Biography:Boris Davison
Boris Davison | |
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| Born | Boris Borisovich Davison 7 October 1908 Vasilsursk, Gorky Oblast, Russia |
| Died | 24 January 1961 (aged 52) Toronto, Canada |
| Alma mater |
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| Spouse(s) | Olga Hansen (m. 1946) |
| Scientific career | |
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Boris Davison (7 October 1908 – 24 January 1961) was a Russian-born mathematical physicist.
Biography
Boris Borisovich Davison was born 7 October 1908 in Vasilsursk, Gorky Oblast, Russia.[1] He attended Leningrad State University, graduating in 1931.[2][1] He then worked at the State Hydrological Institute.
Davison's grandfather had been British, and in 1938 Davison was given a choice – either renounce his British nationality or leave the Soviet Union. He chose to emigrate to the United Kingdom.[2][1] He then briefly worked with Louis Rosenhead at the University of Liverpool but withdrew from work due to illness.[1][2]
In 1942 he joined the University of Birmingham's atomic energy research team working under Rudolf Peierls, and in 1944 the university awarded him a PhD.[2][1]
In 1943 he moved to Canada to work under George Placzek at the Montreal Laboratory of the joint British-Canadian atomic energy project.[2][1][3] In October 1945 he briefly joined the British Mission at Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, part of the Manhattan Project which had just developed the atom bomb.[4] In 1946 Davison married Olga Hansen.[5]
He worked at Chalk River Laboratory in Ontario before returning to the UK in 1947 to work at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, Oxfordshire.[2][1]
In 1953 his security clearance was revoked by the British government because his parents still lived in the Soviet Union, potentially putting Davison at risk of blackmail.[6] He was given a year's leave of absence working at the University of Birmingham.[7][4] Davison then emigrated to Canada in 1954, where he took up a position at the computation centre at the University of Toronto.[3][4]
In 1957 he authored the book Neutron Transport Theory.[2]
Davison died suddenly at his home in Toronto on 24 January 1961 at the age of 52.[5][2][8]
Books
- Boris, Davison (1957) (in en). Neutron Transport Theory. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-851207-3. https://archive.org/details/neutrontransport0000bdav.
- Davison, B. (1979). Collected Papers of Boris Davison. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Hager, Willi (2014-03-21) (in en). Hydraulicians in Europe 1800-2000: Volume 2. CRC Press. pp. 1375. ISBN 978-1-4665-5498-6. https://books.google.com/books?id=6EF9BgAAQBAJ&dq=boris+davison+physicist&pg=PA1375.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Watson, W. H. (April 1961). "Prof. B. Davison" (in en). Nature 190 (4773): 306–307. doi:10.1038/190306b0. ISSN 0028-0836. Bibcode: 1961Natur.190..306W.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Boris Davison" (in en). Physics Today 14 (5): 76. 1961-05-01. doi:10.1063/1.3057579. ISSN 0031-9228. https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/14/5/76/422087/Boris-Davison.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Szasz, Ferenc Morton (1992) (in en). British Scientists and the Manhattan Project. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 134. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-12731-3. ISBN 978-1-349-12733-7. http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-1-349-12731-3.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Boris Davison". The Gazette: pp. 39. 1961-01-28. https://www.newspapers.com/image/420557712/.
- ↑ "Positively Vet" (in en-US). Time (magazine). 1953-09-07. ISSN 0040-781X. https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,818804,00.html. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
- ↑ "British A-Scientist Given Year's Leave". The Washington Post: pp. 1. 1953-08-26. https://archive.org/details/per_washington-post_1953-08-26_28195.
- ↑ "Campus News Briefs". The Varsity (Toronto): pp. 2. 1961-01-27. https://archive.org/details/thevarsity80.
Further reading
- Kushneriuk, S. A. (October 1976) (in en). A Bibliography of the Publications of Boris Davison. Chalk River: Atomic Energy of Canada. https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/08/300/8300053.pdf.
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