Brockhouse, Bertram

Brockhouse, Bertram, 1918–2003, Canadian physicist, b. Lethbridge, Alta. Educated at the Univ. of British Columbia and Univ. of Toronto (Ph.D., 1950), he was a research officer (1950–59) and head of the neutron physics branch (1960–62) at the Chalk River Laboratory (now Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.), and taught at McMaster Univ. (1962–84). While at Chalk River he studied the scattering of slow neutrons by highly absorbing elements such as cadmium. He also performed the first experiments that probed condensed matter using the inelastic scattering of neutrons. His pioneering work in slow neutron spectroscopy and diffraction had a significant impact on the theory and understanding of the physics of solids and liquids. For his work on the development of neutron spectroscopy Brockhouse shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics with C. G. Shull.