John Corner
John Corner | |
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Commander of the Order of the British Empire (1958) | |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | University of Liverpool Board of Ordnance Fort Halstead Atomic Weapons Establishment |
John Corner, interior ballistics and the British hydrogen bomb programme.
Biography
John Corner was born in
PhD in 1946. After graduation from the University of Cambridge in 1937, he became a lecturer in mathematics at the University of Liverpool.[1]
He joined the
interior ballistics problems at Fort Halstead with J. W. Maccoll, with whom he published many papers on the thermodynamics and thermochemistry of guns. He eventually wrote a textbook on the subject, Theory of the Interior Ballistics of Guns, which was published in 1950. In 1945, he married Kathleen Thurston. They had a daughter and a son.[1]
In 1946,
William Penney, the Chief Superintendent Armament Research at Fort Halstead, recruited Corner to work on High Explosive Research, the British atomic bomb programme. Corner headed the theoretical group, where he made extensive use of recently-developed computer technology, employing machines purchased from ICL, IBM and Ferranti. In 1950, he was promoted to superintendent, becoming the youngest ever appointee to that grade. The first British atomic bomb was successfully tested in the Operation Hurricane test in Australia in 1952.[1]
Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1958 Birthday Honours.[2]
Corner retired in 1975. In later life he suffered from Parkinson's disease. He died in Dartmouth, Devon on 23 July 1996.[1]
Notes
- ^ a b c d e Challens, John (25 July 1996). "Obituary: John Corner". The Independent. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
- ^ "No. 41404". The London Gazette (1st supplement). 3 June 1958. p. 3521.
Bibliography
- Corner, John. Theory of the Interior Ballistics of Guns. New York: Wiley. OCLC 678909524.
| Authority control databases: Academics |
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