Henry Lipson

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

X-Ray Diffraction
  • Beevers-Lipson Strips
    • Scientific career
    FieldsPhysics
    Institutions

    Henry (Solomon) Lipson

    professor emeritus.[2]

    Background

    Lipson was born in

    x-ray diffraction
    .

    Career

    University of Liverpool

    His research into crystal structures using

    Arnold Beevers and sought advice from Professor Lawrence Bragg (who had established a major crystallographic centre in Manchester). Whilst at Liverpool, and without significant funding Beevers and Lipson made most of their own equipment and invented an aid to calculation, Beevers-Lipson Strips, which were widely used in the days before computers and which made their names well known within the field.[3]

    University of Cambridge

    In 1936, Bragg invited Lipson to move to Manchester, and he later followed Bragg in moves to Teddington and then, when Bragg became Cavendish Professor in 1937, to Cambridge. In Teddington in 1937 he married Jenny Rosenthal (23 January 1910 – 2009)

    Museum of the History of Science, Oxford,[4]
    part of the Crystals special exhibition in 2014.

    In practical terms, Lipson was in charge of the crystallography group in Cambridge, and took on a key role in nurturing young scientists. Whilst at the Cavendish he became convinced by contact with P. P. Ewald of the importance of the Fourier transform in X-ray crystallography.

    Manchester Institute of Science and Technology

    He was awarded a Liverpool DSc in 1939 and a Cambridge MA in 1942, but he never really integrated into University of Cambridge life and he moved to the Manchester College of Technology (later University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) in 1945 as head of the physics department.

    The position carried no title or status, but under his direction it quickly became a world centre for crystallographic research pioneering optical approaches to x-ray diffraction based on the Fourier transform. In 1954 he was made a professor and in 1957 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society.[1] He officially retired in 1977 but remained active in the department.

    Lipson had a strong belief in the social responsibility of scientists, was an active member of

    CBE
    in 1976.

    Evolution

    Lipson was a proponent of evolutionary creation. He authored a paper A Physicist Looks at Evolution which was widely quote-mined by creationists.[5] Lipson was a critic of Darwinism but did not deny that species have evolved. The New Scientist quoted him as saying "I do not accept the Genesis account of creation as anything more than pleasing fantasy. My idea of creation is much subtler, but since it is not scientific (in the sense that it cannot be tested) I shall not expound it here."[6]

    Selected publications

    References

    1. ^
      doi:10.1098/rsbm.1994.0014
      .
    2. ISBN 978-0-521-49345-1
      . (1st edition, 1969)
    3. ^ Gould, Bob (December 1998). "The mechanism of Beevers–Lipson strips". iucr.org. International Union of Crystallography. Retrieved 28 March 2014.
    4. Museum of the History of Science
      . Retrieved 28 March 2014.
    5. Talk.Origins
      .
    6. ^ Cherfas, Jeremy. (1982). The best of both worlds: Jeremy Cherfas has been casting through readers' letters on natural selection and religion. New Scientist, 11 March. p. 656
    Professional and academic associations
    Preceded by
    C. E. Young
    		 President of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society
    1960–62     		Succeeded by
    Leonard Cohen
    Preceded by
    Anthony Edmund Rivers Goulty
    		 President of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society
    1977–79     		Succeeded by
    H. M. Fairhurst
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