Friedel Sellschop
| Jacques Pierre Friederich (Friedel) Sellschop | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 8 June 1930 Luderitz, Namibia |
| Died | 4 August 2002 (aged 72) |
| Residence | South Africa |
| Nationality | South African |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | University of the Witwatersrand |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
| Known for |
Nuclear physics Particle physics Diamond physics |
| Notable awards | Max Planck medal |
Jacques Pierre Friederich (Friedel) Sellschop (8 June 1930 – 4 August 2002) was a South African scientist and pioneer in the field of applied nuclear physics.
Sellschop was born in Luderitz, Namibia on 8 June 1930. He was educated at University of Pretoria (B.Sc) and Stellenbosch University (M.Sc), and earned a PhD in Nuclear Physics at University of Cambridge. On completing his education in England, he returned to South Africa on the advice of Basil Schonland, his mentor.
In February 1965, Sellschop was part of a group which identified the first neutrino found in nature, in one of South Africa's gold mines. The experiment was performed in a specially prepared chamber at a depth of 3 km in the ERPM mine near Boksburg. A plaque in the main building commemorates the discovery. The experiments also implemented a primitive neutrino astronomy and looked at issues of neutrino physics and weak interactions.
Sellschop was an expert in the physics of diamonds. His research here was very broad. As a member of the CERN NA43 and NA59 collaborations, he contributed to experiments that used the perfect and very rigid diamond lattice to produce and study the highest energy near monochromatic photons ever produced in a laboratory. He was an important contributor to the field of nuclear geochemistry in diamond, evidencing the trace-element composition of natural diamond and linking this to mantle geochemistry. Diamonds are seen as "messengers from the deep", assumed to bring included mantle material to the surface well preserved in a chemical and physical prison. He also studied ion-implantation of diamond and was a pioneer of diamond as an ideal material for electrical and optical applications.
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