Felix Pirani
| Felix Pirani | |
|---|---|
| Born |
February 2, 1928 England |
| Died | December 31, 2015 (aged 87) London |
| Citizenship | British |
| Fields | Physicist |
| Institutions | King's College London |
| Alma mater |
University of Toronto Carnegie Institute of Technology University of Cambridge |
| Doctoral advisor |
Alfred Schild Hermann Bondi |
| Known for |
General Relativity Gravitational wave solution |
Felix Arnold Edward Pirani (February 2, 1928 – December 31, 2015) was a British theoretical physicist specializing in gravitational physics and general relativity. Pirani and Herman Bondi wrote a series of articles (1959 to 1989) that established the existence of plane wave solutions for gravitational waves based on general relativity.
During the last half of the 20th century Pirani was politically active, studied disarmament and advocated the responsible use of science.
Pirani was born in England. Pirani's family moved to Canada at the start of World War II. He studied at the University of Western Ontario (Bachelor 1948), the University of Toronto (Master's degree in 1949). He obtained his D. Sc. at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in 1951 under Alfred Schild. His D. Sc. dissertation was an early contribution to the quantum theory of general relativity. He also obtained a Ph.D. in physics at Cambridge University in 1956 under Hermann Bondi.
Pirani performed post-doctoral research at the Institute for Advanced Study in Dublin. In 1958 he started teaching at King's College London (where Bondi was teaching) and in 1968 became professor of rational mechanics there.
In 1957 Pirani independently discovered what was later called the Petrov classification (also Petrov–Pirani–Penrose classification) and separately discovered by Petrov in 1954.
In 1959 Bondi, Pirani and Ivor Robinson published a fundamental paper on gravitational wave solutions in general relativity and showed the existence of plane gravitational wave solutions. Pirani's work with Bondi and Robinson resulted in correspondence between Pirani and Albert Einstein, some of whose partially expressed views on the subject had been challenged by the paper.
...
Wikipedia