British physicist
Sir Thomas Walter Bannerman Kibble
CBE
FRS
MAE
[1]
(
; 23 December 1932 ? 2 June 2016) was a British
theoretical physicist
, senior research investigator at the
Blackett Laboratory
and Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics at
Imperial College London
.
[4]
His research interests were in
quantum field theory
, especially the interface between high-energy
particle physics
and
cosmology
. He is best known as one of the first to describe the
Higgs mechanism
, and for his research on
topological defects
. From the 1950s he was concerned about the
nuclear arms race
and from 1970 took leading roles in promoting the social responsibility of the scientist.
[5]
Early life and education
[
edit
]
Kibble was born in
Madras
, in the
Madras Presidency
of
British India
, on 23 December 1932.
[6]
[7]
He was the son of the statistician Walter F. Kibble, and the grandson of William Bannerman, an officer in the
Indian Medical Service
, and the author
Helen Bannerman
. His father was a mathematics professor at
Madras Christian College
, and Kibble grew up playing on the grounds of the college and solving mathematics puzzles his father gave him.
[8]
He was educated at
Doveton Corrie School
in Madras and then in Edinburgh, Scotland, at
Melville College
and at the
University of Edinburgh
.
[4]
He graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a
BSc
in 1955,
MA
in 1956 and a
PhD
in 1958.
[6]
[9]
Career
[
edit
]
Kibble worked on mechanisms of
symmetry breaking
,
phase transitions
and the
topological defects
(monopoles,
cosmic strings
or
domain walls
) that can be formed.
He is most noted for his co-discovery of the
Higgs mechanism
and
Higgs boson
with
Gerald Guralnik
and
C. R. Hagen
.
[10]
[11]
[12]
As part of
Physical Review Letters
50th anniversary celebration, the journal recognised this discovery as one of the milestone papers in PRL history.
[13]
He was awarded the
American Physical Society's
2010
J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics
.
[14]
While Guralnik, Hagen, and Kibble are widely considered to have authored the most complete of the
early papers
on the Higgs theory, they were
controversially
not included in the 2013
Nobel Prize in Physics
.
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]
[19]
[20]
[21]
[8]
In 2014, Nobel Laureate
Peter Higgs
expressed disappointment that Kibble had not been chosen to share the Nobel Prize with
Francois Englert
and himself.
[22]
Kibble pioneered the study of topological defect generation in the early universe.
[23]
The paradigmatic mechanism of defect formation across a second-order
phase transition
is known as the
Kibble-Zurek mechanism
. His paper on cosmic strings introduced the phenomenon into modern cosmology.
[24]
He was one of the two co-chairs of an interdisciplinary research programme funded by the
European Science Foundation
(ESF) on Cosmology in the Laboratory (COSLAB) which ran from 2001 to 2005. He was previously the coordinator of an ESF Network on Topological Defects in Particle Physics, Condensed Matter & Cosmology (TOPDEF).
[9]
Awards and honours
[
edit
]
Kibble was an elected
Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1980
,
[1]
[25]
of the
Institute of Physics
(1991), and of Imperial College London (2009). He was also a member of the American Physical Society (1958), the
European Physical Society
(1975) and the
Academia Europaea
(2000).
[9]
In 2008, Kibble was named an Outstanding Referee by the American Physical Society.
[5]
[26]
In addition to the Sakurai Prize, Kibble has been awarded the
Hughes Medal
(1981) of the Royal Society, the
Rutherford
(1984) and
Guthrie Medals
(1993) of the Institute of Physics,
[9]
the
Dirac
Medal (2013),
[27]
the
Albert Einstein Medal
(2014)
[28]
and the Royal Medal of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh
(2014).
[29]
He was appointed a
CBE
in the
1998 Birthday Honours
and was
knighted
in the
2014 Birthday Honours
for services to physics.
[30]
[31]
Kibble was posthumously awarded the
Isaac Newton Medal
by the Institute of Physics for his outstanding lifelong commitment to the field.
[32]
Publications
[
edit
]
In 1966 Kibble authored a textbook,
Classical Mechanics
,
[33]
from the 3rd edition onwards with
Frank H. Berkshire
. which as of 2016 is still in print and is now in its 5th edition.
[34]
Personal life and voluntary roles
[
edit
]
Kibble was married to Anne Allan from 1957 until her death in 2005. Kibble had three children.
[35]
[36]
[37]
[38]
[39]
In the 1950s and 1960s, Kibble became concerned about the nuclear arms race
[40]
and from 1970 he took leading roles in several organisations promoting scientists' social responsibility.
[9]
In the period 1970?1977, he was a national committee member, then treasurer, then chair of the
British Society for Social Responsibility in Science
; from 1976 he was a trustee of the Science and Society Trust; from 1981 to 1991 he was a national coordinating committee member, then vice-chair, then chair of
Scientists against Nuclear Arms
; he was a sponsor of
Scientists for Global Responsibility
; and from 1988 he was chair, and later a trustee, of the Martin Ryle Trust.
[40]
He was chair of the organising committee of the Second International Scientists' Congress, held at Imperial College in 1988, and was a co-editor of the proceedings.
[41]
In retirement, Kibble chaired the
Richmond
branch of the
Ramblers Association
.
[42]
He died in London on 2 June 2016 at the age of 83.
[43]
[8]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
Anon (1980).
"Sir Thomas Kibble CBE FRS"
.
royalsociety.org
. London:
Royal Society
. Archived from
the original
on 13 November 2015.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:
"All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
." --
"Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies"
. Archived from the original on 25 September 2015
. Retrieved
9 March
2016
.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (
link
)
- ^
"Academy of Europe: CV"
.
- ^
Ashmore, Jonathan Felix (1972).
Aspects of quantum field theory
.
ethos.bl.uk
(PhD thesis). University of London.
hdl
:
10044/1/16203
.
[
permanent dead link
]
- ^
a
b
"Science ? It's not Fiction; Tom Kibble"
.
FP News, The magazine and Annual Review of The Stewart's Melville FP Club
. Daniel Stewart's and Melville College Former Pupils Club. December 2014. p. 13
. Retrieved
28 July
2015
.
- ^
a
b
Gauntlett, Jerome (2016). "Thomas Kibble (1932?2016) Theoretical physicist and Higgs-boson pioneer".
Nature
.
534
(7609): 622.
Bibcode
:
2016Natur.534..622G
.
doi
:
10.1038/534622a
.
PMID
27357788
.
S2CID
4401102
.
- ^
a
b
"Kibble, Sir Thomas (Walter Bannerman)"
.
Who's Who
. Vol. 2016 (online
Oxford University Press
ed.). Oxford: A & C Black.
(Subscription or
UK public library membership
required.)
- ^
The International Who's Who 1996?97
(60 ed.). Europa Publications. 1996. pp. 826?827.
ISBN
978-1-85743-021-9
.
- ^
a
b
c
Yin, Steph (19 July 2016).
"Tom Kibble, Physicist Who Helped Discover the Higgs Mechanism, Dies at 83"
.
New York Times
. Retrieved
19 March
2019
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Kibble, Tom (2011).
"Thomas Walter Bannerman (Tom) Kibble ? Biography"
.
Curriculum vitae
. The Academy of Europe.
- ^
"Phys. Rev. Lett. 13, 585 (1964) ? Global Conservation Laws and Massless Particles"
.
Physical Review Letters
.
doi
:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.13.585
. Archived from
the original
on 27 May 2020
. Retrieved
28 February
2008
.
- ^
Guralnik, Gerald S. (2009). "The History of the Guralnik, Hagen and Kibble development of the Theory of Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking and Gauge Particles".
International Journal of Modern Physics A
.
24
(14): 2601?2627.
arXiv
:
0907.3466
.
Bibcode
:
2009IJMPA..24.2601G
.
doi
:
10.1142/S0217751X09045431
.
S2CID
16298371
.
- ^
"Guralnik, G S; Hagen, C R and Kibble, T W B (1967). Broken Symmetries and the Goldstone Theorem. Advances in Physics, vol. 2"
(PDF)
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 24 September 2015
. Retrieved
16 September
2014
.
- ^
"Physical Review Letters ? Letters from the Past ? A PRL Retrospective"
.
Physical Review Letters
.
- ^
"APS Physics ? DPF ? J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics"
.
aps.org
. Retrieved
30 January
2023
.
- ^
APS News - 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics and Landmark Papers in PRL History (8 October 2013)
- ^
"Nobel committee's 'Rule of Three' means some Higgs boson scientists were left out." Washington Post (8 October 2013)
- ^
"The 2013 Nobel prizes. Higgs's bosuns." Economist (12 October 2013)
- ^
"Why are some scientists unhappy with the Nobel prizes?" Economist.com (9 October 2013)
- ^
"House of dreams. Scientists race to explain why the Higgs boson matters." Economist.com (3 March 2012)
- ^
Guralnik, G. S; Hagen, C. R (2014). "Where have all the Goldstone bosons gone?".
Modern Physics Letters A
.
29
(9): 1450046.
arXiv
:
1401.6924
.
Bibcode
:
2014MPLA...2950046G
.
doi
:
10.1142/S0217732314500461
.
S2CID
119257339
.
- ^
"Gerald Guralnik, 77, a 'God Particle' Pioneer, Dies"
.
The New York Times
. 3 May 2014.
- ^
"Early night cost Higgs credit for big physics theory"
.
BBC News
. 18 February 2014
. Retrieved
18 February
2014
.
- ^
Kibble, T. W. B. (1976). "Topology of cosmic domains and strings".
J. Phys. A: Math. Gen
.
9
(8): 1387?1398.
Bibcode
:
1976JPhA....9.1387K
.
doi
:
10.1088/0305-4470/9/8/029
.
- ^
Hindmarsh, M.; Kibble, T. (1995). "Cosmic strings".
Rep. Prog. Phys
.
58
(5): 477?562.
arXiv
:
hep-ph/9411342
.
Bibcode
:
1995RPPh...58..477H
.
doi
:
10.1088/0034-4885/58/5/001
.
S2CID
118892895
.
- ^
Duff, M. J.; Stelle, K. S. (2021).
"Sir Thomas Walter Bannerman Kibble. 23 December 1932?2 June 2016"
.
Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society
.
70
: 225?244.
arXiv
:
2011.13257
.
doi
:
10.1098/rsbm.2020.0040
.
S2CID
227209669
.
- ^
"APS Journals ? Outstanding Referees"
.
aps.org
.
- ^
"Kibble, Peebles and Rees Share the 2013 Dirac Medal"
.
International Centre for Theoretical Physics
. 8 August 2013. Archived from
the original
on 3 December 2021
. Retrieved
8 June
2016
.
- ^
"Faces & Places ? Kibble receives Albert Einstein Medal"
.
CERN Courier
. 13 July 2014
. Retrieved
19 March
2019
.
- ^
"Academic excellence recognised as RSE announces Royal Medals and Prizes"
(PDF)
.
Royal Society of Edinburgh
. 19 March 2014. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 6 March 2016
. Retrieved
8 June
2016
.
- ^
"No. 60895"
.
The London Gazette
(Supplement). 14 June 2014. p. b2.
- ^
"Queen's birthday honours list 2014: Knights"
.
the Guardian
. 13 June 2014.
- ^
Ghosh, Pallab (1 July 2016).
"Late scientist Tom Kibble wins award for particle work"
.
BBC News
.
BBC
. Retrieved
30 August
2016
.
- ^
Kibble T W B (1966)
Classical Mechanics
.
McGraw-Hill
, London.
- ^
Kibble, T W B and Berkshire, F H (2004)
Classical Mechanics
.
McGraw-Hill
, London.
- ^
"Sad farewell to physicist who transformed our understanding of the universe"
.
Imperial College London
. 3 June 2016.
- ^
"Higgs pioneer and IOP fellow Sir Thomas Kibble has died"
.
Institute of Physics
. 3 June 2016.
- ^
"Sir Tom Kibble, physicist ? obituary"
.
The Daily Telegraph
. 8 June 2016.
- ^
Close, Frank
(8 June 2016).
"Sir Tom Kibble, physicist obituary. One of the world's foremost theoretical physicists"
.
The Guardian
.
- ^
Gauntlett, Jerome (10 June 2016).
"Sir Tom Kibble: a tribute"
.
Imperial College London
.
- ^
a
b
SGR Sponsors
- ^
Hassard, John; Kibble; Tom and Lewis, Patricia; (eds) (1989)
Ways Out of the Arms Race: from the nuclear threat to mutual security
. World Scientific, Singapore.
- ^
"Arise Sir Tom!"
.
Richmond Ramblers
. Retrieved
19 March
2019
.
[
permanent dead link
]
- ^
"Tom Kibble, UK physicist who worked on Higgs boson dies, says university"
.
The Daily Telegraph
. 2 June 2016
. Retrieved
2 June
2016
.
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