Nigel Weiss

Nigel Oscar Weiss FRS (16 December 1936 – 24 June 2020)[1][2] was an astronomer and mathematician, and leader in the field of astrophysical and geophysical fluid dynamics. He was Emeritus Professor of Mathematical Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge.[4][5][6]

Nigel Weiss
Born	Nigel Oscar Weiss (1936-12-16)16 December 1936[1] South Africa
Died	24 June 2020(2020-06-24) (aged 83)[2]
Alma mater	Clare College, Cambridge
Known for	flux expulsion
Awards	FRS (1992) Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (2007)
Scientific career
Institutions	University of Cambridge
Thesis	Variable Hydromagnetic Motions (1961)
Doctoral advisor	Edward Bullard[3]
Doctoral students	Paul Glendinning Richard Peckover[3]
Website	Nigel Weiss' home page

Education

Born in South Africa, Weiss studied at Hilton College, Natal, Rugby School and Clare College, Cambridge, and had been a fellow of Clare College since 1965. He read for his PhD in 1961 with a thesis on Variable Hydromagnetic Motions. [3]

Career

In 1987 he became Professor of Mathematical Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge.

Between 2000 and 2002 he was President of the Royal Astronomical Society, and in 2007 was awarded the Gold Medal, the society's highest award.[4]

Research

Weiss published extensively in the field of mathematical astrophysics, specialising in solar and stellar magnetic fields, astrophysical and geophysical fluid dynamics and nonlinear dynamical systems.[4]

In 1966 he was the first to demonstrate and describe the process of 'flux expulsion' by which a conducting fluid undergoing rotating motion acts to expel the magnetic flux from the region of motion, a process now known to occur in the photosphere of the Sun and other stars.[7]

Awards and honours

Weiss was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1992.[1] His nomination reads

Professor Weiss is distinguished for his work in the theory of convection, for developing appropriate numerical techniques, and for pioneering their use in precise numerical experiments to gain a qualitative and comprehensive understanding of the behaviour of complicated nonlinear systems. Among many notable achievements in this field, he has been instrumental in the identification of a period-doubling route to chaos in a system of partial differential equations describing doubly-diffusive convection. He has made wide-ranging studies of the magneto-convective processes occurring in the Sun and similar stars. In early work of lasting influence, he analysed the process of magnetic flux expulsion and the mechanism of concentration of magnetic field into ropes from which fluid motion is excluded. In recent work, he has initiated a program of research in the field of nonlinear compressible convection, an important step towards realistic modelling of stellar convection zones.[8]

References

1. "WEISS, Prof. Nigel Oscar". Who's Who 2014, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2014; online edn, Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U39259.(subscription required)
2. "Helen Mason – Nigel Weiss has died". Twitter. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
3. Nigel Weiss at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
4. "Nigel Weiss' home page". DAMTP.
5. Nigel Weiss's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
6. Beer, J. R.; Tobias, S.; Weiss, N. (1998). "An Active Sun Throughout the Maunder Minimum". Solar Physics. 181 (1): 237–249. Bibcode:1998SoPh..181..237B. doi:10.1023/A:1005026001784.
7. Weiss, N. O. (1966). "The Expulsion of Magnetic Flux by Eddies". Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 293 (1434): 310–328. Bibcode:1966RSPSA.293..310W. doi:10.1098/rspa.1966.0173.
8. "EC/1992/38: Weiss, Nigel Oscar. Library and Archive Catalogue". London: The Royal Society. Archived from the original on 8 July 2019.