Brian Pippard

For his father, see Alfred John Sutton Pippard.

Sir Alfred Brian Pippard (7 September 1920 – 21 September 2008)^[2] was a British condensed matter physicist. He was Cavendish Professor of Physics from 1971 to 1982, and an Honorary Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, of which he was the first president.

Sir Brian Pippard FRS
1st President of Clare Hall, Cambridge
In office 1966–1973
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Robert Honeycombe
Personal details
Born	Alfred Brian Pippard (1920-09-07)7 September 1920 London, UKGBI
Died	21 September 2008(2008-09-21) (aged 88) Cambridge, UK
Education	Clifton College
Alma mater	Clare College, Cambridge (MA, PhD)
Father	Alfred Pippard
Awards	FRS (1956) Hughes Medal (1959) Holweck Medal and Prize (1961) Dannie Heineman Prize (1969) Onsager Medal (2005)
Scientific career
Title	John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Physics (1960–71) Cavendish Professor of Physics (1971–82)
Fields	Condensed matter physics
Institutions	University of Cambridge
Doctoral advisor	David Shoenberg[1]
Doctoral students	Allan Mackintosh (1960)[1] Brian Josephson (1964) Stephen G. Lipson (1965)[1] John Clarke (1968)[1] John Shepherd (1971)

Biography

Alfred Brian Pippard was born on 7 September 1920 in London, the son of engineer Alfred Pippard.^[3] He was educated at Clifton College^[4] and Clare College, Cambridge, where he graduated with M.A. and Ph.D. degrees.

After working as a scientific officer in radar research during World War II, Pippard was appointed Demonstrator in Physics at the University of Cambridge in 1947, successively becoming Lecturer in 1950, Reader in 1959, and the first John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Physics the following year. In 1971, he was elected Cavendish Professor of Physics.^[5]

Pippard demonstrated the reality, as opposed to the mere abstract concept, of Fermi surfaces in metals by establishing the shape of the Fermi surface of copper through measuring the reflection and absorption of microwave electromagnetic radiation^[6] (see the anomalous skin effect^[7]). He also introduced the notion of coherence length in superconductors in his proposal for the non-local generalisation of the London equations^[8][9] concerning electrodynamics in superfluids and superconductors. The non-local kernel proposed by Pippard,^[10][11][12] inferred on the basis of Chambers' non-local generalisation of Ohm's law) can be deduced within the framework of the BCS (Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer) theory of superconductivity^[13] (a comprehensive description of the details of the London–Pippard theory can be found in the book by Fetter and Walecka^[14]).

Pippard was the author of Elements of Classical Thermodynamics for Advanced Students of Physics,^[15] Dynamics of Conduction Electrons,^[16] and The Physics of Vibration.^[17] He also co-authored the three-volumes encyclopaedia Twentieth Century Physics.^[18]

As the Cavendish Professor of Physics, he compiled Cavendish Problems in Classical Physics,^[19] based in large part on past examination questions for Cambridge physics students.

Pippard was the doctoral advisor of Brian Josephson (awarded Ph.D. in Physics in 1964) who in 1973 received the Nobel Prize in Physics (together with Leo Esaki and Ivar Giaever) for his discovery of what is known as the Josephson effect.^[20]