Physics at the Royal Holloway College, London Prof. S. Tolansky

Abstract

DR. S. TOLANSKY, who has been appointed to the chair of physics at the Royal Holloway College, University of London, was born in 1907. He went to Armstrong College, Newcastle, where he started research in spectroscopy under Prof. W. E. Curtis. After a period in London with Prof. A. Fowler and another in Berlin with Prof. F. Paschen, he joined the Physics Department of the University of Manchester in 1934. Dr. Tolansky has become a leading expert on hyperfine structure of spectral lines. He has made a number of important contributions and has elucidated the nuclear spins for a number of elements: As, Sb, Sn, Pt and Br I. He has also studied the nuclear magnetic isotope and quadripole effects for various atoms. Recently, Dr. Tolansky has developed new and powerful methods of interfero-metry, applying them particularly to the detailed investigation of surfaces of crystals, films, etc. These methods, which combine the properties of multiple beam interferometry with those of wedge fringes, have proved a valuable means of investigating the structure of surfaces in a way that was not possible before. With it he has found it possible to measure differences of level of a few atomic diameters.