Peter B. Hirsch biography
Date of birth : 1925-01-16
Date of death : -
Birthplace : Berlin, Germany
Nationality : English
Category : Science and Technology
Last modified : 2011-12-20
Credited as : scientist, Royal Society member, 1983 Wolf Foundation Prize in physics
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He attended the Sloane School, Chelsea and St Catharine's College, Cambridge. In 1946 joined the Crystallography Department of the Cavendish to work for a PhD on work hardening in metals under Lawrence Bragg. He subsequently carried out important work, which is still cited, on the structure of coal.
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. In 1965, with Howie, Whelan, Pashley and Nicholson, he published the seminal text Electron microscopy of thin crystals.
The following year he moved to Oxford to take up the Isaac Wolfson Chair in Metallurgy, succeeding William Hume-Rothery. He held this post 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. He is a fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford.
Author of books:
-Electron Microscopy of Thin Crystals (1965)
-Topics in Electron Diffraction and Microscopy of Materials (1999)
-Methods for the Assessment of Structural Integrity of Components and Structures (2003, with David P. G. Lidbury)
