Person Mott; Sir; Nevill Francis (1905 - 1996) Mott Nevill Francis Sir 1905 - 1996 Male Leeds 30/09/1905 19050930 08/08/1996 19960808

Education: Mott was educated at Clifton College, Bristol and St John's College, Cambridge where he studied mathematics and theoretical physics. Career: Professor of Theoretical Physics, Bristol University After three years research in applied mathematics he was appointed to a lectureship at Manchester University in 1929. He returned to Cambridge in 1930 as a Fellow and lecturer of Gonville and Caius College and in 1933 moved to Bristol University as Melville Wills Professor in Theoretical Physics. In 1948 he became Henry Overton Wills Professor of Physics and Director of the Henry Herbert Wills Physical Laboratory at Bristol. In 1954 he was appointed Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge, a post he held until 1971. Additionally he served as Master of Gonville and Caius College, 1959-1966. Mott's early research at Cambridge established his reputation in the application of the new ideas of wave mechanics to collisions of atomic particles. On moving to Bristol he left this field for that of metals and alloys, establishing an international reputation there too within a few years. Later he turned to research on semiconductors and insulators, and to problems concerned with the formation of a latent image in a photographic emulsion. During Mott's twenty-one years at Bristol his group occupied a position of great eminence in theoretical physics. War-related work during the Second World War was concerned with the propagation of radio waves and the explosive fragmentation of shell and bomb cases. Mott's appointment as Cavendish Professor inevitably led to a greater involvement in administration both in the laboratory and the university and he assumed a number of positions nationally and internationally, both within the scientific community and more widely, for example, in the field of education. Nevertheless he remained active in research. The work for which he shared the 1977 Nobel Prize in the area of the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems was begun in the 1960s, while in his final years he was engaged in investigations of high temperature superconductivity. Mott was not only one of the great theoreticians of the twentieth-century, his work in semiconductors and solid state physics had great practical implications, enabling improvements to be made to the performance of electronic circuits, including computer memories, and in making more efficient solar energy cells. Medals and prizes: Nobel Prize (Physics) 1977 His father, Charles Francis Mott, who later became Director of Education of Liverpool, and his mother, Lillian Mary Mott nee Reynolds, had been research students together under J.J. Thomson at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge. Medals and prizes: Hughes Medal 1941; Royal Medal 1953; Copley Medal 1972 Lectures: Bakerian 1953; Rutherford Memorial Lecture 1962; Humphry Davy 1987 Fellow 07/05/1936 30 AssocMaterial: NCUACS 119/5/03. Papers deposited in Cambridge University Library Sources: Bulloch's Roll Obituaries: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 1998 vol 44 pp 313-328, plate, by Sir Brian Pippard References: Maurice V Wilkes, 'Historical Studies in Science and Technology and the Uses to which They can be Put' in NR 1999 vol 53 pp 3-10 P B Moon, 'The (London) Physics Club, 1928-1953' in NR 1992 vol 46 pp 171-174 S Devons, 'Rutherford and the Science of His Day' in NR 1991 vol 45 pp 221-242 G V R Born, FRS, 'The wide-ranging family history of Max Born' in NR 2002 vol 56 pp 219-262 N R Ingram, 'All that you can't leave behind' in NR 2003 vol 57 pp 177-184 ©Godfrey Argent Studio International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families - ISAAR(CPF) - Ottawa 1996 ISBN 0-9696035-3-3 National Council on Archives, Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997 'The Theory of Atomic Collisions' (with H.S.W. Massey, 1933; ' Electronic Processes in Non-Crystalline Materials' (with E.A. Davis, 1971); 'Metal-Insulator Transitions ' (1974); ' Conduction in Non-Crystalline Materials' (1986). He edited a volume of essays by scientists on religious belief 'Can scientists believe?' (1991). In 1986 Mott published an autobiography 'A life in science. ' https://pictures.royalsociety.org/image-rs-20404 30 Sep 1905 - 8 Aug 1996 NA3218 21/11/2001 Andyg Pmab 28/03/2023 RS_NET\JonathanB Yes 1a6d0624-77f9-432a-8127-83c34e235cae