Marshall Stoneham was a theoretical physicist whose scientific contributions ranged from the safety of nuclear power to quantum computing. Last year the Institute of Physics recognised his exceptional talents as a physicist by electing him its president.
A specialist in solid state and quantum physics, he was best known for his work on defects and defect processes in solids. He was also much involved in various projects linking physics and medicine, particularly the physical basis of biological behaviour. For example, he investigated olfaction, the sense of smell, improving our understanding of how human beings can discriminate between different scents. Another of his major interests was in what he called “physics in action” — how basic science helps technology, and how technology drives new science.
Marshall Stoneham was born in Barrow-in-Furness in 1940, the son of Garth Rivers Stoneham and Nancy Wooler Stoneham. He attended Barrow-in-Furness Grammar School for Boys, winning a Merchant Venturers’ place to study physics at the University of Bristol, receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1961 and his PhD in 1965.
He spent the first 30 years of his career at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE), Harwell, Oxfordshire, where, between 1974 and 1989, he directed the solid-state and quantum-physics group of the theoretical division. In 1989 he became head of the Materials Physics and Metallurgy Division at Harwell, a group with a staff of more than 200.
In 1990 he was appointed Director of Research at AEA Industrial Technology, Harwell and soon afterwards he became Chief Scientist of AEA Technology, the privatised part of the research establishment which now specialises in energy and environmental business. At AEA Technology he was responsible for science at all AEA laboratories, from Dounreay, Scotland to Winfrith, Dorset.
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In 1995 he was appointed Massey Professor of Physics, and Director of the Centre for Materials Research, at University College London (UCL). In 2005 he was made Emeritus Professor of Physics in the London Centre for Nanotechnology and the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UCL but continued his research until shortly before he died.
In 1989 he was elected both a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, where he had been a Wolfson Industrial Fellow since 1985. In 2006 he was appointed an Honorary Fellow at UCL. He was also a Visiting Senior Fellow in the Department of Materials in Oxford.
In 1995 he was awarded the Zeneca Prize by the Royal Society and in 2006 he was awarded the Guthrie Prize by the Institute of Physics.
In 1997 he founded, with his wife Doreen, also a physicist, Oxford Authentication, a small business which uses techniques from physics to authenticate art ceramics, including earthenware, stoneware, porcelain and the casting cores of bronzes.
He was a prolific author, publishing more than 500 scientific papers. He also wrote a number of books, among them: Theory of Defects in Solids (1975), now an Oxford Classic; Defects and Defect Processes in Non-Metallic Solids (with W. Hayes, 1985); Ionic Solids at High Temperatures (1989), and Materials Modification by Electronic Excitation (with N. Itoh, 2000).
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Stoneham was very interested in music and musical scholarship. An enthusiastic French horn player, he performed with orchestras and a wind chamber group for more than 40 years. And he co-wrote two books about music; The Wind Ensemble Sourcebook (which won the Oldman Prize of the International Association of Music Librarians as the best reference work of 1997), and The Wind Ensemble Catalog.
His wife and two daughters survive him.
Professor Marshall Stoneham, theoretical physicist, was born on May 18, 1940. He died on February 18, 2011, aged 70