Phil Williams 1939–2003

Abstract

Phil Williams – one of very few physicists to play an active role in politics – died last month at the age of 64. A leading member of the Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru, Williams was also a professor of physics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. His main scientific interests were in solar-terrestrial physics, including the origins of the Aurora Borealis, the nature of the solar wind, and the protective influence of the Earth's magnetic field. In the early 1970s he helped the UK to join EISCAT, a European radar project for studying the upper atmosphere.