Harrie Massey

The scholarship expired after two years, but he was awarded an 1851 Exhibition Scholarship in 1931.

At this time the Cavendish Laboratory was one of the leading centres of physics in the world.

Sir Harrie Stewart Wilson Massey (16 May 1908 – 27 November 1983) was an Australian mathematical physicist who worked primarily in the fields of atomic and atmospheric physics.

Harrie Stewart Wilson Massey was born in Invermay, Victoria, Australia, on 16 May 1908, the only child of Harrie Stewart Massey, a miner, and his wife Eleanor Elizabeth née Wilson.

He grew up in the rural community of Hoddles Creek, and enrolled in the local state school in 1913.

He received his Merit Certificate, normally awarded after completing the eighth grade, when he was nine, but due to his age he still had to stay there for another three years.

He won a scholarship to University High School, and moved to Parkville with his mother in 1920.

At University High School he was president of the Science Club and vice captain of the cricket team.

At the age of 16, Massey won a scholarship to the University of Melbourne, which he entered in 1925.

He had thoughts of studying chemistry, but was impressed by the physics lectures given by Eric Hercus.

This was a stroke of luck; first year physics lectures were normally given by Thomas Laby.

At a meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science in Perth in August 1925, he met a schoolteacher, Jessica Elizabeth Bruce.

He was awarded his Bachelor of Arts (BSc) in physics with first class honours in 1928, and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in mathematics in 1929.

They were married on 11 January 1928 at the district registrar's office in Perth.

They had a daughter, Pamela Lois.

At that time, the university did not offer a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) program so Massey undertook a Master of Science (MSc) course, with both experimental and theoretical components.

The former, in cooperation with Courtney Mohr, dealt with soft X-ray deflection from metal surfaces; the latter with wave mechanics.

This involved translating numerous articles from German journals such as Zeitschrift für Physik, Annalen der Physik and Physikalische Zeitschrift.

His external examiner was Ralph Fowler from the University of Cambridge, who was Paul Dirac's PhD supervisor.

In 1929, with the benefit of an Aitchison travelling scholarship from the University of Melbourne, Massey went to Trinity College, Cambridge to perform research at the Cavendish Laboratory led by Ernest Rutherford.

In 1932 Cavendish laboratory scientists John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton split the atomic nucleus, James Chadwick discovered the neutron, and Patrick Blackett and Giuseppe Occhialini confirmed the existence of the positron.

Fowler was appointed as Massey's supervisor although it was clear that he did not need any supervision per se.

Massey obtained his PhD on The Collisions of Material Particles in 1932.

A graduate of the University of Melbourne and Cambridge University, where he earned his doctorate at the Cavendish Laboratory, Massey became an independent lecturer in Mathematical Physics at the Queen's University of Belfast in 1933.

Shortly afterwards, he co-authored a book on atomic collision processes with Nevill Mott, Theory of Atomic Collisions (1933).

He also applied the theory of collisions to models of neutron structure.

He was appointed Goldsmid Professor of Applied Mathematics at University College London, in 1938.

During the Second World War, Massey worked at the Admiralty Research Laboratory, where he helped devise countermeasures for German magnetic naval mines, and at the Admiralty Mining Establishment in Havant, where he helped develop British naval mines.

In 1943, Mark Oliphant persuaded the Admiralty to release Massey to work on the Manhattan Project.

He joined Oliphant's British Mission at the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, where they worked on the electromagnetic isotope separation process.

When Oliphant returned to Britain in 1945, Massey took over the Berkeley Mission.

Massey returned to University College London, in October 1945 to find it badly damaged by bombing, and the Mathematics Department in dingy temporary accommodation.

In 1950 he was appointed Quain Professor of Physics and head of the University College London Physics Department.

He was the chairman of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) from 1959 to 1978, and of its British national chapter.

He was also the first Chairman of the European Space Sciences Committee, and helped found the European Space Research Organization and the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London.

The department was merged with Astronomy in 1973, but he remained its head until he retired in 1975.

Under his direction, the Physics Department was reoriented towards particle physics and upper atmosphere physics.

He worked with the Woomera Rocket Range to develop British Skylark rocket, and was on the governing board of the Anglo-Australian Telescope.

Massey recalled in 1980 that "in a fairly wide experience I would rate [Laby] the worst lecturer I have heard".

At the University he played cricket, billiards, tennis and baseball, which he played for the University.