J. A. Ratcliffe

This article is about the British radio physicist. For the American actor, see Jack Radcliffe.

Jack Ratcliffe
Born	(1902-12-12)12 December 1902 Bacup, Lancashire, England
Died	25 October 1987(1987-10-25) (aged 84) Cambridge, England
Nationality	British
Alma mater	Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
Known for	Ionospheric physics
Awards	Holweck Prize (1953) Royal Medal (1966) Faraday Medal (1966)
Scientific career
Fields	Physicist
Institutions	University of Cambridge
Academic advisors	Edward Victor Appleton
Doctoral students	Basil Briggs David Whitehead Maurice Wilkes Joseph Lade Pawsey Ronald N. Bracewell Henry G. Booker Kenneth G. Budden
Other notable students	Martin Ryle

John Ashworth Ratcliffe CB OBE FRS (12 December 1902 – 25 October 1987), "JAR" or "Jack", was an influential British radio physicist. (Several sources misspell his name as Radcliffe.)

He and his University of Cambridge group (which included physicist Frank Farmer) did much pioneering work on the ionosphere, immediately prior to World War II. He was one of many leading radio scientists who worked at the Telecommunications Research Establishment during WW2. Martin Ryle, Bernard Lovell, and Antony Hewish were co-workers there, and Ryle and Hewish joined his radio-physics group at Cambridge after WW2. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1951.

In 1953 Ratcliffe was invited to deliver the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture on The Uses of Radio Waves.

He served as President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers from 1966 to 1967.

From 1960 to 1966 he was Director of the Radio & Space Research Station at Slough.

Ratcliffe was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1976.

External links

• short obituary and collected papers