Robin Bullough

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Robin Bullough
Dodd-Bullough-Mikhailov equation
Bullough-Dodd-Zhiber-Shabat equation (with Roger Dodd, Anatoly Zhiber, and Aleksei Shabat)
Tzitzéica
-Bullough-Dodd equation

Robin K. Bullough (21 November 1929 – 30 August 2008

Bose–Einstein condensation in magnetic traps
.

Bullough obtained his first academic position in the

UMIST in 1960 and was appointed chair of Mathematical Physics in 1973 where he remained until his retirement in 1995. He was then an Emeritus Professor in the same department, which has now become the School of Mathematics in the University of Manchester
.

Education and career

Bullough's father, William Bullough, was a teacher of German in Newcastle-under-Lyme and was himself a graduate of the Victoria University of Manchester. His mother Edith (née Norman) was also a teacher and both parents were Quakers.

Although universally known as Robin, he was actually christened Robert Keith Bullough. Both Robin and his elder brother

Newcastle High School (then a direct grant grammar school). Donald went on to become a successful professor of medieval history.[2]

On leaving school at 16, Bullough obtained a scholarship to

demobilisation
he had an accident, putting a rawl plug into a wall, as a piece of steel from a chisel flew into his left eye. He was practically blind in that eye from then on. He obtained a BA in
Theoretical Physics for Part II. He went on to obtain a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Leeds
in 1957.

He then obtained a job as a Mathematical Physicist at the

Ben Gurion University
in Israel.

He was promoted to Reader in 1967 and Professor of Mathematical Physics in 1973.

He organised many conferences over his career including the first National Quantum Electronics Conferences (QEP1) in Manchester in September 1973 and at which he made a first report of 'optical solitons', this was the first of fifteen biennial meetings.

By 1973 his research group in UMIST had found solutions to the sine-Gordon and the self-induced transparency (SIT) equations for their multi-soliton solutions and gone on to both introduce, and to solve the initial value problem for, the system they called the ‘Reduced Maxwell-Bloch (RMB) Equations’.[3]

Bullough supervised 24 successful doctoral students and had some 33 post doctoral research associates and visiting fellows.

In 1999 he gave the specially invited 'Special Foundation Lecture' at the Fourteenth UK National Quantum Electronics & Photonics Conference (QEP14)

Nobel Laureate
1997, was similarly honoured at this conference.

Bullough died on 30 August 2008.[1] A symposium was organised in his honour in the Alan Turing Building in June 2009.[5]

Bibliography

Bullough published over 200 scientific papers with a range of co-authors. Some of the most highly cited are:

  • Puri RR, Bullough RK, Quantum electrodynamics of an atom making 2-photon transitions in an ideal cavity, Journal of the Optical Society of America B-optical physics, 5 (10), 2021-2028, 1988
  • Dodd RK, Bullough RK, Polynomial conserved densities for sine-Gordon equations Proceedings of the Royal Society of London series A—Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences 352 (1671): 481-503 1977
  • Eilbeck JC, Gibbon JD, Caudrey PJ, Bullough RK. Solitons in nonlinear optics 1: more accurate description of 2pi pulse in self-induced transparency. Journal of Physics A—Mathematical and general 6 (9): 1337–1347 1973
  • Hassan SS, Bullough RK, Theory of dynamical stark effect, Journal of Physics B—atomic molecular and optical physics, 8 (9): l147-l152 1975
  • Caudrey PJ, Gibbon JD, Eilbeck JC, Bullough RK. Exact multisolution solutions of self-induced transparency and sine-gordon equations, Physical Review Letters 30 (6): 237-238 1973
  • Bullough RK, Jack PM, Kitchenside PW, et al., Solitons in laser physics, Physica Scripta 20 (3-4): 364-381 1979
  • Dodd RK, Bullough RK, Backlund transformations for sine-Gordon equations, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series A-mathematical physical and engineering sciences 351, (1667): 499-523 1976

References

  1. ^ a b Eilbeck, Chris. "Solitons Home Page". Department of Mathematics, Heriot-Watt University. Retrieved 16 September 2008.
  2. ^ Julia Smith, Obituary Professor Donald Bullough, Medieval historian with a sideline in philately, The Independent, 6 July 2002,[1][dead link‍]
  3. ^ Gibbon J. D., Caudrey P. J., Bullough R. K. and Eilbeck J. C., "An N-Soliton Solution of a Nonlinear Optics Equation Derived by a General Inverse Method", Lett. al Nuovo Cimento 8, 1973, 775–779.
  4. doi:10.1080/09500340008232455
  5. ^ "Robin Bullough Symposium". Mims.manchester.ac.uk. Retrieved 6 November 2012.


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