Professor Marshall Stoneham, University College London, UK

Professor Marshall Stoneham, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter; Massey Professor of Physics and Director of the Centre for Materials Research, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London, UK

Q: Why did you decide to become a physicist?

A: Partly it was luck. I had the good fortune to go to a grammar school, with really excellent teachers [1], and to have intelligent friends who shared my interest in science. Books played an important part: Eddington, Hoyle, and Einstein's small book on relativity.

Q: As Editor-in-Chief, what are your main aims for Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter?

A: For authors, especially those developing into leaders of their field, to make it their journal of choice. For readers, to make sure they perceive it as a major source of excellent science.

Q: What book are you reading right now?

A: Theodore Levin The Hundred Thousand Fools of God.

Q: Who do you admire the most (past or present)?

A: Nevill Mott, who (amongst other things, such as winning the Nobel Prize) was a consultant to my group at Harwell for many years. He had much to admire. First, there was his breadth. It's far too easy to recognise someone who has done one single really nice piece of work, yet to underestimate those who have done many seminal pieces of work. Nevill made unique and long-lasting contributions to many problems, from pioneering quantum physics to the fragmentation of shells, not forgetting key work over the whole range of condensed matter physics. Secondly, he had a knack of seeing the key ideas, and putting them into simple, effective, and (sometimes surprisingly) accurate forms [2]. He also set a marvellous example of integrity, especially to the younger scientists whom he met when he came to Harwell. Every now and then (not often) even he would be wrong. When this was pointed out, he never made the slightest attempt to use his considerable authority, but straight away looked for the right alternative. I describe his approach by saying 'The only way to be right all the time is to spot your mistakes before anyone else does.' And finally, he did the work for which he won his Nobel Prize after he retired. As one who is about to retire, that is inspiring!

Q: If you could have any career other than your chosen profession, what would you choose?

A: I would probably have gone into medicine; my father was an obstetrician and gynaecologist and, until my mid-teens, it was assumed in my family that I'd become a doctor.

Q: What do you think will be the next significant breakthrough in science?

A: Using quantum physics naturally. When imaginary numbers first became part of electrical engineering, they gave practitioners a general feeling of discomfort, but that feeling vanished with familiarity. The discomfort and unnatural feel of quantum ideas will go, and that will open new fields. [3]

Q: If you could have dinner with any 3 people, past or present, who would they be?

A: If you could have dinner with any 3 people, living or dead, who would they be? Alma Mahler - For all the reasons Tom Lehrer gave [4], and perhaps more; Augusta Ada Lovelace - A pioneering mathematician with interesting family relations; I hope we would appreciate her more than some of her contemporaries; Franz Joseph Haydn - As composer, his music has been enormously important to me; as a man, he was evidently liked and highly regarded by all. He'd be a splendid foil to the two remarkable women.

[1] It was the grammar school in Barrow-in-Furness, a northern industrial town. In its brief existence (less than 100 years) there were three pupils who became Fellows of the Royal Society, and all had the same physics teacher, Mr Richard 'Pim' Lawton.

[2] I take special delight in what Charles Frank called Mott's Rule for integrals in dislocation theory ('All definite integrals you don't know are unity'). Along the same lines is Frank's Rule ('The logarithm of infinity is 4π'). (see Charles Frank's article in Dislocations and Properties of Real Materials p 9, London: The Institute of Metals 1985).

[3] Never mind that Richard Feynman says people are mistaken when they think they understand quantum mechanics. In all our lives, we do many things that we don't 'understand' at a deep level.

[4] Tom Lehrer's words begin Alma, tell us, All modern women are jealous and tell of her conquests of all the most significant men in Vienna (Mahler, Gropius, Werfel, Kokoshka, and surely others).

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