| Authorised form of name | Essen; Louis (1908 - 1997) |
| Dates | 1908 - 1997 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | Nottingham, England, United Kingdom |
| Date of birth | 06/09/1908 |
| Place of death | Great Bookham, Surrey, England, United Kingdom |
| Date of death | 24/08/1997 |
| Occupation | Physicist |
| Research field | Time |
| Atomic clocks |
| Speed of light |
| Radar |
| Activity | Education:
University College, Nottingham, external degree granted from University of London, BSc in physics (1928); University of London PhD (1941), DSc (1948)
Career:
National Physical Laboratory (1929-1972); during the second world war worked on radar, developing ways of measuring frequencies; developed a new method to determine the speed of light; developed the first practical atomic clock in collaboration with Jack Parry; advocated replacing the ephemeris second with the atomic standard, ratified by international agreement in 1968; retired 1972
Honours:
OBE 1959
Medals/Awards:
Wolfe award of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research; Popov gold medal of the USSR Academy of Sciences
|
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 24/03/1960 |
| Age at election | 51 |
| Relationships | Worked with D W Dye (FRS 1928) at NPL; married Joan Margery Greenhalgh (1937) |
| PublishedWorks | https://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-nb2007013000/ |
| Source | Sources:
Wikipedia; ODNB; PIF
References:
Essen, R 'The Birth of Atomic Time' (Peterborough) 2015
Essen, R 'Revolutions in Time. The World of Louis Essen, clockmaker and father of atomic time' (2020)
Obituaries:
Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 1998 vol 44 pp 141-158, plate, by Sir Alan Cook |
| Virtual International Authority File | http://viaf.org/viaf/78306292 |
| Code | NA2141 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| IM/001311 | Essen, Louis | Circa 1984 |
| RR/49/105 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'The valve maintained tuning fork as a primary standard of frequency' by William David Dye and Louis Essen | [October 1933] |
| RR/53/57 | Referee's report by William Henry Eccles, on a paper 'International frequency comparisons by means of standard radio frequency emissions' by Louis Essen | [February 1935] |
| RR/59/64 | Referee's report by Arthur Mannering Tyndall, on a paper 'The dye quartz ring oscillator as a standard of frequency and time' by Louis Essen | [February 1936] |
| RR/70/99 | Referee's report by John Turton Randall, on a paper 'The velocity of propagation of electromagnetic waves derived from the resonant frequencies of a cylindrical cavity resonator'by Louis Essen and A C Gordon-Smith | 1947 |
| EC/1960/08 | Essen, Louis: certificate of election to the Royal Society | |
| RR/62/102 | Referee's report by James Hopwood Jeans, on a paper 'The effect of the fitzgerald-lorentz contraction on the frequency of longitudinal vibration of a rod' by A B Wood, G A Tomlinson and Louis Essen | [September 1936] |
| RR/73/167 | Referee's report by Charles Darwin, on a paper 'The velocity of propagation of electromagnetic waves derived from the resonant frequencies of a cylindrical cavity resonator' by Louis Essen | 1950 |