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A. 170 (942): 341–364. Bibcode:1939RSPSA.170..341S. doi:10.1098/rspa.1939.0036.
  8. ^ "London Gazette".
  9. ^ Pudalov, V M (January 2011). "David Shoenberg and the beauty of quantum oscillations". Low Temperature Physics. 37 (1): 12–24. Bibcode:2011LTP....37....8P. doi:10.1063/1.3549164.
  10. ^ "Professor David Shoenberg". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 26 November 2020.
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