21
Jul
Obituary: DF Brewer
Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Sussex, Douglas Forbes Brewer, aged 93, died peacefully at home on 16th July 2018. Devoted husband and father, valued colleague and dear friend will be missed by many.
Half of the BRAMS Institute staff members had the pleasure of knowing Professor Brewer in person, working with him and enjoying casual conversations about many other topics apart from science as he was a bright and intelligent person to talk to.
Professor Brewer was a compassionate supporter of the Republic of Georgia from the first days of its regained independence. His personal and professional qualities resulted in a massive circle of friends he made with his Georgian colleagues. Eduard Shevardnadze who was the president of Georgia back then became one of his friends. In 1996 Professor Brewer was elected as a Foreign Member of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences. Naturally, President Shevardnadze congratulated the prominent British scientist. The British professor kept the framed letter, dated 18th July 1996, from the President of Georgia on the wall in his bedroom till the last minutes of his life.
Many official and personal sympathy messages have already been sent to Professor Brewer’s family from Georgia. Among those, the letter of condolence from the president of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences, Academician Giorgi Kvesitadze who underlined the greatness of Professor Douglas Brewer's personality along with his outstanding professionalism, as he "was a great friend of Georgia. Invaluable is the support he rendered to Georgian science in the 1990s, the most difficult time for us. Thanks to his attention and effort, it was possible to continue and develop research in Georgia in the direction of experimental physics of Condensed Matter. The election of Professor Douglas Brewer as Foreign Member of the Academy in 1996 was a great honour for the Georgian National Academy of Sciences".
On Tuesday, 31 July 2018 at 17:00 BRAMS Institute will arrange a memorial service for Professor Douglas Brewer, to pay tribute to his professional achievements and personal qualities. Director of the Institute, Professor Maia Nadareishvili along with her colleagues will commemorate Professor Brewer’s legacy. All are welcome.
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Douglas F. Brewer was born in Cardiff, Wales in 1925 and educated at the Crypt Grammar School, Gloucester, and the University of Oxford 1943-1945 and 1948-1950.
He worked at the GEC Research Laboratories from 1945 to 1948 and received his Doctorate at Oxford University in 1953 on the discovery of the suppression of superfluidity in unsaturated helium-4 films. With D.O. Edwards he observed the linear sub-critical region of superflow in capillary tubes from 1954 to 1956 and demonstrated its hydrodynamic nature.
He was Associate Professor at Ohio State University from 1957 to 1959, where he made the first observation of the linear specific heat of liquid helium-3 and its positive pressure dependence as a Fermi fluid; and the Pomeranchuk minimum in its melting curve.
He joined the new University of Sussex in 1962 as one of the founding Maths and Physical Sciences (MAPS) lecturers, specialising in Low-Temperature Physics. He initiated low-temperature experimental work and developed a major group at Sussex. His extensive work on helium-3 and helium-4 in porous materials included observation of T-squared specific heat in monolayer films of helium-3 and helium-4 and of two-dimensional protons in the second layer of helium-4. His measurements of the mean free path-limited spin diffusion coefficient and thermal conductivity of liquid helium-3 demonstrated that Landau quasiparticles are physical entities, not theoretical constructs. He discovered surface magnetism in helium-3 by measurements of the NMR susceptibility in a porous glass.
He was editor of the Progress in Low-Temperature Physics series, was successively Secretary and Chairman of the Very Low-Temperature Commission of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, and Organiser of LT19.
On 25th July 2015, current and former Physics Faculty and alumni came together to celebrate Professor Brewer’s 90th birthday on campus. This event was initiated by alumnus Dr Peter Ford MBE and supported by the Development and Alumni Office and the School of MPS. Joining Professor Douglas Brewer on the day, there were many of his former colleagues and students as well as the current head of School, Professor Peter Coles and the Head of Department, Professor Claudia Eberlein, who kindly gave a tour of the department following the lunch.
The funeral is to be held at St Nicholas Church, Iford (near Lewes), East Sussex, on Wednesday, 8th August 2018 at 14:00. A great friend of many Georgians will be buried on one of the most tragic days in modern Georgian history, doubling the sadness and sorrow for those who knew him in person. A good heart has stopped beating, a good soul ascended to Heaven. May God give him eternal rest and his family the strength to bear the pain.
