Sir Nevill Francis Mott

Nevill Francis Mott was born in Leeds, England, on September 30, 1905. His parents, Charles Francis Mott and Lilian Mary Reynolds, met as research students under J. J. Thomson at the Cavendish Laboratory; the Arctic explorer Sir John Richardson was his great-grandfather.⁠[1][2]

Mott was educated at Clifton College, Bristol, and went up to St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1924 to study mathematics and theoretical physics, taking his BA in mathematics in 1927 and his MA in 1930.⁠[3][2][4]

After graduating, Mott spent three years in research in applied mathematics, working with R. H. Fowler in Cambridge, Niels Bohr in Copenhagen and Max Born in Göttingen.⁠[1][2]

In 1929 Mott spent a year as a lecturer at the University of ManchesterUniversity of ManchesterThe University of Manchester is a research university in Manchester, England, formed in 2004 by combining the Victoria University of Manchester and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). It traces its origins to 1824 and is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry, working with W. L. Bragg.⁠[2][1]

In 1930 Mott returned to Cambridge as a Fellow and Lecturer in Mathematics at Gonville and Caius College. In the same year he married Ruth Eleanor Horder; they had two daughters.⁠[2][3][1]

In 1933 Mott became Melville Wills Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Bristol, an appointment that grew out of the physics head A. M. Tyndall’s enthusiasm for theorists.⁠[3][2][5]

Within six months of arriving he was publishing with Harry Jones. At Bristol he turned to the study of metals and semiconductors, and the university laid the quantum foundations of the theory of metals and semiconductors.⁠[5][1]

In 1936 Mott was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).⁠[3][2]

In 1938 Mott devised a theoretical description of how light affects a photographic emulsion at the atomic level; with Ronald Gurney he developed the theory of the photographic process.⁠[4][5]

During the Second World War Mott carried out military research in London, working on radio wave propagation and the fragmentation of explosives.⁠[6][2]

After the war Mott returned to Bristol as head of the physics department, and in 1948 he became Henry Overton Wills Professor of Physics and Director of the Henry Herbert Wills Physical Laboratory.⁠[6][2]

He continued to pioneer condensed matter physics at Bristol, recruiting John Eshelby, Frank Nabarro and Jacques Friedel; Frederick Charles Frank is described as his most inspired appointment.⁠[5]

Mott was President of the International Union of Physics from 1951 to 1957.⁠[1]

In 1953 Mott received the Royal Society’s Royal Medal and gave the Bakerian Lecture.⁠[3][2]

In 1954 Mott left Bristol for Cambridge to become Cavendish Professor of Physics, a chair he held until 1971; he was succeeded as head of the Bristol physics department by Maurice Pryce.⁠[3][2][5]

In his first year he brought in John Ziman as a lecturer to start a Solid State Theory group, the beginning of the theory group at the Cavendish Laboratory; Volker Heine arrived the same year to do a PhD with him.⁠[7]

To build up many-body theory at the Cavendish Laboratory, Mott invited Hans BetheHans Albrecht BetheHans Albrecht Bethe (1906–2005) was a German-born American theoretical physicist who joined Cornell University in 1935, headed the theoretical division at Los Alamos during the Second World War and received the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on nuclear reactions and the energy production of stars.Open the full entry to spend 1955–56 in Cambridge and Philip Anderson to spend a year there in 1961–62.⁠[7]

Mott was Master of Gonville and Caius College from 1959 to 1966.⁠[3][2]

Mott was knighted in 1962.⁠[4][3]

The research for which Mott received the Nobel Prize began around 1965. In the 1960s he moved from studying conduction in metals to amorphous materials, deriving formulas for transitions between metallic and insulating states in glasses and similar substances.⁠[1][4]

In 1965 Mott chaired a Pugwash meeting in Cambridge.⁠[1]

In 1966 Mott and Brian Pippard persuaded the University of CambridgeUniversity of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a university in Cambridge, England, United Kingdom. It gives 1209 as its founding date, is made up of Schools, Faculties, Departments and autonomous Colleges, and is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry to create a professorship in solid state theory, known as the “Physics 1966” chair.⁠[7]

Mott retired from the Cavendish chair at Cambridge in 1971.⁠[4]

Mott received the Royal Society’s Copley Medal in 1972 and the Faraday Medal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1973.⁠[3][2]

Mott shared the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physics in equal thirds with Philip Warren Anderson and John Hasbrouck Van Vleck “for their fundamental theoretical investigations of the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems.” At the time of the award he was affiliated with the University of Cambridge.⁠[8][9]

On December 8, 1977, Mott delivered his Nobel Lecture, “Electrons in Glass.”⁠[10]

At the time of the award Mott had been living in the village of Aspley Guise for about ten years.⁠[1]

In 1995 Mott was made a Companion of Honour.⁠[3][2]

Mott died in Milton Keynes, England, on August 8, 1996.⁠[9][4]

Mott’s research covered atomic collisions, metals and alloys, semiconductors and insulators, and the latent image in photographic emulsions; in his final years he worked on high-temperature superconductivity.⁠[2]

He also played a leading part in the reform of science education in the United Kingdom.⁠[1]

Mott’s books include The Theory of Atomic Collisions (1933, with H. S. W. Massey), The Theory of Metals and Alloys (first edition 1936, with Harry Jones), Electronic Processes in Ionic Crystals (with R. W. Gurney), Electronic Processes in Non-Crystalline Materials (1971, with E. A. Davis), Metal-Insulator Transitions (1974), Conduction in Non-Crystalline Materials (1986) and his autobiography A life in science (1986); he also edited Can scientists believe? (1991).⁠[2][5][1]

Mott received the Hughes Medal and held more than twenty honorary degrees; he became an Honorary Fellow of St John’s College in 1964, of Darwin College in 1977 and of Imperial College LondonImperial College LondonImperial College London is a university in London, England, United Kingdom. Formed under a royal charter in 1907, it focuses on science, technology and medicine and is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry in 1978.⁠[3][1]

He was chairman of the board and later president of the scientific publisher Taylor & Francis.⁠[1]

The University of Bristol includes Mott in its list of Nobel laureates, and its School of Physics names him among the renowned figures in its history.⁠[6][5]