Arnold Beck

Arnold Hugh William Beck (7 August 1916 – 11 October 1997) was a British scientist and electrical engineer, a specialist in plasma and microwaves, Professor of Engineering in the University of Cambridge.

The younger son of Major Hugh Beck and Diana L. Beck, the young Beck was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, and University College, London, where he graduated BSc Eng.

In 1937, after graduation, Beck became a research engineer with Henry Hughes & Sons, remaining with the firm until 1941.

Then, with the Second World War in progress, he was seconded to the Admiralty Signal Establishment until 1945.

From 1947 he was an engineer with Standard Telephones and Cables, ultimately as head of the Valve Research Division.

In 1947, Beck married Monica, a daughter of Samuel K Ratcliffe, they had no children, but raised her son Nicolas Walter from her previous marriage to William Grey Walter.

In 1958 he was appointed a Lecturer in Electrical Engineering at Cambridge, where he led a group researching new ways to generate very high frequency radio waves.

In 1959, he was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

In 1964 he was promoted to Reader and in 1966 was elected to one of the three Professorships of Engineering established that year.

He was also Head of the University's Electrical Division from 1971 to 1981, and when he retired in 1983 he was given the title of Emeritus Professor and was elected a Life Fellow of Corpus Christi, where he had been a Fellow since 1962.

His old college elected him to a Fellowship in 1979.