Biography:Anthony French

Short description: British-born physics educator

Anthony Philip French
Born	(1920-11-19)November 19, 1920 Brighton, England
Died	February 3, 2017(2017-02-03) (aged 96)
Alma mater	Cambridge
Awards	Oersted Medal (1989)
Scientific career
Fields	Nuclear Physics Physics Education
Institutions	Manhattan Project Cambridge South Carolina MIT
Website	web.mit.edu/physics/facultyandstaff/faculty/anthony_french.html

Anthony Philip French (November 19, 1920 – February 3, 2017) was a British professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was born in Brighton, England. French was a graduate of Cambridge University, receiving his B.A. in 1942 and Ph.D. in 1948, both in physics. In 1942, he began working on the British effort to build an atomic bomb (codenamed Tube Alloys) at the Cavendish Laboratory. By 1944, Tube Alloys had been merged with the American Manhattan Project and he was sent to Los Alamos.

When the war ended, he returned to the United Kingdom, where he spent a couple of years at the newly formed Atomic Energy Research Establishment. He later joined the faculty at Cambridge, where he conducted his research at Cavendish and became a Fellow and Director of Studies in Natural Sciences at Pembroke College, Cambridge. In 1955, French arrived at the University of South Carolina, where he was made chairman of the physics department. He left South Carolina in 1962 to take a faculty position in the MIT Physics Department, where he remained until his death. French's main interest was undergraduate physics education. He was chairman of the Commission on Physics Education of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (1975-1981) and president of the American Association of Physics Teachers (1985-1986). He was also a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Books

• A.P. French, ed (1988). Physics in a Technological World: XIX General Assembly, International Union of Pure and Applied Physics. American Institute of Physics. 

• A. P. French and P. J. Kennedy, ed (1985). Niels Bohr: A centenary volume. Harvard University Press. 

• A. P. French, ed (1979). Einstein: A centenary volume. Heinemann for the International Commission on Physics Education. 

• French, A.P.; Taylor, Edwin F. (1978). Introduction to Quantum Physics. MIT Introductory Physics Series. W.W. Norton & Company. 

• French, A.P. (1971). Newtonian Mechanics. MIT Introductory Physics Series. W.W. Norton & Company. 

• French, A.P. (1971). Vibrations and Waves. MIT Introductory Physics Series. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780748744473. https://books.google.com/books?id=RqE26vDmd5wC. 

• French, A.P. (1968). Special Relativity. MIT Introductory Physics Series. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9781420074819. https://books.google.com/books?id=8jPVRXNXj28C. 

• French, A.P. (1958). Principles of Modern Physics. John Wiley. 

Awards and honors

• 1980 University Medal of the Charles University, Prague
• 1988 Lawrence Bragg Medal of the Institute of Physics, London
• 1989 Oersted Medal of the American Association of Physics Teachers
• 1991 Named Professor Emeritus at MIT
• 1993 Melba Newell Phillips Medal of the American Association of Physics Teachers

External links

• 2008 Video Interview with Anthony French by Atomic Heritage Foundation Voices of the Manhattan Project
• 1992 Video Video Interview with Anthony French by Los Alamos Historical Society Voices of the Manhattan Project
• Anthony French's web page at MIT
• 1992 Video interview with Anthony French by Theresa Strottman Voices of the Manhattan Project
• Anthony French's obituary