David Shoenberg

David Shoenberg, MBE FRS,[3] (4 January 1911 – 10 March 2004) was a British physicist.

David Shoenberg
Born(1911-01-04)4 January 1911
St. Petersburg
Died10 March 2004(2004-03-10) (aged 93)
Cambridge
CitizenshipBritish
Alma materTrinity College, Cambridge
Known forShoenberg effect
Spouse(s)Catherine Félicité Fischmann
AwardsSee list
Scientific career
ThesisThe magnetic properties of bismuth (1936)
Doctoral advisorPyotr Kapitza[1]
Doctoral studentsJohn K. Hulm
Joe Vinen[2]

Biography

David Shoenberg was the fourth of five children of Isaac (later Sir Isaac) Shoenberg, engineer and pioneer of radio and television, and Esther (née Aisenstein).[4] He was born in St. Petersburg, but came to England with the family when he was three. He attended Latymer Upper School, from where he won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge and went up in October 1929. He had intended to study mathematics, but after one year he switched to physics, gaining a First in Part II in 1932. This ensured that he could continue as a research student, working on low-temperature physics in the newly-built Mond Laboratory,[5] and supervised by Peter Kapitza, FRS.[3][4]

In August 1934 Kapitza went to a conference in Moscow, and to visit his parents, but was not permitted to leave. This left Shoenberg more or less on his own. When the half-built helium liquefier was finished, Shoenberg chose the two topics which lasted him to the end of his active life, superconductivity and the de Haas-van Alphen effect (dHvA).[6]

Back in Moscow a new Laboratory had been built for Kapitza, to which Shoenberg was invited in 1937. He spent a year there, continuing work on, and making considerable advances in the understanding of dHvA.[7]

During the Second World War Shoenberg worked on mine-detection and delayed-action fuses (for which he was appointed MBE in 1944).[4]

For most of his career Schoenberg made the dHvA effect into a powerful tool for understanding the behaviour of conduction electrons in metals.[1] A tribute to Shoenberg’s work and contributions was published by V M Pudalov of the Lebedev Physical Institute in 2011.[8]

Family

In Cambridge, in March 1940, David Shoenberg married Catherine (Kate) Félicité Fischmann, who was some five years older. Her ancestry was Russian but she was born a Belgian, and had taken British nationality before her marriage. She was a physiology graduate of University College London and worked in Cambridge on tissue culture, at the Strangeways Research Laboratory and elsewhere. The Shoenbergs had two daughters, Ann and Jane, and a son Peter.

Kate died in Cambridge in 2003, age 97. David died in Addenbrooke's Hospital on 10 March 2004, following a stroke, and was cremated in Cambridge on the 18th .[4]

Appointments and awards
  • 1944 MBE
  • 1944-1952 University Lecturer in Physics, Cambridge University
  • 1947-1973 Head of the Royal Society Mond Laboratory
  • 1947-1973 Corporate Official Fellow, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
  • 1952-1973 Reader in Physics
  • 1953 FRS
  • 1964 Awarded Fritz London Memorial Prize
  • 1973-1978 Professor of Physics (Emeritus)
  • 1973-1978 Head of the Low Temperature Physics Group, Cavendish Laboratory
  • 1973-2004 Life Fellow
  • 1982 International Honorary Member, American Academy of Arts & Sciences[9]
  • 1995 Awarded Hughes Medal

References
  1. Chambers, R G (2004). "Obituary: David Shoenberg (1911–2004)". Nature. 428 (6983): 613. Bibcode:2004Natur.428..613C. doi:10.1038/428613a. PMID 15071584.
  2. Gough, C. E. (1999). "W F Vinen - a celebration". Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter. 11 (40): 7669–7676. Bibcode:1999JPCM...11.7669G. doi:10.1088/0953-8984/11/40/001.
  3. Pippard, Sir B. (2005). "David Shoenberg. 4 January 1911 -- 10 March 2004: Elected F.R.S. 1953". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 51: 379. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2005.0025.
  4. "Shoenberg, David". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/93636. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  5. "Royal Society Mond Laboratory". Nature: 210–211. 11 February 1933.
  6. Pippard, Brian (16 March 2004). "Professor David Shoenberg: Central figure in Cambridge low-temperature physics". The Independent.
  7. Shoenberg, D (1939). "Magnetic properties of bismuth. III. Further measurements on the de Haas–van Alphen effect". Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. A. 170 (942): 341–364. Bibcode:1939RSPSA.170..341S. doi:10.1098/rspa.1939.0036.
  8. Pudalov, V M (January 2011). "David Shoenberg and the beauty of quantum oscillations". Low Temperature Physics. 37 (1): 12–24. Bibcode:2011LTP....37....8P. doi:10.1063/1.3549164.
  9. "Professor David Shoenberg". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 26 November 2020.
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