Jump to content

Peter Hirsch (metallurgist)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sir Peter Hirsch
FRS HonFRMS
Born(1925-01-16)16 January 1925
Berlin, Brandenburg, Prussia, Germany
Died12 September 2025(2025-09-12) (aged 100)
Alma materSt Catharine's College, Cambridge (B.A., 1946; PhD., 1951)
Known forTransmission Electron Microscopy
Physics
RelativesAfua Hirsch (great-niece)
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsMaterials science
InstitutionsUniversity of Cambridge
University of Oxford
ThesisAn X-ray micro-beam technique
 (1951)
Doctoral advisorW. H. Taylor[1]
Doctoral studentsMichael J. Whelan[1]

Sir Peter Bernhard Hirsch FRS HonFRMS (16 January 1925 – 12 September 2025) was a British metallurgist who made fundamental contributions to the application of transmission electron microscopy to metals.[2][3]

Life and career

[edit]

Hirsch was born in Berlin on 16 January 1925; his parents divorced in 1934 and his father died two years later.[1] Hirsch lived in Germany until 1939; he was one of hundreds of Jewish children that escaped Germany via the various Kindertransport missions that saved many such children from the impending dangers of World War II and the Holocaust.[1]

Hirsch attended Sloane Grammar School, Chelsea, and St Catharine's College, Cambridge. In 1946 he joined the Crystallography Department of the Cavendish to work for a PhD on work hardening in metals under W. H. Taylor and Lawrence Bragg.[4] His doctoral research was funded by grants from the British Iron and Steel Research Association, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and a junior research studentship from St Catharine's College.[5] He subsequently carried out work, which is still cited, on the structure of coal, funded by the National Coal Board and a University of Cambridge research fellowship.[6]

In the mid-1950s, he pioneered the application of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to metals and developed in detail the theory needed to interpret such images. He was a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge from 1960 to 1966 and was elected an Honorary Fellow of Christ's in 1978. In 1965, with Howie, Whelan, Pashley and Nicholson, he published the text Electron microscopy of thin crystals.[7][8] The following year he moved to Oxford to take up the Isaac Wolfson Chair in Metallurgy, succeeding William Hume-Rothery, and was elected a Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford. He held this chair until his retirement in 1992, building up the Department of Metallurgy (now the Department of Materials) into a world-renowned centre. Among many other honours, he was awarded the 1983 Wolf Foundation Prize in physics. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1963 and knighted in 1975.

Hirsch was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2001 for experimentally establishing the role of dislocations in plastic flow and of electron microscopy as a tool for materials research. His great-niece is the writer and broadcaster Afua Hirsch.[9]

In March 2025, the University of Oxford department of materials held a symposium in honour of Hirsch, to mark his 100th birthday.[10] Hirsch died after a brief illness on 12 September 2025, at the age of 100.[11]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d Hirsch, Peter. "Peter Hirsch". www.aip.org (Interview). Interviewed by Case, Stephen. American Institute of Physics. Archived from the original on 14 January 2025. Retrieved 19 March 2025.
  2. ^ "Personal Homepages Professor Sir Peter Hirsch FRS Emeritus Professor Department of Materials Oxford Materials". Archived from the original on 3 April 2012.
  3. ^ Wilkinson, A. J.; Hirsch, P. B. (1997). "Electron diffraction based techniques in scanning electron microscopy of bulk materials". Micron. 28 (4): 279–308. arXiv:1904.05550. doi:10.1016/S0968-4328(97)00032-2. S2CID 118944816.
  4. ^ Kelly, Anthony (1 January 2013). "Lawrence Bragg's interest in the deformation of metals and 1950–1953 in the Cavendish – a worm's-eye view". Acta Crystallographica Section A. 69 (1): 16–24. Bibcode:2013AcCrA..69...16K. doi:10.1107/s0108767312034356. ISSN 0108-7673. PMID 23250056.
  5. ^ Hirsch, P.B.; Kellar, J.N. (1951). "An X-Ray Micro-Beam Technique: I - Collimation". Proceedings of the Physical Society, Section B. 64 (5): 369–374. Bibcode:1951PPSB...64..369H. doi:10.1088/0370-1301/64/5/301.
  6. ^ Hirsch, Peter B. (1954). "X-ray scattering from coals". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A. 226 (1165): 143–169. Bibcode:1954RSPSA.226..143H. doi:10.1098/rspa.1954.0245.
  7. ^ P. Hirsch, A. Howie, R. Nicholson, D. W. Pashley and M. J. Whelan (1965/1977) Electron microscopy of thin crystals (Butterworths/Krieger, London/Malabar FL) ISBN 0-88275-376-2
  8. ^ Hirsch, P. B.; Howie, A.; Nicholson, R. B.; Pashley, D. W.; Whelan, M. J.; Marton, L. (1966). "Electron microscopy". Physics Today. 19 (10): 93. Bibcode:1966PhT....19j..93H. doi:10.1063/1.3047787.
  9. ^ "Cheat sheet: Afua Hirsch".
  10. ^ "New microscope blessed by Sir Peter Hirsch". 19 March 2025. Retrieved 18 September 2025 – via QUAD.
  11. ^ "Hall remembers Sir Peter Hirsch FRS". St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford. 15 September 2025. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_Hirsch_(metallurgist)&oldid=1316116661"