Lord Flowers: 1924–2010

Abstract

On 25 June 2010 the world lost a great man, Brian Hilton Flowers, who throughout his very productive and influential life had enormous impact on the organization of science and technology, as well as other aspects of society, especially university education. Many facets of his work have been reported in earlier obituaries in the mainstream press and in the physics community’s newspaper ‘‘Interactions’’. Here we remember particularly another of his achievements, not reported in those mainstream media. Brian Flowers was the second Editor of Advances in Physics for Volumes 8–11 (1959–1961). The journal prospered under his direction. In the same year that he assumed the Editorship Flowers instigated another important advance in physics, in this case in education, the complete revamping of the undergraduate curriculum at the University of Manchester, which he kick-started with an exciting new lecture course on ‘‘Properties of Matter’’. Among the first cohort to take and appreciate this course was the present Editor of Advances in Physics, for whom it was a defining experience, sparking his interest and enthusiasm for condensed matter physics, which led, in turn, to his own assumption of the stewardship. As noted briefly above and detailed in other obituaries and tributes, Flowers was extremely influential as Chairman of many governmental, national and international committees. Of particular note for the whole UK science community are his direction of the Science Research Council during 1967–73 and his membership of the House of Lords Select Committee for Science and Technology between 1982 and 2002, for Europe his pressing for the establishment of the European Science Foundation and serving as its first President 1974–79, and for the physics community his Presidency of the Institute of Physics during 1972–74. We mourn his passage and express much gratitude for all he has done.